The Good, the Bad & the Ugly - My non-overreactionary observations

[JawnyBlaze]

The Good

 

-KB.  Had a couple drops, one that woulda been a much needed TD, but he had enough big plays to make up for it.

-Short.  Still looks like a beast.

-Cam. We would have needed a hybrid of Barry Sanders, Jerome Bettis and in-his-prime Peyton Manning to do more than Cam was able to last night with what he had.

-Philly Brown in the passing game.  Caught some balls, moved the chains a few times.  Looked comfortable in the passing game.

-Stewart.  Before the injury he was running hard and getting the yards after contact, when given the opportunity.

-DA.  Nice TD pass, was the first one this season from him where I felt the pass was as good as the catch.  Did what was asked of him for the most part.

-Olsen.  Good ol' Mr. Steady.  Ironically, the man who has the MOST excuse for being distracted was by far the most focused person on the team.

 

The Bad

 

-The DL.  Very little push, occasional pressure (but often that bit us in the ass as Bell just ran by the pressure) and they were absolutely humiliated against the run - supposedly the strength of this team.

-The OL.  Embarrassing.  Every individual player had a bad game.  Even Kalil was effing up on the regular.  Silatolu looked like a game 1 rookie.  Turner got manhandled numerous time.  Chandler looked like an UDFA DL turned OL.  Bell was getting beat, abused and committing numerous penalties at costly moments of the game.

-Philly Brown on STs.  Nuff said.

-Secondary.  Torched by a "good" QB and an electric midget WR.  We basically faced Delhomme+Smitty and they embarrassed us.

-LBs.  Even Kuechly had a terrible game (by Kuechly standards).  Out of position a number of times.  The only other player, other than Short, on the defense that I wouldn't say had a bad game was TD.

-The gameplan.  Offensive playcalling was terrible in the first half.  There was no need to abandon the run and no need for all the slow developing passing plays.  The previous two weeks we utilized much more of a quick passing game and it worked.  Why did we forget how that worked?  The second half was a little better, good by Shula standards, but still not good enough.  I can't say with certainty whether the defensive gameplan was lacking or if it was the execution.  Considering an offense who hadn't scored a TD in over two games' worth of quarters put up 30 points on us I'd say it's safe to assume it was both.

 

The Ugly

 

-The game.  From 15:00 in the first to 00:00 in the fourth was ugly.

-The beating Cam took.  At this rate I'll be surprised if he lasts the next game, much less the rest of the season.

-The injuries.  RBs still dropping like flies, but the most concerning one was obviously TD.  Anyone know anything about that yet?  The way it happened is obviously very concerning.  The only glimmer of hope is that he wasn't exactly running when it happened, he was slowing down from a jog, so maybe it wasn't severe.

 

What to take from it

 

-Season's not over.  It was one bad game.  A really bad one.  I haven't seen this team this unfocused, unprepared and completely out-motivated in a while.  Best case scenario, this game serves as a wake the fug up call and they get their heads back in the game and go back to the focused, disciplined team that won 13 of the previous 14 regular season games.  Including the playoff game, the two games since week 5 of last year that we lost were nowhere nearly as embarrassing as this.  We lost to a good Saints team in NO where it's hard for any team to win, and we lost a playoff game that the officiating crew refused to let us have a chance in.  In neither case did the team itself really disappoint me.  After this game, I felt like a father who learned his son failed out of college.  Initially utter despair and disappointment, followed by looking at the whole picture and hoping the ship can get righted.

[Carl Spackler]

Good: Cam, Olsen, KB, DA, Short

Bad: Most everyone else

Ugly: OL, DL when backing up the Steelers, Shula

Worse Than Ugly: pre-snap energy, Think About It's posts, other assorted panic threads

[top dawg]

Antonio Brown is arguably a top 5 WR in the NFL, and Ben is light years away from Delhomme.  Come on, man.

[JawnyBlaze]

Antonio Brown is arguably a top 5 WR in the NFL, and Ben is light years away from Delhomme.  Come on, man.

 

I gave Brown his props, you don't get much higher praise from me than a comparison to Smitty in the Delhomme era.  Ben is not light years from Delhomme.  Ben is Delhomme that's a little harder to tackle.

 

[Growl]

I wanted to give some reasonable commentary but I cant bring myself past the point of being so mad at how utterly and completely terrible the offensive line is to say anything else other than the offensive line is atrocious and every man on that line should be ashamed of himself as a human being and as a man fr being so utterly and completely dominated as they were last night

[top dawg]

The whole damned game was ugly, and I don't think that's an overreaction. 

[Growl]

I also dont agree that the DL was that bad last night.

The LBs were terrible last night.

[BigBoss]

Ben is a lot better than Jake was.

[Nicbsbll2]

Ugly- 50% of the stadium being Steeler fans. Our PSL holders that sold their tickets should all be ashamed of themselves. 

[Navy_football]

Glad someone said it. Kuechly didn't look good last night. Bell set him up all night. He lost the battle with Bell physically and mentally. 

 

Cam looked and played injured. He had numerous opportunities to run the ball, but either didn't (super committed to being a pocket passer) or couldn't (because of injuries). 

 

Our Bell had too many penalties at the wrong times. OL in general wasn't anyway near physical enough. Really could use a physical blocking TE (Brandon Williams) now.

 

WIth all that, take away Horton's offside on the field goal that led to a TD and Philly's fumble for a TD and that's an 11 to 14 point swing. We're in the game at the end and could possibly make a play to win/tie the game. 

[ludwig]

Ugly- 50% of the stadium being Steeler fans. Our PSL holders that sold their tickets should all be ashamed of themselves.

that pissed me off , no loyalty

[General_Purr]

This kinda makes me worried about dealing with Atlanta now.. they will be bringing similar blitzes and edging our tackles. Actually we have an ass load of teams better than Steelers coming up. 

[CarolinaSock]

How can TD have a good game when he barely did anything? He was a ghost last night. At least Kuechly was making tackles while fighting off blocks all night. The Dline was awful. They got pushed around all night letting blockers hit the second level with almost no resistance.

[greghardy'sAK-47]

the good : kb ; cam playing well banged up with no o-line and rookie receivers

 

the bad : this team misses hardy a lot more than anybody wants to admit ; injuries

 

the ugly : calling that o-line a line should get anyone a blank stare.  if there is a worse group, then i haven't seen them.  granted i haven't seen the jags much.