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First Half Thoughts From the Steelers Awful Performance in Baltimore Down 10-0

Pittsburgh Steelers v Baltimore Ravens

Usually when your team is on the road and only trailing by a touchdown you can come up with some positive things to say – but not today. The Steelers, coming out of the bye, look 100 percent awful, with a QB that is not ready to play, a team that can’t seem to tackle when it counts, and way too many penalties.

So with that, here’s the good news – it’s only 10-0, and the Ravens don’t exactly look like they are ready to run away with this game anytime soon.

Can the black and gold make a comeback? Doesn’t look good, but nevertheless let’s look into the forgettable first half and what to look for in the second 30 minutes.

1. Offense Offensive

The Steelers offense was, to put it nicely, terrible. They did nothing to think that even down 10 they would do enough to come back and make a game of this in the second half, but with Ben I guess you just every can tell. Overall the offense put up 62 yards, to 232 for the Ravens. That’s a whopping 2.8 yards per play, which by the way sucks. Ben Roethlisberger isn’t close to 100 percent, and on the day has thrown one completion to a wide out and has 50 yards total passing. The Steelers have 16 yards rushing on 10 carries, and their long rush of the day is four yards. This is worse than a preseason game.

2. Tackling

It makes me want to throw up to see how many missed tackles this team has had this season, and the 95-yard pass play to Mike Wallace was a prime example, as he ran past Artie Burns and then mouthy Mike Mitchell failed to make the tackle (something we’ve seen way too often), on his way to racing the distance. While you can blame those two, there’s been plenty of others that share the blame, with the Ravens run game doing enough, going for 31 yards, which is not good, but better than the 16 yards the Steelers run game has put up. At this point of the season (or any point for that matter) there’s no excuse for missed tackles.

3. Who is to Blame?

The gameplan thus far has been awful, the play of the defense has been okay, but the offense has been putrid. A team chock full of talent with Pro Bowl players and playmakers all over the place shouldn’t have these types of games, and even if one player isn’t having a big day, another should be able to step up. Today that’s not been the case, as Antonio Brown has been held to one catch, and Le’Veon Bell and the run game can’t get going. This team is 30 minutes away from going from 4-1 to 4-4, and with 7-1 Dallas coming to town, it might be worse before it gets better.

Matt Loede has been in the sports media for over 16 years, with experience covering the MLB, NBA, and NFL. On Sunday’s during football season, you can hear Matt on national networks like Fox Sports Radio, Associated Press, and others. Born and raised in Cleveland Ohio, Matt studies and talks football inside and out, and is anxious to share his thoughts and comments with readers on a daily basis.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Monte do el

    November 6, 2016 at 5:58 pm

    Why can’t we do what the Patriots do offensively & defensively? We have the talent! Our coordinators don’t make adjustments. We can’t continue to play like this and expect to win.

  2. Keith Clark

    November 6, 2016 at 6:04 pm

    Time for a changing of the guards, Todd Haley has to go. We play down every week to subpar teams, playing calling was so elementary Stevie Wonder could have figured it out.

  3. Jay

    November 6, 2016 at 6:46 pm

    Whose fault are the one hundred plus yards of penalties COMING OFF A BYE?!?! If you say the head coach doesn’t jump off sides or hold, then why are ALL these different players who this HC and GM hand selected committing all these penalties? I opine that the GM can’t be wrong on THAT many which consequently means the HC is not developing or, here’s a word we don’t use often enough when holding coaching staffs accountable, TEACH! This HC is a miserable TEACHER. My point is this: there’s really no plausible way that, after watching NCAA film and interviews and combine results, that the GM could have whiffed on soooo many players in the high rounds. It is MORE PLAUSIBLE to assume that they are not being developed properly, being put in proper positions to better both exploit their talents, the team philosophy and hide their weaknesses, prepared mentally, situationally and schematically to perform their jobs. This falls on the HC and his staff, period, end of story! If it were one or two players, by all means, point to the GM for failing on those assessments. But this epically across the board, week in and week out is no one else except Tomlin,Haley, butler, etc. you’re coming off a bye and this is how you perform with all these unforced errors?!? Shooting yourself in the foot making it easier on a team that is CLEARLY less talented than you over the course of the past few years YET CLEARLY owns you over that same time span?! How is that the GM? And they are clearly more talented than Baltimore because these same players drop 30 plus on teams. Baltimore doesn’t do that? Baltimore doesn’t have a back like bell, a receiver like brown or even an offensive line like we have (BY THE WAY, hey, Marcus Gilbert, why bother blocking well for ben for three and a half quarters if you’re just going to SUCK when it matters in the fourth quarter? You did it last year against Denver in the playoffs and then again today when you allowed a no name raven judon get a sack on third down!). They certainly don’t have as many high round draft picks on defense as we have and they don’t have ben! Yet we allow them to walk all over us. If you got the better players and they continually lay eggs en mass during the same situations over and over agan (playing suck football against suck teams, losing to Baltimore regularly, etc), then that’s no longer a player thing, that’s coaching. If it were the players messing up that regularly (19-22 against sub 500 teams, 0-5 against Baltimore in their last five), then they wouldn’t be in the NFL to begin with! I just wish there was less tolerance from fellow Steelers fans! You really can’t call yourself a fan if you stand for this nonsense and now I feel the Rooneys are just as much to blame because they have been allowing it to happen for the past five years! Enough is enough, Dan, stand up and take your team back!

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