Just gross.
That’s one way to describe Sunday night’s disgusting effort in the opener for the Steelers in a 30-point loss on the road to the Super Bowl Champion Patriots that just never seems to have a problem in New England dominating the black and gold.
This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen this when the Steelers go to New England, and it’s also not the first time the Steelers have been beat up badly on opening day (remember the loss to the Ravens in the 2011 opener).
There’s plenty to be concerned about after this game, and today we take a few moments to talk about it and look ahead to hopefully a much better week two.
1. The Offense Was Putrid
With all the promise this preseason about the offense being just fine minus Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown, the offense looked like it might have a problem averaging 10 points a game.
There was blame to go around – from Ben not being sharp, to everyone dropping passes, to the O-line not playing well in both pass protection and trying to open holes for the run game.
Probably out of all the things mentioned the dropped passes was the most alarming. Add to that there’s still plenty of questions about who is going to step up as the number two behind JuJu, and this week ought to be very interesting as they get set for the Seahawks.
2. A Vanilla Defense
The D did a good job early holding the Pats run game in check, but just like every time the Steelers play in Foxboro, Tom Brady did whatever he wanted.
He did have some pressure on his early, but there wasn’t any real long term success in stopping him, as the future HOF QB went 24-for-36 for 341 yards and three scores.
The Steelers did record a sack, but it came so late it meant basically nothing.
The D has to get more pressure on the QB if they are going to be successful, and also the secondary looked lost and missed a number of what could have been easy tackles.
3. Throw it in the Trash
This game film needs to be watched once, and then thrown away. The Steelers as a team have had bad openers in the past, but usually do a nice job bouncing back.
Oddly enough back in 2011 when they lost in the opener at Baltimore 35-7, they came back the next week, at home against the Seattle Seahawks and pitched a 24-0 shutout.
Not saying that will be the same result Sunday at Heinz Field, but before you write the team off and jump ship, consider that it is just one game, and there’s an awful lot of talent on this team that is too proud to simply give up after just 60 minutes of football.
Look for a 100 percent better effort at home Sunday.
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Robert
September 9, 2019 at 10:02 am
The Tomlin experiment has been a failure for many years now! This team looks like a train wreck, and it is time for Tomlin to be replaced!
randy wolbert
September 9, 2019 at 1:45 pm
I don’t really think they will shut out or even beat the seahawks this sunday, I would bet money on it.
Dave B.
September 9, 2019 at 8:17 pm
In a word , unacceptable . As a team and an organization you had literally months to prepare for this one game since the schedule was released months ago . You failed miserably in every possible way . Coaching , on offense , on defense and special teams . Do you fire Tomlin after this debacle ? No . However , at the very least Art Rooney needs to have a closed door meeting with Tomlin and GM Colbert and tell them , hey guys , we’re not going down this road again . As of this moment you are on notice . Turn it around and do it right now or the next time we meet changes will be made . The Steelers werent prepared to play this game . That falls soley on Tomlin and his staff . At the end of the day , The Patriots arent that good and the Steelers arent that bad , but Sunday night it sure looked that way .
Rocky Falleti
September 12, 2019 at 9:39 am
It was because of poor game planning again by all the coaches. On offense we kept trying to run from a tight formation against a 9 man defensive front and never checked off. Was anyone watching that? Downfield passing was there for our taking so what did we do? Threw 1-3 yard passes. Ben has happy feet was happy to get the ball out too fast and never looked downfield. When he did we completed passes or they were dropped. Moncrief has a history of dropping passes when he is healthy has a broken finger and drops 6 passes and a TD, play Washington instead. Switzer who I love catches passes but has no yards after the catch, play more Johnson and see what he does. Poor player choices. Defense no pressure at all from the D line, they were manhandled.