Steelers Weeks 7 and 8 Reactions

 Back a little late for week 7 but I missed that one and I should say things I guess. Honestly lumping these 2 games together kind of makes sense, they lost in similar ways both times, though the Bengals one is especially disappointing considering they're now coming off a loss to the Jets of all teams. Plenty to complain about, also some stuff to remain encouraged by! Back to back losses but still sitting a game and a half up on the division lead with more than half the season to play, I'll take it. Anyway, lets get into it. 

Highest Paid Defense in the NFL

I wanted to give them a slight pass for the annoying Thursday night loss to the Bengals in week 7. It was a division opponent on the road on a short week with veteran and Steelers killer Joe Flacco running the show now in Cincinnati. The entire game the broadcast was absolutely loving Joe Flacco's performance, but I don't even think he was doing anything overly complicated. The Bengals just had their star receivers run short little slant routes and Flacco was able to hit them over and over again. Jamar Chase is one of if not the best receivers in the game and their strategy was to get him the ball and see what happens, not a bad idea. To Flacco's credit, he was making the right read every time on that play, but not like it was some complex scheme he had to think through. The discouraging thing here is that the Steelers had no answers for this. With a pass rush as strong as the Steelers', it's not a good sign if they can't just take away the short pass against an immobile QB who barely knows his team's playbook yet. Obviously that's the only thing they had going for them and the Steelers still weren't able to do anything about it. Again though, division game, short week, Flacco knows the Steelers, throw it away and move to the next one. 

The Packers loss is going to have a lot of Steelers fans out for blood with this defense. On the surface it looks really bad, giving up 35 points at home including 28 in just the second half after leading by 9 at halftime. I don't think it was as awful as the numbers say though, moreso just frustrating. One play that perfectly encapsulates what I mean was in the 3rd quarter I believe the Steelers had the Packers in a 3rd and long situation. They brought the blitz and got to Love who had to get rid of it in a hurry as he was hit. Love threw the ball 100 feet in the air, Steelers defensive backs just basically looked at the ball and watched it land in a tight end's hand for a 30+ yard gain rather than getting off the field. This was one of 2 plays exactly like that where 9/10 it's a sack or incompletion or even interception but this was just a game where the Packers were getting that 1/10. Not to mention the Steelers put themselves in some dicey situations repeatedly by taking stupid penalties on both sides of the ball. Add all of that up with the fact that the defense didn't create a turnover in either of these games, and it's pretty clear to see why they lost. 

I think we can now judge this defense on what we've seen 7 games into the season. Similar to past years, if they aren't forcing turnovers, they are beatable. Time after time runnings backs come into Pittsburgh and have career games. Receivers have free reign up the middle of the field and despite a good pass rush, if you can get the ball out quick you'll have a field day against this team. Luckily for the Steelers, they are still pretty good at forcing turnovers. The problem with playing a strategy of mistake free football on offense and mistake forcing football on defense is when you don't force mistakes, or when you make one, it ends up looking silly. 

Rodgers is Fun to Watch

One nice thing we can take from both of these games is that Aaron Rodgers still has it. Not that I'm an expert in this or anything, but I've appreciated having a veteran play caller's mind at the line of scrimmage before plays. You constantly see Rodgers sending guys in motion, changing the play up or improvising based on what he sees in the defense. Yesterday he had a pretty vintage performance hitting 9 different receivers before halftime while being the only thing that worked for the Steelers offense all game. He opened the game on his first drive by sending a moonball 30 yards on third and 3 to get the first down and get the Steelers on the board early with a FG. More than just his play, I love Rodgers attitude and antics throughout a game. In this last one literally anytime he threw an incompletion you could see him screaming at himself, or his receiver, or his offensive line. Rodgers is a vet and surely this will wear thin eventually, but it's hilarious and fun to watch as a fan. Of course there's also the play against the Bengals that was talked about all week after. Rodgers just completed a long, much needed TD pass to Pat Freiermuth to take the lead, as he was fist pumping in celebration his own offensive lineman tackles him out of excitement. Rodgers pops up and proceeds to screem at Broderick in frustration. After the game Rodgers essentially said he gets it but don't be tackling me, I'm old. Hilarious stuff, BroJo is almost like one of those dogs who thinks they're a lap dog but they grew to 200lbs, cute af. 

Beating Themselves

A lot of people are going to come after the defense, and there's room for improvement there, but both of these games are winnable with better execution. In the Bengals game Rodgers threw 2 interceptions. One of them was on a crazy circus catch by the DB and one of them was just a straight up error. The Steelers play conservative football and need to win the turnover battle to win games. In this one they were -2 in the turnover battle and still managed to have the lead late before coughing it up to Joe Flacco's game winning FG drive. In the Packers game, by the second half the Steelers were committing tremendously stupid penalties to set the Packers up in great spots. I believe the Steelers took 2 maybe 3 personal foul unnecessary roughness penalties which are massive 15 yard blows. On offense the Steelers on I believe 4 separate occasions would get a momentum building play, then on second down they'd take a big penalty or give up a sack to set up 3rd and long killing anything they had going for them. Like I said earlier, pair that with not forcing any turnovers and it's a recipe for disaster for this squad. Rodgers has been awesome in the last 2 weeks, and it hasn't mattered because of mental mistakes. 

They'll Be OK

A lot of the sky is falling people in my online communities right now. A couple of tough losses where the defense didn't look too hot and the offense wasn't enough to bail it out. Tough game coming up as well facing the 7-1 Colts next week. I still think the Steelers can beat them, or any team in the NFL. Yes they have been getting beat with the short pass and running games, but they haven't had a big play in the last 2 weeks. Before that you could rely on this defense to force a turnover at least once per game and that would've been enough to swing either of these games. I have faith that they'll get back to doing just that and it'll help them take down some of these teams they're expected to lose against. Afterall, the offense and Rodgers have played well enough to earn them wins if the defense could just do something. Tough couple of losses but still in first place! This team isn't perfect that's what makes it fun to watch. 

Anyway, little bit of a reprieve from thinking about the Jays which I will promptly go back to now. Go Jays!