Hey Steelers Fans. Welcome to Friday.
The Kickoff
We all saw it coming didn’t we? I mean, I appreciate the fight to comeback and take the lead late, but ultimately, the Pittsburgh Steelers fell 24-19 in snowy Cleveland. It was a lot to ask, coming off such an emotional and physical game against Baltimore and then having to travel on the short week, but there were a lot of chances to win this game. In the end, it was a total team loss. From players to coaches, there is enough blame to be spread around.
Arthur Smith
Using Cordarrelle Patterson as your main target on a fade on your two-point play was uninspiring. Mike Williams or George Pickens or even Darnell Washington weren’t better choices? Having Justin Fields throw the ball deep on third and four when your trying to burn clock and force the opponent to use their timeouts? That was just dumb. Smith fell prey to the classic ‘overthinking it’ principle. Sometimes you just keep doing what you’re doing regardless of whether it looks ‘sexy’ or not. Bad night for Smith.
Mike Tomlin
If it was a bad night for Smith, it was a worse night for Mike Tomlin. Clock management issues in both halves… He let nearly 40 seconds come off the clock before halftime because he wanted to save his final timeout. Timeouts mean nothing if you don’t have time to use them and Tomlin didn’t. His final TO of the half remained on the board. Then, ahead by one with only two TOs remaining, he should have allowed the Browns to score. This would have both saved time for a final drive and would have saved him a TO. Instead he again only had one left with under a minute to play. You’ll notice I haven’t even gotten to the fourth down calls or his decision to use Justin Fields so much.
The O-Line
I really thought that after last week, the offensive line was starting to have it’s “finally coming together” moment. Last night proved me wrong. Yes, there were some positive moments where the running game showed some flashes but when the rubber had to meet the road? They failed. They were 1/3 on fourth down and 7/16 on third down and in just about every short yardage situation they failed. Cleveland’s defensive line is good but it’s not like they were the ’85 Bears. Really disappointing to me.
The QB Carousel
You already know my feeling about using Justin Fields to throw a deep ball on third and four late in the game so let me address the situation on a macro level. For the record, I’m “OK” with inserting Fields at certain times. Short yardage or goal line is fine once in a while but as often as Fields was deployed last night is concerning. All it’s going to do is create “QB Controversy” narratives.
Oh Russ…
When you look at his stats, it appears Russell Wilson had a pretty good night. 21/28 270 yards and a TD. If you watched the game, you know that stats don’t always tell the whole story. Wilson was sacked four times and arguments could be made that all four were on him. He also was stripped of the ball too. This is the version of Wilson we were all afraid we were getting. Teams are not naive. They know if they can force him to hang onto the ball then good things will happen and last night they did. For a 35 year-old Super Bowl winning QB, he has a horrible internal clock. I would suggest he must improve on it but at this point in his career? It ain’t happening.
And Lastly
George Pickens has the maturity of a 6-year old. There’s denying his talent, that speaks for itself, but why is it every time things aren’t going his way, he turns into a giant asshole? Should he have gotten a few DPI calls last night? Probably. But you know what? He didn’t and he needs to keep playing rather than running his mouth. And to top it all off, in his post game comments he blamed the weather and said the Browns weren’t a good team. Way to go George! The team that just beat you – in the same conditions that you had to play in – visits in two weeks.
Random Reads
Has anyone seen T.J. Watt or Minkah Fitzpatrick? Aren’t your highest paid players supposed to show up week in and week out… Myles Garrett was ‘miles’ better than Watt last night. You can spin it any way you’d like but his impact on the game was way more than Watt’s was… Connor Heyward needs a seat on the bench while we are on offense. Multiple penalties and ineffective blocking. Ben Skowronek would have been a much better option… OK, time to settle down and breathe. The Steelers are 8-3 and still very much in control of their own fate. There’s work to be done however.
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