Home Quick Hitters SCB Steelers’ Quick Hitters: The “Backs Against the Wall” Edition

SCB Steelers’ Quick Hitters: The “Backs Against the Wall” Edition

by Steeldad
Heyward

Good day to you Steeler Nation.

We awake this December morning to find our Steelers in first place. It is however about as uncomfortable a perch as there could be. With the horrible loss to Oakland combined with the Ravens’ loss to the Chiefs, Pittsburgh retains their half-game lead. That’s where the good news ends. The Steelers still have division leaders New England and New Orleans plus a still feisty Cincinnati remaining. Baltimore gets Tampa Bay and Cleveland at home with a trip to the Chargers in between. That’s clearly “Advantage Ravens.” Here were my thoughts by the way after the game last night.

The $64,000 question this morning is just why in the hell did Mike Tomlin keep his hall of fame QB on the sidelines for so long yesterday?

Why can this defense not figure out how to cover tight ends? It’s almost laughable. It’s like you could take any guy off the street, call him a tight end and he’d kill the Steelers.

Jaylen Samuels is a terrific threat as a receiver. As a running back however he needs work. Has to hit holes and stop bouncing outside so much. That doesn’t work at this level.

My concerns about Josh Dobbs are still there. He doesn’t throw receivers open. Rather, he throws when they were open. There’s a huge difference.

There just aren’t any words for how great JuJu Smith-Schuster has become. Another tremendous day for him.

Kudos to James Washington. That was not easy to be the target guy on the flea-flicker that set up what turned out to be a game losing kick.

Tweet of the Day… This should be taken as very concerning (sans the poor spelling).

Too many veteran’s days off? Not enough focus during the week? Sean Davis brings up some things to consider.

Randy Fichtner’s fourth and short play call was terrible. Why not just get Dobbs on the edge and give him the option to run?

Chris Boswell is clearly a mess right now. It has to be affecting him mentally at this point too. Yes he slipped on the final play but that’s no excuse. He’s just not good right now.

That had to be one hell of a long flight back to Pittsburgh last night.

I love Ramon Foster. Always have and always will. However, if the thinks he’s getting a new contract at 33 years old from the Steelers I think he’s over-valuing himself. He did not have a great game yesterday at all. I could probably say the same of the entire offensive line though.

T.J. Watt is becoming a really good player against the run. Setting the edge in the NFL is not easy and being able to close down isn’t easy either. That said, he has to get to the quarterback more often. The Steelers cannot continue to rely on Cam Heyward or Vince Williams blitzing from the inside to pressure the QB.

If you’re one of those asking if Chris Boswell has let the money go to his head I don’t blame you. It’s a fair question to ask. If we can ask these same questions of defensive linemen or quarterbacks or receivers we can certainly ask them here.

There’s no way Mike Hilton can get beat like he did on the Raiders’ game-winning drive. He was literally spun into the ground by a 6’6″ tight end. But that was the Steelers’ D all day quite honestly. The broken record of this team not being able to cover a tight end makes me physically ill.

I hope you all realize that the Steelers only route to the playoffs is thru a division title. The Chargers or Chiefs will be the first wild-card. After that, head to head and conference records will come into play. They haven’t played Indy, Tennessee or Miami. All three currently have better conference records than the Steelers.

On to New England. Ugh.

QH is presented by

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2 comments

Kenneth Brown December 10, 2018 - 9:55 am

I agree with everything mentioned here. After seeing the game yesterday; and I will support my Steelers to the very end; I believe this season is over, and the League probably does too. They’re not playing Steelers football, with the conviction that once was, they’re playing with ‘question marks ‘. Changes need to be made in some way! Not saying anybody needs to go (with the exception of Chris Boswell), but something has to be done. For some reason(s), they cannot ‘finish’ games against what appears to be, “anybody”

bob graff December 11, 2018 - 6:06 am

I’m going to say it, Tomlin and Butler need to go. This game could have been worse considering the Steelers caught a break on that empty hand no call. We don’t cover TE’s, we match up LB’ers on WRs, we start a RB who obviously isn’t NFL ready, and keep a very raw back up QB in while our star QB sits and watches. A coaching change is needed as well at a good long look at how we are evaluating players coming out of college and on the roster. We have some talent but as i have said in the past it is being mis-used. Good coaches get the most out of what they have. Poor coaches have under performing teams that play down to their competition. Sound like something we have been watching for a few years now.

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