Steelers Nation Week Four Newsletter 9/27/05

Steelers Nation Week Four Newsletter

It appears that the road to the Super Bowl still goes through New England after watching our boys lose 23-20 on Sunday. Going into the season I circled four games in my mind in which I thought were key games to how our season would unfold. This past Sunday’s contest, 10/10 @ San Diego on MNF, 11/20 @ Baltimore, and 11/28 @ Indy on MNF. Losing the game against the Patriots does not mean the end of the world. It simply means we are not as good as we may have believed, plus it was a good barometer with which to measure ourselves. Did you really expect 16-0 or 15-1? Be a realist, I was thinking 10-6 or 11-5 going into the season, maybe stretch it to 12-4 if the right things fall into place. You have to be impressed with the way Brady and the Pats played at Heinz Field. He simply has our number, but do you really think that a team in “today’s NFL” will win three consecutive championships with the parity around the league? “On any given Sunday…” Then you have to add to the equation the turnover in personnel and the injury losses that are starting to mount for the Beantown crowd. They may be the number one team in the NFL power rankings at the end of September, but lets wait and see who is there come the end of January.

269 Yards of Total Offense!

Yes, that is correct. We only had 269 yards of total offense on Sunday. Big Ben looked out of sync and confused for much of the day going 12/28 for 216 yards and two scores. Both were to Hines Ward with an 85 yard scoring strike in the first quarter being the biggest highlight of the day. Fast Willie Parker ran against seven and eight man fronts all afternoon and finished with 17 carries for 55 yards. Does anyone know if Randle El has stopped running in practice for being a bonehead on Sunday? Yes, he was just trying to make a play, but it was a stupid play at that juncture of the game. We should have had the ball first and goal at the ten yard line. Blame it on poor communication, blame it on Hines not being ready for the ball, it does not matter. It was stupid! While we are talking about boneheaded plays, how about taking three points off the board for a false start late in the second quarter? Jeff Reed had just converted from 48 yards, but we took points off the scoreboard and had to kick again from 53 yards due to the false start. No one at Heinz Field has ever made a field goal from over 50 yards yet. Needless to say, Reed missed the kick. This was not Reed’s fault. He finished 2/3 with two extra points. He had a solid day. Missed opportunities… This is what I do not understand about the game. We could not run the ball against their defense. Why would we not go four wide from a shotgun formation with a single back? We could still attempt to run the ball out of this formation to keep the LB’s honest. We instead kept coming out with trips in tight and Ben under Center. I am not a big fan of this. I would prefer to spread the field. If their secondary was all banged up, why did we at least not try to go vertically down the field? We instead kept throwing these short outs and trying to bring someone underneath. Ben did not have the time to make plays because they were blitzing, but why did we not go hurry up from a shotgun formation? This would have given him more time. I was not a big fan of the play calling, but I was sitting on a couch drinking Rolling Rocks instead of calling in plays from the coach’s box. I am available if Ken Whisenhunt needs some help. No game balls were given out this week due to the loss.

Defense on the Field for Way Too Long…

The Patriots held the ball for 35:23 minutes on Sunday. They rolled up 426 yards of total offense. Their third down conversions were 8/16. Part of this blame goes to our offense because we did not give the defense any long time consuming drives, but most of this lands squarely on the shoulders of the defense. Brady was 31/41 for 372 yards with no TD’s and one pick. We did hold Dillon in check with 22 carries for 61 yards, but Brady created enough damage on his own. I was curious how our secondary would perform against real competition, but they did not answer the bell (Keep in mind that we still have to face Drew Brees, Carson Palmer twice, Brett Farve, Peyton Manning, & Daunte Culpepper later this season!). Troy continued to play his new rover role along the line of scrimmage, but this did nothing to confuse Brady. I have two questions for Dick LeBeau. Why would we continue to allow Troy to do this when Brady was just picking us apart and taking what we were allowing their receivers to have in front of our coverage? He is our best defensive back. Get him off of the line and back into the secondary. Question two. We attempted to put pressure on Brady by blitzing LB’s and DB’s on the outside edge which had little effect. Why didn’t we stop this, allow the DB’s to stay in coverage, and instead put pressure on Brady from the inside through DL and LB stunts and blitzes? I would much rather make him move outside the pocket instead of just stepping up in the pocket to make plays. Were we too proud or too stupid to change our game plan? Clark Haggans had a monster day recording seven solo tackles, three assists, a sack, and two forced fumbles. No game balls were handed out due to the loss.

AFC North

Da Bungles may be the real deal. They rolled the Bears in Chicago 24-7 to improve to 3-0 on the season. Palmer finished the day 16/23 for 169 yards and three TD’s. Going into this game I really expected for the Bears to beat them. Sunday morning I saw the forecast where they were calling for bad rain storms and I thought there would be no way da Bungles would get a win. I was dead wrong. Da Bungles are in first place by themselves and play the hapless Texans at 1:00. We are 2-1 with a bye, the Brownies are 1-2 with a bye, and the offensive juggernaut Ravens are 0-2 with a 4:05 game against the Chad Penningten-less Jets. Look for the Ravens to somehow get off the schneid this weekend and get into the win column.

Question of the week???

I was delayed in getting last week’s edition out so there was no response from last week’s question. I will keep the same question and allow everyone an extra week to respond. I will ask the question a second time and publish what my response is to give you an idea of what I was looking for. This weeks question will be:

“Do you own a terrible towel, and if so, are there any interesting stories behind the towel?”

“My terrible towel was purchased sometime during the week prior to the Chargers/Steelers AFC Championship game in January of 1995. I normally do not carry the towel or do anything special with it on game days or for big games. I have not had much luck with it in big game situations. I actually had it with me this past Sunday when we lost to the Patriots. I am a bit superstitious so it may be a while before I bring it out again. I simply have not experienced much luck with “my” towel. I wish I owned one that had a bit better luck.” JD Hetrick of Baltimore, MD

I hope that gives you an idea of what I am looking for. Please send all replies to me by 5:00PM on 10/4 for next week’s edition.

Pics of The week.

“Miller-Training Camp 2005” was taken by me when Brian and I were at training camp this summer in Latrobe. This is first round draft pick Heath Miller from the University of Virginia. The next three pics are all from the same day of training camp as well.

“The Bus-Training Camp 2005”

“Tommy-Training Camp 2005”

“Troy-Training Camp 2005” is of Troy and his entourage. I believe this to be his girlfriend and two of his friends.

We have a bye week to lick our wounds and get healthy for the stretch run. It would have been nice for the bye to come along about week eight, nine, or ten, but we have no control in it. Thank you for the encouragement and ideas. Please continue to send your feedback and ideas my way.