I'll say it, Arians still sucks!

[SteelCrazy]

The play calling today was horrible. He has no idea how to adjust the offense to their strengths in regards to the defense's weaknesses. The second half looked eerily similar to the first half, accept when Ben was calling the plays. If the original game plan doesn't work, have no fear of abandonment because he wont change it.

[SteelCrazy]

Amen!

• The Steelers used their no-huddle offense for one series — an eight-play, 91-yard touchdown drive that took all of 75 seconds at the end of the first half. Why abandon it? The no-huddle can't be used exclusively, but as receiver Mike Wallace said: "When Ben (Roethlisberger) is calling his own plays, he's great out there. He looks at the defense and picks them apart. That's one of the things that separates him and makes him great." Roethlisberger made the call on the 40-yard touchdown pass to Wallace. It was the same call, Wallace said, as his 22-yard catch two plays earlier.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 49853.html (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/steelers/s_649853.html)

[California-Steel]

Not only did I find it strange that they did not attack a weakened Vikes secondary but so did the announcers of the game. Sometimes they seem to make it harder than what it has to be. Why? I don't know but maybe someone does.

[stlrz d]

Amen!

• The Steelers used their no-huddle offense for one series — an eight-play, 91-yard touchdown drive that took all of 75 seconds at the end of the first half. Why abandon it? The no-huddle can't be used exclusively, but as receiver Mike Wallace said: "When Ben (Roethlisberger) is calling his own plays, he's great out there. He looks at the defense and picks them apart. That's one of the things that separates him and makes him great." Roethlisberger made the call on the 40-yard touchdown pass to Wallace. It was the same call, Wallace said, as his 22-yard catch two plays earlier.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 49853.html (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/steelers/s_649853.html)

I was calling for it in my conversation with myself in my "this game is frustrating" thread.

Also from that article:


• Beautiful end-zone somersault from Wallace, wasn't it? It looked like he took off from the 3. "Everybody gave me grief when I scored in Detroit," Wallace said. "They told me I didn't do a good enough celebration, so I gave 'em a little flip." LaMarr Woodley had some celebration ideas at the end of his 77-yard fumble return, too. "I thought about doing a dance," Woodley said, "and my body wouldn't let me."

Mean Joe to Rod Woodson after a celebration: We don't do that here.

Woodson's response: Yes sir.

My how the times have changed....

[JTP53609]

sometimes the steelers do things that just make you scatch your head...for example.

i remember the game at denver 2 years ago on sunday night when we lost on a last second field goal. Leading into that game, the broncos were dead last in rush defense, and they were really bad, the steelers at the time were the number one rush offense....Well, we were terrible running the ball and it looked liked like the other way around....today the vikings have thier best corner out and the backup is on our "#1" receiver, well, we get very little from the passing game....how did flacco go for 387 at minnesotta last week and we struggled...

[SteelCrazy]

sometimes the steelers do things that just make you scatch your head...for example.

i remember the game at denver 2 years ago on sunday night when we lost on a last second field goal. Leading into that game, the broncos were dead last in rush defense, and they were really bad, the steelers at the time were the number one rush offense....Well, we were terrible running the ball and it looked liked like the other way around....today the vikings have thier best corner out and the backup is on our "#1" receiver, well, we get very little from the passing game....how did flacco go for 387 at minnesotta last week and we struggled...

Thats easy, the Vikings studied game film on us, did a good job performing what they practiced and Arians didn't change a thing.

[BURGH86STEEL]

The play calling today was horrible. He has no idea how to adjust the offense to their strengths in regards to the defense's weaknesses. The second half looked eerily similar to the first half, accept when Ben was calling the plays. If the original game plan doesn't work, have no fear of abandonment because he wont change it.

Do you know how often Ben changes the plays? Do you know how often Ben calls the plays? Can we really say they did not make attempts to attack the Vikes weaknesses? Maybe Ben did not get the coverage he expected or wanted?

In fairness, Ben and some other players on offense did not have their best games yesterday. A couple of player mistakes stalled drives. I know it beneath a lot of Steelers fans but we should give credit to a pretty good Vikes defensive unit.

[SteelCrazy]

The play calling today was horrible. He has no idea how to adjust the offense to their strengths in regards to the defense's weaknesses. The second half looked eerily similar to the first half, accept when Ben was calling the plays. If the original game plan doesn't work, have no fear of abandonment because he wont change it.

Do you know how often Ben changes the plays? Do you know how often Ben calls the plays? Can we really say they did not make attempts to attack the Vikes weaknesses? Maybe Ben did not get the coverage he expected or wanted?

In fairness, Ben and some other players on offense did not have their best games yesterday. A couple of player mistakes stalled drives. I know it beneath a lot of Steelers fans but we should give credit to a pretty good Vikes defensive unit.

When Ben was changing the play it was from the same formation Arians called. It really didn't change the attack except for the route and timing, but the timing really didnt change either. When Ben was calling the formation, we went 91 yards (and got six) in just over a minute.

Oh yea, the Vikings are a great team and have a great defense. They deserve a lot of credit.

[SanAntonioSteelerFan]

Not only did I find it strange that they did not attack a weakened Vikes secondary but so did the announcers of the game. Sometimes they seem to make it harder than what it has to be. Why? I don't know but maybe someone does.

I was wondering about this too. Does BA really suck that badly? Maybe the problem was that the Vikings DC compensated by not leaving the rookie corner out on a limb alone, so he wasn't a legit target.

I'm not really sure how likely that is, since the announcers (with their better view of the field) should have noticed that, AND wouldn't that have left another part of the field open as a passing target?

Maybe there was too much pressure on Ben to make downfield plays?

And I will keep the option open the original poster brought up ... the possibility that it was an incredibly poorly called game...

[SteelCrazy]

Not only did I find it strange that they did not attack a weakened Vikes secondary but so did the announcers of the game. Sometimes they seem to make it harder than what it has to be. Why? I don't know but maybe someone does.

I was wondering about this too. Does BA really suck that badly? Maybe the problem was that the Vikings DC compensated by not leaving the rookie corner out on a limb alone, so he wasn't a legit target.

I'm not really sure how likely that is, since the announcers (with their better view of the field) should have noticed that, AND wouldn't that have left another part of the field open as a passing target?

Maybe there was too much pressure on Ben to make downfield plays?


And I will keep the option open the original poster brought up ... the possibility that it was an incredibly poorly called game...

Valid points. Those may very well be the reasons for the non exciting offensive display.

On your rookie corner getting help question, well I heard the announcers say several times he had single coverage down field.

[MeetJoeGreene]

From where I sat (VERY LAST ROW)... I observed the following:

Ben missed a few open receivers (i.e. he didn't see them).

We did have a few drops on third down (granted one time Ward got smacked).

Ben had a couple of not-so-great throws... (one to Mendenhall in the flats sticks in my mind).

We squandered some scoring opportunities (Miller penalty, Mendy fumble).


All told, we could have/should have/would have put more points up/controlled more time IF we had some of those EXECUTIONS (not playcalling).

That being said, I was SCREAMING for more no huddle (from the VERY last row.. did I mention that) and think it should have been used much, much more.

[steelfin]

It seems to me that we went from our aggressive offensive style back to turtle-ball....Not sure if its play calling or the defense we were playing...but it was very frustrating to watch....

Seriously though...He used to be a coach for Cleveland....How much can we possibly expect from him.... :D

[pfelix73]

Don't tell that to the radio announcers out of Pittsburgh. Someone from California called in last night and mentioned that Arians needs to go and all the guy said was "you're a lunatic" why would you fire a SB winning OC?. But then on the flip side, he mentioned the poor play-calling in the 4th quarter.

The Calif. caller said that the local media just 'tows the company chain' and goes along with it. Never asking any of the tough questions that could be asked in PC's. That really ticked off the radio announcer for the rest of the hour...... There are a lot of folks out there that think the guy needs to go. Including me. Never cared for him. I would like to see him land a HC gig after the season. Then we'll see how good he really is. He's no Whiz, that's for sure.

:tt1

[SidSmythe]

I'm just frustrated that Arians rarely will run the ball two times in a row. Seems like 2nd & whatever, it's going to be a pass. If Mendenhall fixes this fumble problem, we have a 20+ carry/game back.

Mendenhall's making our line look pretty good

[flippy]

I think they were trying to get the ball out quickly to negate the Minny pass rush.

But the problem is we have receivers that need time to get open.

And we just didn't convert a couple of 3rd downs that would have kept drives alive and given us more chances. If we converted a couple more 3rd downs, it would have been a different ball game.

Bottom line, we just didn't have enough plays. Credit to Minny's 3rd down D.

[RKSteel]

I think that BA kept the game plan pretty vanialla cause the Steelers might be playing the Vikings again in Miami. :D

[JTP53609]

i dont think he was that bad today.....the reverses were nice that he called, nice runs, ben had some people that he missed in the middle of the field, we only had 46 plays, and it was a 20/26 run to pass ratio...just because we did not score many points on the offensive side does not mean he sucks....I love hines, but he had a big drop that resulted in us punting deeper in our end and the vikings scored on it, mendy fumbles at the 3, heath gets called for a clip...sometimes it is player execution too...

[Mister Pittsburgh]

I sat in the middle of the enclosed end of the stadium and you can really see plays develop from there. The Vikings basically had a CB up in press almost every play, and safeties cheating over to help out. The center of the field should have been open a lot but we didnt' throw many crossing patterns at all and there were quite a few plays where you had Holmes and Wallace lined up one on one with a CB and the safety was creeping up. I saw at least 2 times where Holmes beat his guy at the line of scrimmage and all it would have taken is Ben lofting one down the sideline for it to be a TD.

I have noticed that Ben is a very visual QB, where he has to see hsi WR open before he will throw it instead of doing what I said above, throw one down the sideline and trust that your WR will beat his guy one on one. He needs to actually see the WR beat the CB before he will throw it which causes his passes to be late on the deep balls.

All in all though, I will agree that it was poor playcalling for a weak and injury depleted secondary we were facing. If we had a secondary that crappy good teams with million dollar QB's would throw 95% of the time on us. WE have real issues identifying and attacking opposing defenses weaknesses.

[RuthlessBurgher]

Whenever the offense struggles it is apparently automatically Arians' fault, but I just don't see it. We ran the ball well against a very stoud run defense (Mendenhall averaged nearly 7 yards per carry). We did what we could to keep them honest with end-arounds and reverses. I think the main issue was Ben's accuracy today, not Arians' playcalling. Ben has been completing over 70% of his passes, but yesterday it was only 53.8%, and had less than half the passing yards he did last week. Even though he did not turn the ball over, there was more than one pass that should have been intercepted. While I am a huge Ben fan and not a big Arians fan, I have to lay the blame for the poor offensive performance on Ben and not Bruce here. I don't think everyone's favorite offensive scapegoat has called a bad game in over a month now.

[NWNewell]

Except for the fact that I would have liked to see a little more running plays being called, I think the play calling went pretty well.

They were dropping their LB's a little bit and their secondary even more. So they were taking way the deep balls and mid-range stuff. So you are left with the option of taking the check downs or trying to thread a touch pass between the LB's and DB's (Ward's almost catch, and two of Wallace's deep catches). I thought they did a good job of not trying to force the ball down field. Ben floated a few in there when he could and check the ball down well before the Viking's strong front 4 could get there. I'll give the Vikings credit. I think they did a good job with their game plan and to cover up the weakness in the secondary.

I don't even know if I'd lay blame at Ben's feet either. There were about 3 passes that could have been considered dropped balls, there were 4 passes batted down by the linemen, and a few poor throws by Ben. If we converted a few of those, the offense might have been able to establish a little bit more of a rhythm. I think everyone had a hand in not letting the offense start clicking at one point or another. Just an off day all around... but not really a bad performance by anyone one person.... even Ariens.

But as I said, since they seemed to be quick to drop the LB's back, I would have liked to see some more running plays. Mendenhall and the running game seemed pretty effective. I think they were darning our running game to beat their front.

[RKSteel]

Except for the fact that I would have liked to see a little more running plays being called, I think the play calling went pretty well.

They were dropping their LB's a little bit and their secondary even more. So they were taking way the deep balls and mid-range stuff. So you are left with the option of taking the check downs or trying to thread a touch pass between the LB's and DB's (Ward's almost catch, and two of Wallace's deep catches). I thought they did a good job of not trying to force the ball down field. Ben floated a few in there when he could and check the ball down well before the Viking's strong front 4 could get there. I'll give the Vikings credit. I think they did a good job with their game plan and to cover up the weakness in the secondary.

I don't even know if I'd lay blame at Ben's feet either. There were about 3 passes that could have been considered dropped balls, there were 4 passes batted down by the linemen, and a few poor throws by Ben. If we converted a few of those, the offense might have been able to establish a little bit more of a rhythm. I think everyone had a hand in not letting the offense start clicking at one point or another. Just an off day all around... but not really a bad performance by anyone one person.... even Ariens.

But as I said, since they seemed to be quick to drop the LB's back, I would have liked to see some more running plays. Mendenhall and the running game seemed pretty effective. I think they were darning our running game to beat their front.
Did you ever think you would say that about the Steelers. Its usually stack the LOS, let Ben try to beat you. Guess he's getting some respect.
I agree with the running plays. Mendenhall was running well, would have liked to see them go with the run a little more.

[ikestops85]

I sat in the middle of the enclosed end of the stadium and you can really see plays develop from there. The Vikings basically had a CB up in press almost every play, and safeties cheating over to help out. The center of the field should have been open a lot but we didnt' throw many crossing patterns at all and there were quite a few plays where you had Holmes and Wallace lined up one on one with a CB and the safety was creeping up. I saw at least 2 times where Holmes beat his guy at the line of scrimmage and all it would have taken is Ben lofting one down the sideline for it to be a TD.

I have noticed that Ben is a very visual QB, where he has to see hsi WR open before he will throw it instead of doing what I said above, throw one down the sideline and trust that your WR will beat his guy one on one. He needs to actually see the WR beat the CB before he will throw it which causes his passes to be late on the deep balls.

All in all though, I will agree that it was poor playcalling for a weak and injury depleted secondary we were facing. If we had a secondary that crappy good teams with million dollar QB's would throw 95% of the time on us. WE have real issues identifying and attacking opposing defenses weaknesses.

I have to agree with you on this. Ben does not do well on the timing routes because he likes to see his receiver open. I also think Ben is hesitant to trust his receivers on the deep ball is because our receivers are not very good at going up and getting the ball. If they are open and the ball is there then great but having to adjust to the ball and outfight the DB for it is just not their forte.

Note: Please don't anyone bring up Sweed :roll:

[Flasteel]

Whenever the offense struggles it is apparently automatically Arians' fault, but I just don't see it. We ran the ball well against a very stoud run defense (Mendenhall averaged nearly 7 yards per carry). We did what we could to keep them honest with end-arounds and reverses. I think the main issue was Ben's accuracy today, not Arians' playcalling. Ben has been completing over 70% of his passes, but yesterday it was only 53.8%, and had less than half the passing yards he did last week. Even though he did not turn the ball over, there was more than one pass that should have been intercepted. While I am a huge Ben fan and not a big Arians fan, I have to lay the blame for the poor offensive performance on Ben and not Bruce here. I don't think everyone's favorite offensive scapegoat has called a bad game in over a month now.

What about the very limited use of the no-huddle? Sometimes it's not as much about making the right play call as it is getting the F out of the way. As I stated in another thread, Ben seemed to be off his game as well. The fact remains however, that we went 91 yards for a score with Roethlisberger running the show.

I'm done killing BA...it's just not fun anymore. I just wish we would have went to our best offensive platform a little more than once (I actually counted two series with the no-huddle).

[feltdizz]

The only I had with the playcalling was the early red zone where mendenhall was abusing the vikes and then we had 3 straight pass incompletions. Ben was hesitant and I think he is partly responsible for a few of the batted passes but all in all it was solid playcalling.

Our ball security is terrible though... and it's obvious Holmes will never yeah Mendy how to hold a football. I think the new young guys are used to showing off and don't take fumbles as seriously as they should.