Not an Excuse But..

[NorthCoast]

maybe a partial explanation.

The average NFL team injury rate during the season is about 6 players per game, including IR and PUP.

anyone care to guess what the 2012 Steelers injury rate per game has been?

just about 7.5 players/gm.

[Ghost]

I'm sorry NorthCoast but there is no excuse for the losses to the Raiders, Titans, Browns, or Chargers. Especially the Chargers. This team pi$$ed away winnable games and played with no heart the last two weeks. The insane amount of turnovers are not injury related. The mental mistakes have been piling up. This team, injuries or not, should be better than .500. There's been a lot of disgraceful play this year by vets and starters.

[RuthlessBurgher]

It's not just the sheer raw number of turnovers, but rather how they seem to attack one particular position all at once this year. First, we had o-linemen dropping like flies to the tune of it seemed like 2 per game for a while there. Now, we are down to our 4th and 5th string corners and have our 5th string safety playing nickel corner. Those were the two big ones.

Also, it is rare when this team signs guys off the street late in a season (usually they promote from the practice squad whenever possible), but we lost QB's in back-to-back weeks and all 4 of our top WR's happened to be nicked up at the same time (although none of the WR injuries were major) resulted in us signing Plaxico and Hoyer.

[DBR96A]

It's not just the sheer raw number of turnovers, but rather how they seem to attack one particular position all at once this year. First, we had o-linemen dropping like flies to the tune of it seemed like 2 per game for a while there. Now, we are down to our 4th and 5th string corners and have our 5th string safety playing nickel corner. Those were the two big ones.

Also, it is rare when this team signs guys off the street late in a season (usually they promote from the practice squad whenever possible), but we lost QB's in back-to-back weeks and all 4 of our top WR's happened to be nicked up at the same time (although none of the WR injuries were major) resulted in us signing Plaxico and Hoyer.

It's a combination of three things:


1. The franchise QB suffered a significant injury and is more than likely still not fully healed from it.
2. The list of players that have missed multiple games this season includes most of our best players.
3. At various times, injuries at QB, RB, OL and CB have been so extensive that even the depth was depleted.


Let's face it; if the Bears could use injuries to explain their collapse last season, then the Steelers sure as hell can use injuries to explain their general malaise this season.

[Oviedo]

It's not just the sheer raw number of turnovers, but rather how they seem to attack one particular position all at once this year. First, we had o-linemen dropping like flies to the tune of it seemed like 2 per game for a while there. Now, we are down to our 4th and 5th string corners and have our 5th string safety playing nickel corner. Those were the two big ones.

Also, it is rare when this team signs guys off the street late in a season (usually they promote from the practice squad whenever possible), but we lost QB's in back-to-back weeks and all 4 of our top WR's happened to be nicked up at the same time (although none of the WR injuries were major) resulted in us signing Plaxico and Hoyer.

Injuries has sabatoged the season. The fact that they have a chance to still make the play offs is amazing and a credit to the team but just too many players playing below standard for one reason or another.

Seasons like this happen and the true measure is how we respond to it. Do we just blame the injuries and plan to come back the same way next year? Do we do a real honest and critical review of what happened and make hard changes? If we do the former I don't think we are a better team next year.

[steelz09]

Injuries on the o-line have hurt the most. Our secondary was an issue last game in particular but they didn't lose the game.

This season, the Steelers have found ways to lose games on a consistent basis. We have literally gift wrapped games for our opposition this year.

- Poor coaching / play calling.
- Starters showing lack of effort (i.e. Wallace)
- Starters consistently fumbling
- Ben hasn't been sharp after returning.

Yes, the injuries are a problem. However, the games we lost were not due to injuries. Poor coaching and lack of execution by our normal starters have been the biggest problem.