I Put This Loss on....

[papillon]

Ben missed. Brown was right by working his way into the open field away from the coverage. On a night we needed big plays Brown was moving into open field and would have had lots of yardage after the catch.
Ben simply thought "get the first down" and missed it.

Ben, unfortunately, missed a lot Thursday evening, the defense isn't good enough for the Steelers' best player to miss that many critical throws to receivers that were open. The defense isn't winning any games for the Steelers this year, the offense has to carry the day. If the defense can keep the Steelers in the game which for the most they did versus the Ravens, it's then up to the offense to score more than 6 points.

Pappy

[Snatch98]

Ben, unfortunately, missed a lot Thursday evening, the defense isn't good enough for the Steelers' best player to miss that many critical throws to receivers that were open. The defense isn't winning any games for the Steelers this year, the offense has to carry the day. If the defense can keep the Steelers in the game which for the most they did versus the Ravens, it's then up to the offense to score more than 6 points.

Pappy

Ben got rocked by upshaw and wasn't the same the rest of the game.

[NJ-STEELER]

Ben missed. Brown was right by working his way into the open field away from the coverage. On a night we needed big plays Brown was moving into open field and would have had lots of yardage after the catch.
Ben simply thought "get the first down" and missed it.

maybe ben got rid of the ball like he's supposed to ...no?
like some have been hammering him for what seems like forever

how many times do with see hitch patterns on passing plays? 90 %

we've seen brown in a game and a quarter with a key drop vs the browns that could have cost us the game and a key fumble which may ahve cost us the game as well.

how do we know he didnt mess up the route?

[NJ-STEELER]

Ben, unfortunately, missed a lot Thursday evening, the defense isn't good enough for the Steelers' best player to miss that many critical throws to receivers that were open. The defense isn't winning any games for the Steelers this year, the offense has to carry the day. If the defense can keep the Steelers in the game which for the most they did versus the Ravens, it's then up to the offense to score more than 6 points.

Pappy

right, this is where the league is heading

but somehow our front office doesnt see it. how do you rely on an offense to win games with only 1 player (bell) drafted in the top 2 rounds from the skill positions

[hawaiiansteel]

Gene Collier: Roethlisberger not good enough
 for Steelers' offense in need of life

September 12, 2014
By Gene Collier / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is sacked by the Ravens' Elvis Dumervil during Thursday night's game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

BALTIMORE — As the third quarter leaked away Thursday night and Ben Roethlisberger added two more goofy throws to a badly timed three-and-out, the distance between that moment and the occasion of the Steelers’ most recent touchdown had already become a gaping embarrassment.

If you can’t remember it, ’twas Le’Veon Bell’s dazzling 38-yard run Sunday against Cleveland, coming as it did with 7:43 remaining in the second quarter.

So if you want to be persnickety about it, the Steelers started the fourth against the Ravens without having scored a touchdown in the previous five quarters, or 82 minutes and 43 seconds of an apparent ceasefire.

And the ceasefire held.

It wasn’t so much that the Ravens pasted ’em, 26-6, in their annual smackdown in Charm City, it was that the alleged strength of the Steelers’ in-Ben-we-trust offense was nowhere in evidence.

So first let’s get the final official particulars out of the way: Six full quarters without a Steelers touchdown. Seventeen consecutive possessions without a Steelers touchdown. And 97 minutes, 43 seconds of game clock without a Steelers touchdown.

“Obviously we’ve got to score touchdowns, but they’re a good red-zone defense; they proved that last week,” said tight end Heath Miller, who caught four passes but none of them longer than 13 yards. “Ultimately we kind of stopped ourselves at different points in the game, but when we get the ball down there, we’ve got to score seven, and we didn’t do that.”

True dat, and worse, the main problem was, umm, Ben.

Drilled helmet-to-breastbone by linebacker Courtney Upshaw on the first third-down of his long night, Roethlisberger never found an effective throwing rhythm, unless you want to count the rhythmic misfires that aborted drives on many a third-and-something to come.

“It obviously wasn’t a winning performance by any of us,” was all coach Mike Tomlin would say about his quarterback, and his quarterback wasn’t exactly warming to the topic of quarterback malfunction either.

“Yeah,” Ben said when asked if he felt like he was sharp right now. “I don’t think it was horrible, I just think you’ve got to give them a lot of credit; they’re a good defense.”

That’s fine as far as it goes, but I don’t see Ed Reed out there and I don’t see Ray Lewis out there, and I don’t even see Lardarius Webb, a secondary cornerstone who hasn’t gotten onto the field for the Ravens yet this season. What I did see was 340-pound defensive tackle Haloti Ngata leap into the path of a feckless Roethlisberger pass and tip an interception to himself in the fourth, sending most of the 71,000-plus to the exits.

“You know we moved the ball down the field, but it was one thing here and one thing there,” Roethlisberger said. “I don’t know off the top of my head that I could point to one thing. I’d have to look at it on film. We just kept getting behind the chains and you can’t do that.”

The quarterback kept throwing behind the receivers, too, and you can’t do that.

It started when he threw behind a wide-open Markus Wheaton on a third-and-1 in the second quarter and got its full unfortunate momentum when he overthrew Miller, who had found a capacious vacuum in the Baltimore zone for what should have been an easy first down, as well.

Roethlisberger, in case you missed it, is the biggest reason cited by people who feel these Steelers are somehow better than average, better than the twin 8-8s they’ve posted the past two years, never mind that No. 7 played every single snap a year ago without nudging them above .500.

As the Steelers consider adding another $100 million or so to Roethlisberger’s portfolio, perhaps the quarterback should start reminding everyone again why he deserves $20-25 million a year.

To be sure, you can’t pin the first loss of the new season exclusively on the quarterback, as he had plenty of help in the area of bad luck and squishy competence. It certainly didn’t help that Antonio Brown missed a few series while he had his head examined, and it helped even less that right tackle Marcus Gilbert kept getting pushed into Roethlisberger by Ravens menace Elvis Dumervil.

The quarterback finished 22 for 37 for only 217 yards with no completion longer than 27, was intercepted for the second game in a row and posted a failed passer rating of 64.8. Only once all of last season did he register less than 70.

From the guy we accept as way more than merely good enough, it was nowhere near good enough.

[URL]http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/gene-collier/2014/09/12/Gene-Collier-Big-Ben-not-good-enough-for-an-offense-in-need-of-life/stories/201409120151[/URL]

[Oviedo]

Bite your tounge, this is total heresy
When you have a HOF coach you force your players to adapt to the system.
You absolutely never use your players strengths as an asset.
Even if it takes 3 or 4 years to have them adapt, you need to force them by any means.
This is the word of St. LeBeau.....

It's pretty much the way it is...adapt or get eliminated. We don't care what skills got you drafted into th NFL, we just care about making "my way" work.

I think we have to all seriously consider the fact that we just got lucky the last 8 years with the players we had. Would anyone have ever bet Harrison's career would have spiked for four years the way it did that late in his career? That probably hid the failures of this defense longer than it should have and created the false impression all was well.

[Slapstick]

Yeah, having a undrafted player who was cut four times become a DPOY really shows how the scheme sucks...

You'll pardon me if I take James Harrison's word over yours about LeBeau's scheme and coaching skill...

[BlitzTo7]

Yeah, having a undrafted player who was cut four times become a DPOY really shows how the scheme sucks...

You'll pardon me if I take James Harrison's word over yours about LeBeau's scheme and coaching skill...

Sure, worked great in the past. Not so much now. Schemes get figured out in the NFL after a period of time.

[Slapstick]

Sure, worked great in the past. Not so much now. Schemes get figured out in the NFL after a period of time.

Pete Carroll's didn't...

Amazing what a different time and talent makes...

[skyhawk]

We have the worst D Line in football.

Add in last place in turnovers forced the last 2 seasons and you have one of the worst Ds in football.

[BlitzTo7]

Pete Carroll's didn't...

Amazing what a different time and talent makes...

Really? So you're implying Pete Carroll has never made an adjustment or has thrown in new wrinkles to his schemes EVER? You're implying he's never adjusted his defenses to the talent he had at the time rather than try to hammer square pegs into round holes?

[Slapstick]

Really? So you're implying Pete Carroll has never made an adjustment or has thrown in new wrinkles to his schemes EVER? You're implying he's never adjusted his defenses to the talent he had at the time rather than try to hammer square pegs into round holes?

Just as you are saying LeBeau has never made adjustment or thrown in new wrinkles...

Of course, both coaches have...but, both coaches have a base defensive philosophy that they have stuck to for years and have experienced success with their respective philosophies...

[BlitzTo7]

Just as you are saying LeBeau has never made adjustment or thrown in new wrinkles...

Of course, both coaches have...but, both coaches have a base defensive philosophy that they have stuck to for years and have experienced success with their respective philosophies...

Then maybe the coach that currently isn't having success is no longer a good fit with his current team.

[Slapstick]

Perhaps. Or, perhaps, not...it remains to be seen...

[BlitzTo7]

Perhaps. Or, perhaps, not...it remains to be seen...

Fair enough. My concern is the organization feels that they absolutely must keep their coaches for a long time even when it's not working. Just because Noll and Cowher were kept for as long as they were doesn't mean it's a good idea with Tomlin.