At The Half: The 2015 Pittsburgh Steelers

via kimbell411

by Ivan Cole

Injuries

This is the elephant in the room, not only for the Pittsburgh Steelers this season, but for the NFL always. Whenever I engage in projecting what the team is capable of doing going forward, there is always the nod to humility, the ‘Lord willing, knock-on-wood’ homage to the fact of injuries rendering our hopes and dreams, plans, preparations and predictions null and void.

We have been carefully conditioned to demure when this pachyderm starts stomping around the room breaking furniture. It is considered cowardly and unseemly to speak of such things. Wimpy excuse making, right? If you are in anyway connected to the game as a player, coach, team official or ‘partner’ what else are you going to say? Clearly they don’t have a clue as how the injuries could be prevented or minimized. They’ve been trying. Bobby Mitchell, retired from the Washington franchise, was once quoted as saying that observing from the sidelines, he is surprised that the players are able to get up after every play, the level of violence being that intense.

5 Smoldering Questions On the Pittsburgh Steelers, Week 7

This week Hombre de Acero is unfortunately not among us. Not in the corporal sense, of course—he was never that. But he is on an extended business trip, which means, according to him, that something huge is about to happen in the Steelers universe. Because something huge ALWAYS happens in the Steelers universe while he’s gone. Let’s hope it is something good!

In Hombre’s absence I called upon the resources at my disposal for help in compiling this week’s Smoldering Questions. Ivan, Adrian, and Homer J. submitted queries. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to grapple with them. After all, it isn’t only the players who have to prepare for Cincinnati:

(1) Ivan asks: Thirty nine years ago, the Steelers made the playoffs with a backup quarterback playing for much of the season. That year the formula for success was to rely on the defense and the running game which resulted in Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier each gained a 1,000 yards. Even though Le’Veon Bell had a solid game on Sunday in Kansas City, would the Steelers have been better off leaning on him even more, depending upon him and DeAngelo Williams to carry the offense and bypassing Landry Jones?

Massacre at Arrowhead: Steelers at Chiefs Game Recap

Post-Gazette: Peter Diana photo

Okay, so it wasn’t really a massacre. “Massacre” would be what the Dolphins did to the Texans in the first half (the score was 41-0 at the beginning of the 3rd quarter. And you have to say for Houston, they came back in the 2nd half and made it a game. Sort of.)

While the Steelers never led in this game, it never felt as if it was totally out of reach until quite near the end.

Homer J. had a lot to say this week. Here’s a amalgam of our observations. Homer begins with a host of questions:

Mike Tomlin says he chooses not to live in his fears. Sadly, Homer doesn’t have that luxury. With Roethlisberger and Vick out, and with the offensive line being a bit of a patchwork, my fears center around Landry Jones.

Kansas City has a fierce outside pass rush, and I’m relatively confident that Alejandro Villanueva can do a decent job, but the big concern is whether Cody Wallace is able to hold the center of the line so that Jones is able to step up in the pocket when the rush comes from the outside.

Also, the offensive line needs to establish a decent running game.

Will the week of practice produce a little better coordination between Jones and Antonio Brown?

Game Recap: Turbo-Charged Defense Pulls Out a Win for the Steelers

USA Today Sports/Charles LeClaire

I had a dress rehearsal last evening, and I don’t have cable, so I had to head out after rehearsal to a local hostelry, where I got a refreshing drink, (club soda and lime, sorry, I’m a wuss,) ordered dinner, and waited to see what would happen. I got to the bar just after the beginning of half time, and from the score at that point (3-7, Chargers) it looked as if I hadn’t missed much.

The patrons surrounding me were a tad on the morose side by the time the third quarter began, having come (correctly) to the conclusion the Steelers couldn’t get a ball in the end zone. All Bell All the Time is great for a while, but eventually you have to convince the other team that you are actually capable of completing more than the (very) occasional pass.

But the defense, who I assumed must have been playing very well indeed to have held the Chargers to a single touchdown, soon took matters into their own hands—or, more precisely, the football. Jarvis Jones, who ended the game with four tackles and a sack, also forced a fumble which was recovered by one of our other “busts,” Shamarko Thomas.

The All-New, Official, On-Going AFC North Stats Watch

via Ben Roethlisberger’s official site

Steeler Fever said the following in a comment on my recent stats commentary: 

I am hoping you will consider publishing a weekly article of the Steelers’ players/team from a statistical perspective.

Here it is for Weeks 1 and 2. And since this is how I roll, I’m going to include information on the rest of the AFC North. After all, we have to beat them if we wish to win the division. Which we do.

There are any number of things we could look at, but I’m going to keep it as simple as possible (which isn’t very…) If anyone has anything they really want to know about that wasn’t covered, leave a comment and I’ll consider incorporating it into future posts.

Let’s get started, because this is going to take a while.

The Bottom Line:

I don’t know that you’re supposed to start with the bottom line, but let’s get it right out there. As Mike Tomlin says, “you are who your record says you are,” and in the end fancy stats don’t matter if you aren’t winning more games than the other guys in your division.

5 Smoldering Questions on the Pittsburgh Steelers, Week 2

via Pittsburgh Sporting News

by Hombre de Acero

The Pittsburgh Steelers rebounded from a disappointing opener on the road with a resounding victory at Heinz Field, where they defeated the San Francisco 49ers 43-18. The Steelers win over San Francisco soothed a lot of nerves in Steelers Nation. Nonetheless, they’ve still left the community here with 5 Smoldering Questions on as the Steelers head to another road game vs. the Los Angeles er um St. Louis Rams.

1. Sans Le’Veon Bell and Martavis Bryant, the Steelers offense scored 43 points on the 49ers, despite badly “losing” the battle of time of possession. The Steelers offensive fireworks generated a lot of highlight reel material, but the Steelers defense was just as dominant. Which unit’s performance is more important in your view?

Game Recap: 49ers at Steelers

Photo: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

As luck would have it I had to schedule an afternoon rehearsal yesterday from 4 – 6:30. I was hoping I could somehow manage to not find out the outcome before I finally had a chance to sit down and watch the recording of the game. I guess it was a day of miracles, because in Pittsburgh I managed to avoid finding out anything ahead of time, and the game itself was pretty sweet.

Homer J., PaVa Steeler, and Ivan sent me comments, so what follows will be a sort of melange of our impressions.  Our collective impression, though, is mainly YES!  Homer was obviously pretty excited, as his commentary was entirely in CAPITALS. I’ve mostly removed them for ease of viewing.

Steelers at Patriots: What We Made Of It, Pas de Deux

As I noted in my opponent preview, pretty much no one expected the Steelers to win this game. They didn’t. The final score of 28 – 21 looks better than it really was.

And yet, perhaps the most frustrating part was it looked for most of the game like they had a decent chance to compete.

Fortunately it was an exhibition game which doesn’t count.

Wait, you say it does count? Bummer, dude.

But let’s at least see what we can extract from it. First, Rebecca’s thoughts on the Good, the Bad, and the Not Unexpected…

The Case for the 2015 Pittsburgh Steelers

via Post-Gazette/Bob Donaldson photo

by Ivan Cole

Let’s begin by making it clear what this article is not about. As I remind people from time to time, I don’t do predictions for the most part, and I am not starting to do so today. What follows is a ‘What if’ based upon the potentialities that exist when this particular snapshot of the 2015 Steelers is taken. The premise is an optimistic one; what factors could lead Pittsburgh into the post season and possibly a championship.

If I had the energy and the temperament I could also go in the opposite direction and outline how the Steelers could crash and burn, but the line for that type of analysis is quite a bit longer and if you think its necessary to have that discussion you can easily find it elsewhere, don’t you think?

Is there any reason for you to pay one bit of attention to anything I have to say? 2010 may well have been my finest hour doing this sort of thing. Maryrose pointed out to me at that time that I had scooped the Steeler media and blogging establishment by suggesting in the face of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s four game suspension by the league that the answer for his short term replacement might be Charlie Batch.

Those of you who were around will recall that at the time all the conversation revolved around Byron Leftwich vs Dennis Dixon. Batch was considered by just about everyone as the odd man out who was unlikely to even make the 53 man roster. He hadn’t even received any playing time in the preseason to that point. Turns out I was right, but so is the proverbial broken clock twice a day. All I can say that I get lucky from time to time.

The spooky factor

Beware the September panic

The Front Office

The Offense