Post-Carolina thoughts

[mesaSteeler]

NFL from the sidelines
http://nflfromthesidelines.blogspot.com/
After hobnobbing around the NFL in the press boxes and sidelines, sports reporter Dale Lolley will let you know the insider scoop. Dale can also be heard on Tuesday nights throughout the season from 7 to 9 p.m. on WBGG 970-AM.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Post-Carolina thoughts

The outcome of Thursday night's game was about as much in doubt as the Republicans taking control of Congress in the most recent elections.

You knew both were going to happen, it was only a matter of how big the wins were going to be.

© Mewelde Moore and Jason Worilds both suffered knee injuries, the extent of which is not yet known.

© It was good to see James Harrison finally get to the quarterback again for a sack. Harrison had gone three games without one, his longest stretch this season.

The guy works way too hard and had been too close too many times not to get at least one more to close out the season.

© It's getting pretty obvious why punter Jason Kapinos was available for the Steelers to pick up when Daniel Sepulveda was lost for the season a few weeks ago.

He usually gets decent hang time on his punts, but the distance is certainly lacking in the cold Pittsburgh winter.

For a team that likes to play the field-position game, that's not a good thing.

© I'm not a fan of Mike Tomlin leaving starters in the game in a rout like this.

Though Tomlin began pulling starters midway through the fourth quarter, for some reason a banged-Ben Roethlisberger stayed in the whole way. (Another failure by Tomlin. There was no reason Ben should have been in there. - mesa)

Same goes for Mike Wallace, who the Steelers threw a quick pass just before the two-minute warning to get him 100 yards.

If either of those two guys were injured, this team wouldn't win a single game in the playoffs, regardless of the opponent.

Yes, I know the Steelers went 3-1 without Roethlisberger to start the season, but that was a team that was relatively healthy on defense.

That's not the case now.

And Wallace means a heck of a lot to this team as well.

© Merry Christmas.

[FanSince72]

You make some interesting points and I don't disagree with some of the things you've said.

But there's another way to look at this game.

Since it's obvious that certain things need lots of work, who's to say that that wasn't what Tomlin was doing? It's not often that a team gets to play a laugher like this and maybe once Tomlin realized that he had this game he decided to try different things; different sets, different alignments, different techniques and took advantage of a "real game" situation to do this.

I mean, how often do you really get a chance to try stuff against an actual team? Maybe THAT's why it looked as if Carolina was playing us better than they should have.

I know that if I was in the same position knowing that I needed lots of work in many areas, I would look at this as a golden opportunity and I'd leave my starters in because after all, it's they who need the work.

It's one thing to break this down from an "X's and O's" point of view or from a statistical or scoring point of view, but that's all any of us CAN do because we're not on the sidelines and we really don't know what's being said or what's being done and for what reasons.

We're 11-4 with ten days off and are one win (or one Baltimore loss) from a Two-Seed and a first round bye.

There's only one team in the entire conference in better shape than us and frankly, I can't see where there's all that much to be complaining about - especially when you consider all that's happened to us this season.

I don't know about you, but I'd say that's a pretty nice Christmas present overall!

[SoCalFan]

I thought it was a good win to build confidence.Leaving the starters in was o.k.Clearly they were playing is safe with Ben handing off the rock,he showed on the fumble,he needs it!LOL...Our kicking/field position game is bad.Wish we had a kicker who could create a touch back on kick offs.

[SteelKnight]

I thought it was fine to leave Ben and Wallace in there. They need work. They need to click even more. Ben needs to develop a relationship with those young receivers.

With a sucky red zone offense, what's a better way to practice? They get tired of playing against the Steelers D in a non-contact practice. This game was like a practice.

The Steelers pass D needed work also so leaving them in was good too. They need to get ready.

[SteelKnight]

My other post Carolina thought was I would like the offense to be able to score 30 points for the playoffs. It will be hard but it is what they will need to do to beat the Patriots (and perhaps the Colts).

The Patriots are good...really good but since our D can't stop them, our O will just have to step up for that game. hopefully the D can limit them to 20 something points and the O can score their 30. They will not win if they can only score 23...bank that.

[Steelerfreak58]

They wont beat the Patriots settling for field goals... the red zone offense is simply pathetic at this point.

Green bay exposed how to keep the Patriots off balance hopefully the Steelers will watch the film and not come out with the same scheme they tried the first game.

[saveus1011]

I thought it was a good win to build confidence.Leaving the starters in was o.k.Clearly they were playing is safe with Ben handing off the rock,he showed on the fumble,he needs it!LOL...Our kicking/field position game is bad.Wish we had a kicker who could create a touch back on kick offs.

If we can win a Super Bowl with Mitch Berger, anything is possible.

Last night though, I don't care if it was Carolina and I don't care if we didn't light up the scoreboard, I liked what those men brought. We typically don't run up the score and once we knew we had the W, it was all over from there.

That said, the score to me was 31-3. Sanders had that TD.

[Goldsteel86]

Leaving them in for the entire game sent a message, the offense needs reps, if you listen to Ben's post game press conference, he even admits that he has left things on the field, and the offense needs work.

[SteelKnight]

They wont beat the Patriots settling for field goals... the red zone offense is simply pathetic at this point.

Green bay exposed how to keep the Patriots off balance hopefully the Steelers will watch the film and not come out with the same scheme they tried the first game.

I agree. The bottom line is points. Lebeau has shown that he cannot stop Brady ...which is fine...the offense must score 30. As long as Lebeau can keep them to 28 or less, he did his job. The offense must come through.

I think teams lose to the Pats when they think they can rely on defense. Brady can score 14 points quickly. So if we are winning by 14 in the 4th quarter, I STILL wont be comfortable. Now 17...that would be good.

Score points and make the Patriots match.

[saveus1011]

We need to come out with a scheme like we had for Indy in 05-06 if we draw the Pats.

[Whodis]

We need to come out with a scheme like we had for Indy in 05-06 if we draw the Pats.

Yeah it's called leave the Nickle at home and BLITZ!!!!

[lionslicer]

Confidence builder, it was really like playing against a better practice squad. I saw some plays I normally didn't see, maybe Arians was trying some stuff out... Maybe he actually saw something that works and he'll keep it for the playoffs.

[4098]

Now if we can only carry this kind of game to Cleveland! Could get used to not being so nervous in the fourth!

[DoctorCAD]

We need to come out with a scheme like we had for Indy in 05-06 if we draw the Pats.

Nope, we need to use fake signals all during the weeks leading up to the game and change them right before the game so the Cheatriots don't know what we are going to run before we do.

Rumors are that Cleveland changed their signals on the morning of their game and look how that worked out.

[saveus1011]

Yeah it's called leave the Nickle at home and BLITZ!!!!

And we kept confusing the D on if we had to run or pass.