Steelers vs. Eagles Review

Well, that sucked big, hairy, sweaty balls. I can't think of a time in recent memory where we got our asses kicked up and down the line of scrimmage like we did on Sunday. Closest I can come is that game we lost to Jacksonville in 2006 by the stirring score of 9-0. Pretty much the same frustration level and pretty much the same feeling of, "Well, they're up by six. This game is over."

The offense looked terrible, both running and throwing the ball, and, really, you can't say that we were outcoached, we were simply outflanked and outhustled. I was listening to the radio this morning and they broke down all nine sacks. On all nine occasions, the Eagles either brought as many guys as there were blockers, or fewer guys than there were blockers, and didn't once bring more than the Steelers could block. That's right. Never had an odd-man rush. Never had a guy spring completely free. They just blew us right the fuck off the ball.

I was thinking this afternoon that we should have made some adjustments, thrown more screen passes, run more draw plays, get Mendenhall more involved (yeah, I really thought I jinxed Fast Willie on that one), and throw more slants and skinny posts. But, we tried three of those things (didn't get Mendenhall involved and didn't run draw plays) and they didn't work. The Eagles just had our number. They kicked our asses fair and square. Shit happens.

So, take the game film on the offensive line and burn it in the same trash can that burned the footage from the 2002 AFC Championship game. Well, the Steelers destroyed all their footage from that game. Maybe not so much the Patriots.

I thought the defense played very well. I thought they were the reason the game was only 15-6 instead of 15-0, because they set the offense up with short fields for both scores. If they hadn't played as well as they did, it probably would have been more like 22-0 or 30-0, or something obscene like that.

They're still doing what they need to do: Stop the run, pressure the quarterback, force turnovers. As long as they continue to do that, we should be fine. We should be fine, not necessarily guaranteeing that we will be fine.

A few other thoughts:

1. Counting the plays where the quarterbacks have been sacked, Leftwich and Roethlisberger have been sacked a total of 13 times in 83 dropbacks. That's once every six times someone goes back to pass. To put that in perspective, if we let up sacks at this rate in 2006 and 2007, Ben would have been sacked 73 times in 2006 and 63 times in 2007. The actual numbers for those years were 46 times and 47 times, respectively. So, that's no good.
2. I definitely haven't given up the faith yet. The Steelers are still going to win the division. Cleveland sucks, Cincinnati sucks worse, and the hated Ravens are merely bad. They're the least sucky team in a triumverate of suck, which is kinda like being the leper with the best dick.
3. The Steelers coaches will get this mess cleaned up. As bad as things were yesterday... well, they really couldn't get much worse. The good news is that Ben is okay and it's just one game. One non-conference game at that. Chances are that no team will blow us off the ball like Philly did on Sunday.
4. Bad news is this: If there is a team that can do to us what the Eagles did on Sunday... it's the hated Ravens.