Steelers vs. Titans Review

My brother called me last night and asked if I was more angry or disappointed following the shit-kicking that the Titans handed us yesterday.

I'd have to say I'm more disappointed than anything.

We got away from everything that we had been doing during the winning streak and went right back to the suckitude that caused us to lose to the Giants and the Colts.

Turned the ball over too much, didn't play sharp in the second half (we kind of looked flat all day), and it just kind of seemed like a game that was doomed from the start.

A few points and thoughts:

1. Anything Phil Sims said shouldn't be taken too seriously (he called Santonio "San Antonio" and Bo Scaife "Bob Scaifes"), but he did mention at one point during the broadcast that none of the Steelers he talked to seemed to be all that concerned with getting the #1 seed. The people I talked to were very casual about the game, too. Given the fact that we were the #1 seed 115 times when Cowher was here and only went to one Super Bowl, then went and won as the #6 seed, then the third seeded Colts won the next year and the 5th seeded Giants won last year, I get the feeling that the players and fans could care less about seeding, so long as their team makes it into the playoffs.
2. Having said that, I think the players took the game too lightly and that Tomlin will exact his revenge. You'll see a lot of starters playing a lot longer than anyone thought they would next week against Cleveland, even though it's a meaningless game. I think Tomlin saw how quickly things can get away from you and he's going to send a message to all his players this week in practice and during the course of next week's game.
3. Willie Parker ran 18 times for 29 yards. That cannot happen again.
   
4. We made two trips into the red zone and came out with zero points. That cannot happen again.
5. Ben Roethlisberger fumbled four times, losing two. That cannot happen again.
6. He also threw two interceptions.
7. That's four turnovers and five fumbles. Come playoff time, that's going to be too much to overcome, just like it was yesterday.
8. The opposing team finally got called for holding against the Steelers defense. For those of you keeping track at home, that was the first holding penalty called on the opposing team since November 20th.
9. I'm actually not that put out that the Titans were the first team to gain 300 yards in a game on our defense. It had to happen eventually. I'm more put out by the fact that we only sacked Collins once and that we didn't get consistent pressure on him. And that we didn't really try to get consistent pressure on him.
10. There were a lot of comments after the game to the effect of, "We played like crap," "They played great," and, "It's a good thing this didn't happen during a playoff game. We'd have to wait until next season to fix where we screwed up." So, I think the players realized that they didn't have a good performance, either, and they'll be more focused next week and throughout the playoffs.

Here's one other thing I've been thinking about since the Dallas game. I think that, at some point, Tomlin and company realized that they could win games by running a pretty vanilla game plan. The games would be close and we might need to get creative in the second half to win them (i.e. getting away from the vanilla game plan), but we wouldn't need to give too much away in terms of tendencies, formations, and pre-snap reads for opponents that we might meet again in the playoffs/Super Bowl.

It seemed to me that there wasn't anything special or exotic -- especially in terms of the defense -- unleashed the last three weeks. In the game against New England, we did a lot of things -- especially on defense -- that we hadn't done yet this season. And we kicked the hell out of them.

The three games since the Patriots game, the defense has made some big plays, but it's pretty much been as a result of sending three guys and either James Harrison and playing an awful lot of Cover 2 behind that. We haven't done a lot of fire dogging, zone blitzing, or had very many jailbreak blitzes (Timmons and Polamalu haven't been very involved in the pass rush).

It's my opinion that we could be playing possum, trying not to give away too much in these last few games and really just trying to get into the playoffs in a good spot. Once we clinched the division and the #2 seed, that pretty much took the wind out of our creative sails.

I think we're going to see a much more creative game plan on both offense and defense for that first playoff game, regardless of who we play.

It's entirely possible that I'm grasping at straws here, but I really haven't seen any signature LeBeau creativity and not a lot of the formations and patterns that Arians unleashed earlier in the season, or even last season.

We kind of backed into the playoffs last year, though, so we need a strong finish against the Browns to close out this season. I'm not saying a 41-0 thrashing is in order, but we should use that game to get tuned up for our run to the Super Bowl.