You’re never as good as you look when you are at your best. You are never as bad as you look when you are at your worst. The Steelers looked pretty bad on the offensive line yesterday. They can’t be this bad…can they? Baltimore smells the blood in the water. I fear for Ben’s life next week.

My questioning of Zeirlien and Arians teaching, game planning and talent evaluation last year (and preseason) was met with some real negative feedback on this site. Heck I even resorted to giving Z & A some props the last couple weeks because we beat the Texans and Browns and came away unscathed. Yesterday we faced a real playoff team with a real playoff defense. Where are the Z & A fan club this morning?

I don’t know if they can make a move with the staff now. The time was during the off season. I agree with one of my antagonists (wahoo) that the talent on the O line is thin but I state again that I don’t see the young guys improving. (lack of teaching) I don’t see them protecting Ben any better except when they throw 10 times a game instead of 30. (lack of a viable blocking scheme) I don’t see where Kemo, Colon or Simmons is better than Starks. (talent evaluation) I am really disappointed that Tomlin effectively ended the game a minute early with the 4th and 10 gamble. A lot can happen in 60 seconds.

Tomlin is young and will hopefully learn to extend the game like Shanahan or Belicheat* would. I think at this point in their careers Z & A are developed. They are older guys that should be at the top of their game. I will never forget Arians blowing a HUGE playoff lead with Cleve against the Steelers in 02. I will never forget his play calling last year against NE, Den and Jax. Hope Tomlin see’s what I see and pulls the plug on this 3 ring circus.

Good post Blitz.

1- The sky isnt falling. Hats off to a great scheme well executed by the damn Eagles.
2- Now, WTF? I agree completely with Blitz on firing Z. I have said it among my circle of fellow Steelers fans for most of last season and continued throughout the off season and up to now. I have little to no use for A either, particularly when he continues to call for down field bombs, just to watch Ben get pummeled waiting for the play to develop.
3- How does our coach (HC included) justify leaving the same 5 criminals (they each stole a game check yesterday) on the field when the opposing team is KILLING our $100M quarterback? At some point, after maybe sack number 5 or 6, you’d think they would go “Hey, Darnell and Max CANT BE ANY WORSE THAN THIS!!!!!!” I actually advocated Ben shooting Kendall in the huddle. I would volunteer to be Ben’s lawyer. My sole piece of evidence would be to show any of the 941 hits he was taking and then my line to the jury would be “Self Defense. Ben had to shoot this one, to get the others to wake up.” Case closed.
4- Did the organization let the Offense ride the same plane back to the ’Burgh? They should have made the Offense ride a single bus (Blue Bird) and let the OFFENSIVE (double meaning) LINE push it up hills.
5- I proudly stood with my fellow Steelers fans as we took much crap during this beat down. I will continue to bleed Black and Gold and cheer for our team, but you can record it hear FOREVER, I will never forgive Z for the beating he let Ben absorb in this game. He is banished to the Neal Odonnell room in the circle of hell. A is up next if he doenst get his s#@t together…

GO STEELERS!!!!

Serious question for the knowlegable at BTSC. I forgot to post this but it seems indicative of the creativity of the OC. It is why I wonder about him and his staff. The Steelers are getting hammered in the second half. They get the ball at the shadow of their goal inside the 6 yard line. Arians brings in his slowest player (Carey Davis) and runs a slow developing pitch play for 2 yards.
What was he trying to accomplish there aside from spare Ben one more hit? I might be ok with that play if they pitched it to 34 but what was best case scenario there? Two yards…

named reshard mende…something. i believe he was our first round pick this year…23rd overall. anyone heard of this guy? cuz arians apparently hasn’t.

if i were kevin colbert or dan rooney, i would call arians and zierlin into my office this morning, and have them bring their playbooks.

also, since it appears batch’s career is over, and chance the FO is grooming him for some kind of coaching/coordinator position. the guy knows the game of football inside and out and he has been HUGE, detrimental to the development of ben. i would love to see batch retained next year as a part of the coaching staff. hell, i’d love it if the steelers announced today that he was our new o coordinator…he certainly would be an upgrade over the incompetent bruce arians

they need to get the plays in faster, it makes it much easier to blitz when you are forced to snap because the play clock is down to 2 or 1. One of the easiest defenses against those blitzes is a hard count but of course you need some time on the play clock for that.

From JJ Cooper:

“Roethlisberger either got rid of the ball or was dodging his first pass rusher less than three seconds after the snap on 31 of his 37 pass plays. Four of Roethlisberger’s sacks came on plays where the first rusher was on him in less than two seconds.”

Ouch.

there is a shortage of skilled offensive linemen, and it’s nfl-wide. A lot of other teams besides the Steelers are dealing with average linemen facing better defensive players. Perhaps you can coach up average players, or find the right chemistry to get them performing as an above average group. You also can get a qb who can help the line by not moving around in the pocket (romo seems to hurt his line by doing this sometimes).
Not enough talent at offensive line isn’t a unique problem here, the draft gave a strong indication that many teams are unhappy with their line and want better players there. The problem, as others have said, is playcalling. The OC needs to have bread and butter plays to neutralize the blitz. Last year’s Pats killed blitzes by throwing the quick slant to Welker. I’ve even seen the lowly Rams with their dismal line throw the quick slant to Holt to beat the blitz.
Perhaps the coaches were lulled into a false belief that the line was fixed after the first two games, and it that regard, it’s good this beatdown happened now, when most of the season is there to fix things. And it is good that Baltimore is up, because it levels urgency on this unit and the team. It’s not enough to put bodies on the field, watch them fail, and then bring tight ends in. Max protect can work, but not as it was setup yesterday.
The final sack count hides what could have been a dozen sacks, and was even more hits on Ben. The league has all these mandates to protect the qb, but it’s really the line’s job, and when they can’t do that, it’s the coaches job to figure out how to protect the qb. Both the line and the coaches failed on Sunday.

I agree with the posts here….the O-line stole paychecks yesterday for that pitiful performance, but I also have to argue that the ultimate blame falls to Tomlin and the coaching staff. I sat there just KNOWING that they’d make the adjustments at halftime and then to sit there in the sports bar watching them do the same thing again and again. The coaching staff needs a good afternoon of electroshock. I got the impression that they were simply confused and didn’t know what to do to stop the pounding. HInes Ward said after the game that the 11 men of the O-line “…weren’t on the same page.”

Coach Tomlin, you and the staff had better figure out how to fix this because you know the Ravens are licking their chops while watching highlights of the game. Every team on our schedule are already brushing up those blitzes. It’s time to step it up.

hey good timing.

All this being said, Steelers will bounce back from this one. They have to do better with protection and play calling on offense, and they will.

No way the coaches and players can avoid dealing with this. They’ll get it going, learn from it, and get better because of this adversity.

I’m all ready looking forward to Monday night.

I don’t like this fat phuck a little bit. I think his play calling is miserable and at what point do you ABANDON THE RUN AND JUST START PASSING THE STINKEN’ BALL? Arians couldn’t be fired fast enough as far as I am concerned!