Good game and congrats on the victory. Both teams left alot of plays and points on the field. Good luck the rest of the season!

If you are still thinking the Bengals are a fraud remember the Cincinnati Bengals are actually one fluke Denver Bronco’s touchdown in week one from being a prefect 5-0.

I had to address this first, because people keep saying this and it is really bugging me. The Bengals are also 3 plays away from being 1-4. They lost a “coin flip” in the game against the Broncos, but then won them against us, the browns, and the Ravens. They are a good team, but they are not some untouchable team.

I know saying this will probably bring a lot of flack, but i have to address it. James Farrior seemed to be out of position quite often yesterday, especially on several key 3rd down conversions for the Lions. Hopefully, it was just a bad game and he will return to form next week. We can’t have our captain missing big plays.

Special teams were pretty bad this week. Our coverage on every kick off was pretty lousy. It seemed we missed the first tackle on almost every kick off, giving them 10 more yards on the return than they should have had. I couldn’t find a website that had average starting field position, but I’d bet they won that one. Is their returner that bad, or was our coverage bad?

The O-Line seemed to get a bit shaky in the 4th after a great first 3 quarters. All 3 sacks on Ben came in the 4th and Mendenhall was hit in the backfield 3-4 times, a couple times just as he got the ball. Maybe our team, both offense and defense needs to work on improving their stamina.

Sorry for being so negative, but I am pleased with the win. The D did give up a fourth quarter drive, but settled in and sacked the QB 3 times in a row when we really needed it. Ben has been absolutely absurd this year. His QB rating is above 100 for the season, he is #1 in completion % and 2nd in yards. Further into this year the communication with the WRs will improve and he will stop throwing costly INTs.

Close games are better than blowouts IMO. Not because its more exciting, but because it keeps the thirst alive. They know there are things they need to improve and they don’t think they our flawless. Therefore, the players and coaches will take practice and prep for the next week much more serious. I only see us getting better from here.

Did Arians run Hypocycloid?

Based on what I’ve read, Lebeau called corner-fire plays for both Taylor and Gay. If nothing else, that suggests he is more comfortable dialing up the pressure than he was earlier this season.

I remember before the season hearing that Culpepper had re-dedicated himself to the game and really got in shap this offseason. After hearing that, I thought the Lions could be a decent team if they started him instead of Stafford. At least close to average.

I didn’t see the game live yesterday, but his stats looked pretty good. Anyone have any thoughts on his performance?

Maybe the thinking was that he had the most carries in his career last week, and if they didn’t have to lean on him too heavily this week they wouldn’t.

Not sure, but that’s just a thought.

Is not getting off the field on third downs. And it’s not been third and short. It doesn’t matter how long the first down is, opponents seem to pick up way too many. When they do stop, fourth down is a killer, e.g. Cincy Detroit converted 11 yesterday. That’s unacceptable. That combined with a very poor defensive stamina in the fourth quarter is the team’m biggest problem. Typlical NFL, coming into the season we never thought we’d be talking about this.

I was thrilled with the overall victory. It seems a smattering of Steeler Nation expected us to motor into Detroit and drive away with a 44-0 win. Admittedly, part of me thought and hoped for that too, but I keep reminding myself that in the NFL, the others guys get paid alot too.

I thought Arians/Roethlisberger did a really nice job again yesterday. I thought the Lions adjusted at half by stacking the box against the run, and Pittsburgh took what the defense gave.

Polamalu’s loss is both comforting and concerning to me. On one hand, I believe the team is undefeated and appearing much better if he never got hurt. On the other hand, we should never be so vulnerable to be night and day with the loss of one player. We need to be better than that.

Let’s start with the defense which has been underperforming in the 4th quarter. It continued yesterday as the Steelers let the Lions back into a 28-13 game by allowing a long TD drive to the Lions in quarter 4. With the game in jeopardy and the Lions driving for the tying score inside two minutes, Blitzburgh stepped up with 4 sacks on the Lions final drive and 3 consecutive sacks from the Steelers 21 to force the Lions back to mid field and leave them with a 4th down desperation hail mary that fell short. The defense HAS to get off the field on 3rd down or they will lose more heartbreaking games in the 4th quarter this year. 11/18 is unacceptable.

Bruce Arians who was dubbed genius for his game plan last week against SD had another good one for the first half when the Steelers surged into the lead. But Arians inexplicably lost his way in half 2 abandoning the run and giving the Lions dominant time of possession, especially in the 3rd quarter where the Steelers ran only 5 plays. By calling pass plays on first down from mid field (Ben sacked for 8 yard loss setting up 2nd and 18) and regularly after that the Steelers failed to build momentum and milk the clock. With a 15 point lead and the ball at midfield with 10 minutes to play there is no excuse for calling 3 straight pass plays. This allowed the Lions to come roaring back. Arians really needs to step it up and be consistent from half 1 to half 2.

Mike Wallace had a long TD catch and dropped another. He looks like a real catch in the 3rd round. Ben’s favorite “sizzling trio” of Ward, Holmes and Miller had 16 catches between them. Holmes showed some great down field blocking on a big 27 yard run by the Rocket. Limas Sweed also was his consistent self dropping what would have been a first down from Big Ben on the first series. It would have been a good catch had he made it and he thankfully didn’t see another pass his way the rest of the way.

Looking forward to scoring a ticket or two and making my way from Cali to Mecca next weekend for the game against the Browns. Figuring on another root canal without Novocain. Steelers 3 Browns 2. Here We Go!!
 

After about four and a half games worth of football to see an interception. Really, although the fourth quarter collapses, the disappearance of Lamar Woodley, the dropped TD’s, the questions surrounding the offensive line, Reed’s missed field goals and (shockingly!) Bruce Arians’ mental lapses have gotten the brunt of the blame for a less-than-inspiring stretch of football to begin the 2009 season, the bewildering lack of turnovers created by the defense has been relatively ignored. As productive as the offense has been at generating yards, if it had a short field once in a while, it could be devastating.

Oh, and I’m not on board yet, but I’m preparing to have my ticket to the Official Mendenhall Bandwagon punched. Bigger than FWP? Check. Better vision than FWP? Check. Better receiver than FWP? Check. Tougher to tackle than FWP? Check.

Oh, and I figure Limas Sweed has all of this week to make a play before spending the rest of the season as this year’s Notable Offensive Player on the Sidelines in a Hoodie Duce Staley Award Winner.

We are a step up from .500 that’s average.
4th qtr meltdowns (Harrison’s sack attack aside), bad play calling on offense, and a half-assed attempt.
What I see missing is passion.
The “functions” are all there…mostly. Sometimes a mental error happens, but it shouldn’t kill us. The problem is that last year, they played every single second like it was the last…this year…they mess around and all the sudden have to make big things happen to secure the win (or often can’t and we lose).
It’s week 5. Weeks 1,2, and 3 I felt like I could give them a break…but it’s week 5. There are big teams coming up….and none will be easy.
Gotta get some passion in this game…foreal foreal.

Writing on phone. So excuse my poor form. Couple of thoughts.

Look at the coverage in the postgazette. Many on the d are saying that we haven’t been blitzing in the 4th. What is the common denominator in our 6 consecutive 4th quarter meltdowns. In all of the we’ve been up relatively big onthe 3rd (minus tenesse). It seems that our bend but don’t break d has been breaking in the 4th. The question is why?

Possible culprits.

The obvious is Troy. I have no doubt he will help when back. But not enough to pin the whole mess on him.

Missing Mcfadden. When we lost McFadden we all wondered if Gay could step up. It seeme he has. Where we really miss bmac is in the dime and nickel where essentially he has been replaced by Ratliff, who looks downright lousy so far.

Age? Long 4th qrtr drives have made us look slow and tired. Consideing that we have townshend, keisel, smith, farrior and Carter, all
 on the field maybe it’s cause we are.

More in a bit must let thumbs rest.

I watched the Bengals-Ravens game and neither team was very impressive. Actually, the Bengals almost blew the game with some horrible tackling on the Ravens’ last TD. Palmer threw another pick-6 and was only impressive on the winning drive. Flacco also was mediocre throughout the game: he missed a sure TD in the second half by overthrowing a wide-open receiver.

It’s the same old story: play to your opponent’s level every week. I guess that’s the way the NFL wants it, but it doesn’t mean we have to like it. The Bengals current record is pretty misleading. They could just as easily be 0-5. And Logan is mediocre? What were you expecting: a couple of TD returns? He looked pretty good from what I saw.

I’m not advocating visiting other team’s boards and posting inflammatory, repetitive, uninspired, juvenile gibberish, but if you do, kindly have the good sense to at least spell the home city or state of that team correctly.

they play cleveland, detroit, kanasa city and oakland.
that gives them 8 wins
between the texans, bears, chargers and jets, (and steelers/ravens) they could be 2-4.
That would give them 10 wins.

then again, I haven’t watched any of their games this year, I don’t know if they simply are an average team, playing division games close or if their defense is finally good and benson figured out how to play to his potential.

Seems like he gets beat a lot. I guess at this point they figure he’s better than both our rookie corners. Wish the kids saw the field more and gained experience, though…