It’s a big night game, time to break out the old school black and gold jerseys..and they did not disappoint…is this the new Rashard Mendenhall? Stay tuned! The Silverback was turned loose and got two sacks and a fumble….order has been restored this week…now keep the momentum going.

nice to see Tone catching passes. if I recall, he had 5 passes come his way and he caught 4, with 1 an errant throw. stark contrast to the previous 2 games when he had the “hands of Ike” bug.
- Ben is on pace for more than 4700 yds passing
- nice to see Carey Davis’ game hasn’t changed

I agree, Blitz, that the balance in the passing game was really impressive. Ben has some weapons, and he does not discriminate! I loved the command he showed all night. Recognizing blitzes and changing protections, finding his third and sometimes fourth option, moving deftly about the pocket as he does. He held on to the ball too long a few times but we’ve grown to live with that. All in all he was truly THE MAN IN CHARGE.

That said, it’s a lot easier to be THE MAN IN CHARGE when the o-line performs as well as it did. What a pleasure to watch Ben cooly go through his progressioon reads and Mendenhall rip through holes without the OL scrambling to block people like it’s some sort of Chinese fire drill. To echo Blitz, if the OL continues to grow together, this will be a scary, scary offense!

Last thought: Bruce Arians, I apologize for all of the times I ripped you on this site (and to my friends, my students, my dog, the dude at the toll booth, the security guard at the mall). You had an A+ evening. Well done, sir…

I told you guys Willie Colon was good. That’s 3 games in a row where he has man-handled the Chargers defensive line.

Where’s SteelGuy? He loves Willie!

"I’m pissed I dropped those 2 I was trying 2 run b4 I caught them"

Text from Hines last night to Michael Silver after the game. You gotta love that he demands perfection from himself and is disappointed when he does not achieve it.

My points from the game:

1. Game ball for me goes to Kemo. He was insanely good tonight. On each one of Mendenhall’s “big” runs you could see Kemo right in the thick of things making a huge block. In fact, as Blitz said, the entire O-Line was amazing. As Blitz said last night, it is much easier to fix problems with ST than it is bad play at your O Line. If we can move the ball like this all year, teams should be very worried.
2. Rashard Mendenhall looked great tonight, he definitely should take his O Line out to dinner though. They made big holes and he made SD pay. Also, Mendy looked great tonight AFTER initial contact. He had a couple “bounce offs” and fought for extra yards the entire night. However, he did have 1 or 2 plays that made him look like a “rookie”. I’m sure Tomlin will address these. Anyway, most pertinent stat 5.7 yards per carry.
3. The defense was great. Rivers really only scored 2 drives against the Pitt D IMO. The last one has to be blamed on Mundy. The D essentially had to come on the field directly after a previous drive from SD, and were clearly still tired. 28 points but they only gave up 251 yards, and ONLY 16 of those on the ground (silly).
4. Third down conversions. The Steelers went 8-12 (66%) and held SD to 3/9 (33%). The D did step up when it was necessary.
5. Finally sacks and a turnover. Debo returned to his Def. MVP form last night with 5 tackles, 2 sacks, and a forced fumble. He sealed the game with his patent sack for a fumble at the end of the game.
6. Two Minute Defense. It stepped up last night. Remember the last couple of games where we gave up lots of points (game losing FGs) in the final two minutes of either half? Not last night. We held them to 24 yards on two drives in 2min drills. Good stuff.

Great win, time to get ready for Detroit. We cannot take them lightly, they have some good players.

Great post, but it’s disappointing you buy into the whole “Ben held the ball too long” on last night’s sacks. Just watch the overhead camera shot from behind the line of scrimmage. On both occassions there was no one open and he wisely ate the ball instead of trying to do too much.

Why is it when a Manning brother or Brady type take a sack because no one is open, it’s called a “coverage sack”, but when Roethlisberger does it he “holds the ball too long”?

That’s such a media driven misconception. Drives me insane.

Because Brady and Manning can’t make plays with their feet and keep plays alive.

Medenhall looked AWESOME. Although he needs to lean to keep that ball a bit closer to his body when he is in th eopen field. May cost him in the future…. Kemo: Alan who? the one play when he pulled left, he blocked TWO Chargers. Nice. Wallace also had an excellent game that no one mentioned…

Mendy played very well. I was certainly impressed…but he did have a few gaffs, such as the one time the holes closed up and he started running backwards. He should have just dropped right there rather than trying to make something from nothing. He wound up getting dropped for a loss. It was nice to see Davis back in there too.

AND DID you guys see Redman dressed? I saw him in one shot of the bench. I still have hope for him.

FWP…I dunno. I agree they’re probably give him another shot at starting, but I suspect he’ll be splitting time with Mendy more than before.

QB looked great. Running game was great. O-line was amazing. Receivers and TEs looked great too…especially Wallace. I think his position is cemented and I predict Sweed will be on the unemployment line this tie next year, or playing for the Browns. One more thing on Miller…he gets a by from me for losing that ball. He has taken shots in the past that would have sent normal humans to the hospital and he still managed to hold onto the ball.

Defense…what’s going on!? I like Troy tremendously, but he’s not the team. The D-line did it’s job, but Rivers just killed us with the passing. Dick, please tell us everything is okay!!!

STs….I blame the coaches for the onside kick fiasco. They should have seen it coming. Hell, I’m sitting at home and I saw it coming. Logan…bud, you’re doing a great job, but you don’t have to try to return every punt for 100yds. Be smart.

1. The molestation of S. Logan for the “fumble”
2. Mundy’s goof on the onsides.

And that game is 45 to 14.

Just a couple of errors kept it from being a Blowout. If they continue to improve, they may just rise to my already lofty expectations for this season. Last night they played like I believed they could. Go Steelers!

Offense had it’s foot on the gas the whole time and scores 38 points!. Mendenhall CAN play! O-line looked fantastic! Reed nailed his 46 yarder right down the middle!

What really impressed me, was the ability of the offense, to carry the defense!

Congratulations to all, really great game!

They are folding late in games and it is now a trend. Yeah, when we had Troy we stopped the Titans but who hasn’t stopped them this year? We HAVE to find a consistent pass rush from somebody.

I’m starting to think that extra weight that Woodley put on is really affecting his ability to turn the corner. He has been invisible all season.

MENDENHALL; First off, mega congratulations to Rashard Mendenhall who finally showed why is was a #1 draft pick in 2008 and why he may be the replacement at RB if Fast Willie Parker should exit after this year for a bigger pay day. From the first play, Mendenhall ran down hill with authority and with a violent running style that reminded some old timers of a young Franco Harris.

ARIANS; In the end the game came down to Big Ben, Rocket Rashard and the excellent coaching of Mike Tomlin and a great game plan (you read it right) by Bruce Arians. The Steelers possessed the football over 40 minutes of a 60 minute game. Quite an impressive game plan and offensive performance.

OL; All night the Steelers O line dominated. Chris Kemoeatu had perhaps the best game of his career and Max Starks pancaked at least 3 Chargers during the game. Even back up Doug Legursky got into the act with a crushing block leading Mendenhall into the end zone on a short TD run. Carey Davis return was glorious for the offense. It was good to see a FB in the line up leading the way for Mendenhall. The FB was a big reason the Steelers were able to run the ball. Davis even fell on a fumble in the end zone for an apparent TD that was whistled back. Would have been the biggest play of his Steelers career that almost ended in August.

QUESTIONS; 1) What was Farrior so mad about? He made sure to get in V Jax face after the game and they had to be separated. 2) Didn’t the ST coach warn the team to look for the on side? Where was the ST coach last week to warn about the fake punt? While the ST is playing better physically than in the past, there are mental mistakes being made that will cost this team down the road. 50% of the game is mental. 3) Why is the defense getting blistered in the 4th quarter of games. Are they going to the prevent and getting less aggressive with a lead? LeBeau needs to get that fixed ASAP.

I feel icing the kicker in general is overrated. The guy is constantly called upon to come in cold, and is already on the sidelines during important moments, mentally icing himself.
I also think when a coach gets cute and calls it so late that the kick happens, that probably helps the kicker. It’s like a practice swing, plus he gets a feel of distance and wind.

For super long kicks, I’d almost like to see a ballsy coach call a timeout on his own kicker right at the snap. That way the kicker gets a sample kick in, and if it really has no chance (like that one oakland tried a couple years back), the team can decide not to even try the field goal.

NFL would probably have to change the rulebook.

IMO, it looks like allowing those late TDs may be the result of a defense not familiar with a prevent D. And let me say that I agree that you shouldn’t play prevent very often (i.e., when you are trying to hold a 1 or even 2 score lead). But prevent D does have its place, and that place is when you are up by 21 and there is 12 min left (like last night).

However, the defense just looks like it is not good at forcing teams to take time off the clock…they often leave guys totally wide open and take bad angles once the guy has the ball. When you are playing prevent, you are basically conceding a TD, but you want a team to take more than 3 plays to get it. If they had forced SD to take 4-5 min. on those TD drives instead of 90 seconds (which is not too much to ask), then they wouldn’t have had to put together that last drive to kill the clock. Similar problems when Tenn. scored that TD right before the half in Game 1 in like 90 seconds.

I submit that the D is not used to playing that way and is back on its heels when it’s not attacking. Same way a team that is normally conservative but is forced to blitz misses defensive assignments and gives up big plays in the secondary. I think we have the reverse of that disease. They blitz so much they don’t know how not to.

This could make even more sense when you realize that the blitzes are so complicated that they probably eat up a lot of practice time. And the coaches may assume that playing prevent is easy and self explanitory. Yet, there is more of an art to it.

All in all, this is an easier problem to correct than teaching a team that is good at prevent D to be as successful at attacking as the Steelers. So I like our chances to figure this problem out.

The OL looked great against a severely injury-depleted Charger front 7. Lets see them string 3-4 games together against other levels of competition.

The problems with the D in the 4th Quarter will not be magically fixed when Polamalu returns. The one thing all three opponents (Chicago, Cincinnati, San Diego) have in common — an average QB that was able to take advantage of the Steeler D. This appears to be an issue of not making the proper adjustments to fit the specific situation.

Someone who has better analytical skills than me should chime in, but:

- The D blitzed and pressured but was not able to stop the Charger’s No-Huddle offense in the 4th Q. The Chargers have excellent receivers and an okay O-line.

- In the Chicago and Cincinnati games, as I recall the D was putting pressure on Cutler or Palmer, and was sitting back in coverage. I cannot remember whether or not Chi. or Cin. used the ‘no huddle’ during their comebacks, like SD did. The Bears’ and Bengals’ receivers should scare no one and their lines are suspect-to-okay.

I could be reading this wrong, but maybe the strategies should have been reversed.
—

In our post season game against SD:
Parker averaged 5.4 y/c for 146 total and 2 TDs.
We kept the SD feature RB (Sproles) to 15 yards.

Last night:
Mendy averaged 5.6 y/c for 165 total and 2 TDs.
We kept the SD feature RB (Tomlinson) to 15 yards.

- how ike is getting some mentions……………..hes having a solid season and nearly caught an INT (if it weren’t for a great defensive play by Jackson) which, when considering who it is, is about as good as an actual Int.

- Mendenhall, yes we are all impressed, but he better play consistent. He looked almost super human and I don’t expect that output every game but pretty much every other game hes played in has been sub-par…….he keeps this up and hes pro bowl……….o yea, and I;ve watched his hard core block on that Chargers blizter several times, makes me go “HOLY SHIT!”

- FWP may have just lost his starting role…..and like most people here (assuming Mendy keeps it up) I wish Willie accepts a back up role. He probably would have gotten 100+ tonight too, but it wouldn’t have been as pretty.

- I’m extremely glad that we have Ben as our QB, even if he does hold the ball too long.

- Oline, i can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said……….but I never thought I’d be praising Willie Colon…..

I can’t think of anything else to say right now………….except that our offense needs to wear pink more often……

The offense seemed to finally put an entire game together, and, unlike last week, scored TDs instead of FGs while they dominated in the first half. Again, unlike last week, when they got the ball back with about 5 minutes left or so, they drove down the field, ate up the clock, and put the game away.

The defense was absolutely dominating in the first half, but gave up two easy drives in the 4th quarter. Like others, I wonder if the defense is getting old, or if conditioning is an issue. But, then, I seem to remember that it was like this some last year, too. In several games last year, the defense would just be like a brick wall for most of the game. The opposing offense couldn’t do a thing. But, then, there would be one or two drives where the other team drove down the field quickly and scored a TD or FG. So, maybe it’s not so different than it was last year. It’s just that it’s happened against teams that we expected to beat and it allowed those teams to win.

Anyway, as I wrote here before the season, I thought that the OL would be better this year. Indeed, based on the levels of defenses that they faced last year, I thought they were better last year than the previous year. But, let’s not get too carried away, thinking that this OL is suddenly the Cowboys of the early 90s. This was against a defense that has struggled to stop the run, and had at least two significant injuries to their front 7. Still, it was really good to see them put the game away when it was needed.

Finally, it wasn’t just the defense, as Blitz said, that let the Chargers back into the game. Giving up a fumble return for TD on STs is a killer, and not covering up that onside kick just gave them a short field right after scoring. It still seems that there are some mental concerns with the team as a whole. As others have said, it may partly be all of the younger players that are in there that has thrown off the chemistry somewhat. Still, Detroit’s defense should be another good opponent to help iron out those issues.

A couple of thoughts

- Been mentioned by others, but it needs repeating. This was a beat up SD defense, missing their star nose-tackle, and Merriman was playing hurt. What’s more, we’ve always been able to run against SD. It’s a good start for our OL/Rashard, but too early to celebrate the return of a run game.

-Which brings me to my next point. When you lose things look worse than they are. When you win they look better than they are. The next two weeks are going to make us look like a good football team. How will we look when we play Baltimore?

- Rashard slept in the warehouse with Deebo and responded. Can we expect Sweed to do the same? I barely saw McDonald on the field. He didn’t drop anything nor did he catch anything. He certainly didn’t stretch a thin SD defense. I still think we will see a resurrection of Limas. We can’t afford for this guy not to get a shot.

- Speaking of Rashard – 29 carries. On the one hand I love it. It’s great to that he finally got to carry the ball, and silence the strange and insane Ron Cook cult of Isaac Redman. On the other hand what’s with Tomlin and running the wheels off? So many other teams use two or three backs to pound an opponent into submission. We have the personnel, let’s use them.

- Also speaking of Rashard. Great blocking AND almost unmentioned is the fact that he looked good catching balls out of the backfield. If he can continue to do both with any regularity this offense can become scary good.
  
-Holmes – I hate to pick on him but we need to see more from this guy.

-Ward – I consider myself lucky to get to watch this guy play. HOF.

- 4th quarter meltdown – leaving aside the mental lapses (Mundy) and freak plays (Logan) the Steelers need to figure out what is happening in these fourth quarter situations. Troy will definitely help. Need to analyze the game tape more, but . Townsend and Ratliff both looked slow and shaky. Maybe time for Lewis and Burnett to see the field a bit?

- Logan – Are we about to see Logan get some screen passes and reverses? He made it on to the field during offense! We also know that Arians has borrowed some of Holmes wacky tabacky to help with play design – could we see more?
 
-Speaking of BA
- Reverse = nice – love that play.
- Legursky as full back = I heart BA
- Moore as QB = Hell yeah!

- Don’t worry about James Harrison – unless you are an opposing QB that is. James started the season hungry. But he will eat. Quietly he has 3 sacks and 3 FF on the season.

- Lamar Woodley – I am worried about him. Little pressure from the big man so far. Wonder why the slump after the monster playoff run? Is he seeing more attention? Quicker drops?

- D-Line rotation – not loving the pressure upfront from Kiesel and Smith. Ziggy hasn’t helped.

- Ben Roethlisberger is now officially a fantasy QB and I don’t just mean in Reno.

We’ve all talked about the benefits of having a stout running game, i.e. clock control, bad weather conditions and opening up the passing game, but I love how a confident offensive lines brings fourth down into the equation. Fourth down is 25 percent of your allowable plays. I don’t like automatically tossing 25 percent of your chances down the drain with an automatic punt. You must choose wisely, but fourth-down conversions do more than extend a drive. They rejuvenate the psyche of the entire team. Yesterday the Steelers and a week ago the Patriots used that 25 percent in their own territory. I sit behind the Steelers bench and I saw alot of energy after Ben got that sneak. Don’t know how much impact that had on the game, but I think the play call itself was a salute to the offensive line, and maybe helped it sustain their effectiveness as the game went on.

1. Using the back up center at FB – great call, he created a HUGE hole for AMENdenhall to run through. Love the creative thinking on short yardage situations

2. Yeah Mendy was good on the run, but anyone else notice the absolutely stellar job he did picking up the blitzes and protecting Ben? He LAID that one guy out and then turned to look for someone else to hit. Love the fact he is doing well on the little things too.

Good catch on that one Blitz