A look back on 2009

I know the 2009 season isn't over quite yet and that there's still a small chance that we can still make the wild card, but I wanted to just look back and reflect on our season so far.

Well I remember back in August before the season even started. I was eager for this season coming up after coming off an amazing super bowl victory and adding some players in the draft that I felt would be able to contribute to our team. I would look through numerous sports magazines and their predictions for the upcoming season and I gotta admit, after looking at the 2009 schedule, I thought to myself, "wow here's an opportunity to get a perfect 16-0 season or at least a 14 win season." Boy was I wrong.

Our season started in Pittsburgh against a team that many Steelers fans and players hated, the Titans for their notorious towel stomping after they stomped us in a 2008 matchup. Well we looked like the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers in that game. Solid defense, no running game, and a comeback offense led by Ben and we were able to get the OT victory. However what we got out of that game was an injured polamalu and frankly, i'd rather have lost that game and still keep polamalu, then lose him for the next few games.

We go on a downhill slide to 1-2 after our defense can hold fourth quarter leads. Honestly if Sweed catches that td in the endzone, I believe we would've had most of the momentum to win against the bengals, but we looked bad against the bears and now look at them...they have like 4 or 5 wins? It's sad. 

We go on an amazing five game win streak in a stretch that includes a chargers team that almost caught up to us after a 28-0 pounding through the first three quarters and a narrow victory against the lions due to three straight sacks by our defense. We got Polamalu back for the Vikings and Broncos game and boy, this man makes a difference on our defense. I don't recall him making any standout plays against the Vikings, but I would put a million dollars on the fact that if troy didn't play that game and carter got the start, we would be 5-8 right now. I feel that the prescence of Troy just lifts our defense and helps them play better and it also causes quarterbacks to hesitate just for a half a second longer which usually means a sack for our defense. if you take away 7 points for the kickoff return, we only allowed the high powered vikings to score 10 points and the touchdown from peterson came on fourth down after we already stopped them multiple times. Then the broncos game was a game that I loved. At first their corners were destroying our wide receivers and that was the first game ty law played for the broncos, but our defense and offense came back together in the second half and mendenhall had a monster game averaging i believe 7 yards a carry and polamalu made two spectacular back to back plays. Guess what people? The last time our defense got an INT? It was against the Broncos when Troy played...

I had all the confidence in the world and experts had the steelers as high as 3 on their power rankings behind the perfect colts and saints. Going against the bengals the following week, i felt that we could dominate because we were 5-0 with mendenhall in the lineup at that point and we had a healthy troy back to help boost our defensive effort. what happens next? troy gets hurt on the first series. now i'm not sure if troy would've made that big of a difference in that ball game because our offense struggled that day, but i bet we could've gotten better field position cuz our defense probably would've stopped the bengals offense a little more. so I was alright with 6-3. It's not that bad of a record.

Then the worst begins to happen. We allow an opening kickoff to be returned for a td and our defense and offense falls apart after a 17-7 lead at halftime and a huge run after the catch by chris chambers and bad effort by our defense to stop him, and now we're sitting at 6-4 after losing to the lowly chiefs. At this point i was fuming because we played horrible against a team that was supposed to be our bounce back game. And of course not only did we get this loss, but we also lost ben for our next game against our rivals, the ravens. 

Dennis Dixon put out his best effort throwing for a touchdown and running one in, but his late INT costs us big time. And of course our corners couldn't do anything to stop the ravens receivers.

Mike Tomlin gave everyone a speech about unleasing hell in december and i must say that I love mike tomlin. His speeches motivate me as a fan and bring me optimism, but obviously the same effect doesn't go to his players because we fell to the lowly raiders after our offense failed to do much in the red zone because of a turnover on downs on 4th and inches and a horrible throw by ben got picked off in the end zone. Yet again our corners failed to produce any turnovers let alone stop the raiders offense that failed to score 21 points in a game all year. Yet, we let them have 21 in the fourth quarter alone. Unacceptable.

Of course as a steelers fan, I'm getting heat from all my peers talking about how bad the steelers are blah blah blah. So i was hoping that Mike Tomlin's "changes in the lineup" would vault us over this slump and over the lowly browns. I saw no changes except for a little more playing time for joe burnett however our pass defense wasn't what failed us last night. It was our punt return team and our rush defense which tends to be the most consistent part of our defense. We allowed cribbs to get over 80 yards rushing against us on only 8 attempts and he's a wide receiver! James Farrior looks like he's lost it this season and Timmons still needs more playing time to get the hang of being a starting inside linebacker in the nfl. Ike taylor? I dom't want to even talk about him.

Yes, I know this is a pretty critical shot at the steelers, but there have been some upsides to this season.

Ben's qb rating has greatly improved from last season although it hasn't equaled wins this year.

Mendenhall has been pretty consistent and he runs hard on every run which i like to see out of a young player in the nfl. I think if we can get better run blocking, he could be in the top 5 in terms of rushing yards.

Mike Wallace was a great pickup for us and we got him in the third round! his speed is amazing and you rarely see him drop a pass.

Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes haven't really lost a step since last season and Heath Miller is having a career year for the steelers.

However with a 6-7 record, there are obviously some cons.

Ike Taylor and William Gay have both shown that they aren't that great at their positions without polamalu cleaning up their mistakes. Neither of them have an INT this year and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't get one by the end of the year.

We really are dependent on Troy and Aaron on being able to play. Just like the 2007 season, we fell apart at the end without the two and lost in the first round of playoffs.

Our offense is inconsistent again and without the stout defense we had last year, we can't win that many games.

But although we're on the ouside looking in at the playoffs, I'll still hold my head up high and hope to end the season on a strong note and ruin the playoff chances for the ravens :) Our players aren't playing for a playoff spot anymore, but are now playing to represent the black and gold that they wear every sunday in front of millions and I hope we can bounce back next year and have a successful year.

Any thoughts on our 2009 season? I'd like to hear them.

Let's go Steelers.