but I’ve been busy with school this past week…it seems like Parker is a part of the problem with our running game; he’s too “dancy” while Mendenhall and Moore seem to pick a hole/location on the line where a hole should be and hit it. I can’t remember a good run (maybe one) before Mendenhall busted his large run.

Throw the ball, thats how this team is built, our 0-line actually looks very nice in pass protection, but terrible in run blocking. We still run but if we need offense i say throw it up, Big Ben is great, and we have elite recievers

You pretty much summed up the failure that is Airans game plan. There’s absolutely no strategy to what he’s calling, hus no rythem can be established.

But it has to be difficult to get Rashard that ball on 3rd and 2 with 3:30 left in the fourth quarter. I don’t remember, but that lack of time left, sounds suspiciously like we were running the no-huddle. I can only remember Mewelde as a running back option in our no-huddle. And even if Rachard does get in the huddle, with our history of 3rd and short rushing conversions, whose nads would be swollen enough to call that play?

1. Tyrone Carter- He was beaten for both touchdown passes on inside slant routes because he doesn’t have anywhere the speed that Troy does, and Chicago took advantage of it.
2> Santanio Holmes- He had at least five passes clank off his hands today , including the possible touchdown reception at the end of the fourth quarter. Hines should have been more involved in the crucial passing plays today.
3. Jeff Reed- Not 1 but 2 misses today. He had the nerve to turn down the Steelers offer before the start of the season? That,s laughable now….

I thought that overall we mixed up run and pass quite well. The 3 and 2 in the 4 th was a gamble but it was a good looking play. Samtonio really should have caught it.

I thought Arians called a good game. We kept the bears guessing. I lay this one squarely on poor execution by the players including these costly mistakes that cost us big.

1. For the second week in a row Ben took a sack that took points of the board. I love the big guy but that is simply inexcusable. Also ad blitz pointed out he got greedy on the Wallace pass.

2. Santonio had the big drop as noted above but also dropped a good number of other
catchable balls.
 

3. Reed. 6 points.

Was really surprised to see him miss those two kicks for you guys. He is automatic usually. Guess it was the Chicago weather. But I can’t imagine it being THAT much worse than in Pittsburgh. Just not your day. Many more opportunities to come.

Blitz, you summed it up greatly, I also thought they should’ve run it there on 3rd and 2. The thing that stood out is that our usually clutch players, Reed & Holmes, failed. Bad day at the office, however, intra-conference loss hurts less than others.
Mr. Marlor, the rat-birds looked awfully good.

Saludos

I hate to say it, but I thought BA called a pretty good game – strictly pass-first early on with a few runs mixed in to keep the Bears D honest. we marched right down the field on a drive that took over 10 minutes off the clock!! The D forced two 3-and-outs. We were moving the ball well again, including two 12yd rips by FWP before Ben took the shot to Wallace.
Chicago made adjustments and started moving the ball with short passes (did anyone else notice that Gay was picked on the ENTIRE game?) but still couldn’t clear the 50.
The Steelers stayed in the no-huddle/shotgun as it started raining hard, but three incompletions to Tone later, and we’re punting to the Bear’s three. Cutler and Knox then eat most of rest of the half on a 97-yard drive, highlighted by 20 yards in penalties and the vicious hit on Olsen.
2nd half starts with two more incompletions to Tone and a 3-and-out, and the Bears follow suit. Steelers O still not in rhythm, but Pulverizer is keeping the Bears inside their 30 each time. Mendenhall leads the next drive to go up 7 with the longest ground burst so far this year. Steelers D keeps the Bears O from doing anything in the quarter.
The O start the 4th with a nice 6 min drive that ends in Sparky’s first miss. Cutler then shreads the D on a 70yd drive capped by the Knox TD. I can’t pin this score on any individual – just a real nice drive by Cutler, who spread the ball around, while eating over 8min. Ben marched the O right back down the field, in only 3min, just to see Sparky miss another one. The Bears catch a break on the Forte fumble, then pass the rest of the way for the Gould game winner. It didn’t help that they had over 3min of clock and started at their own 33, but I thought our D played a bit too conservative on the final drive.
In the end, the stats were close to even in almost every category (including ToP, penalties, 3rd down conv, yards), as I think most of us thought they would be.

lack of execution = loss to good team in their building

When Mike Wallace refused to fight for a first down on the sideline on that fateful last drive. He happily stepped out two yards short, rather than taking on the defensive back in front of him. I don’t know if he would have picked up the first down, but he didn’t even try to. Late in the 4th quarter you have to fight for that first down. If he would have, I suspect we would have won this game. I have to believe Tomlin is going to kill the rookie this week.

I was pissed he didn’t fight for the first and he stepped out. Although for some reason I thought that it was 3rd down on that play so I was REALLY mad. Then I saw it was 2nd down so that tempered it a little. But still, he needed to lower the head and stay the hell in bounds. Chalk that up to a rookie lack of awareness.

I gotta hang this one on skippy, but that man has won so many big ones for us I gotta cut him a break. It’s game 2 of a long season, but I hope we don’t have to look back at this game and see it was the difference in us winning the division. The Ravens look very tough this year. Just glad we won’t play them until Troy is back.

The Steelers have games every year that they should win, and don’t. We didn’t win 16 in the regular season last year either so lets be like Mike T. and put it in that tiny rear view mirror and concentrate on the Bengals. Who looked pretty good yeaterday as well. At least the Stains are a constant in the universe. LOL

should be an easy pick up. We didn’t have to run it up the middle, the stretch play was working to the ol’s right side. If we don’t make it, we’re still in field goal range and precious seconds have ticked off the clock. Yeah Tone was doing his Roberto Duran imitation “Hands of Stone” a couple of times.

But as Blitz rightly points out, the D is suffering without Troy, and “Big Play” Willie Gay is looking particularly weak in coverage. So far we’ve seen two teams dink and dunk their way around the D and the pass rush hasn’t been as effective as last year. I for one am worried about the weak spot in #22. The only consolation I can hope for is a healthy Troy and Lawrence Timmons. LT ought to be able to make the dinking and dunking harder, and Troy will do his thing all over the secondary.

I just can’t help but wonder how long it will take the D to return to form. Will we be worse than 6-2 at the Bye and have to play for our lives down the stretch?

I really think the Steelers (and any team for that matter) should play to what’s working.

The Steelers obviously can toss that ball around really well. Why not do that all the time, let teams get used to that that is what they do best….then that will eventually force teams to play the pass more, which will open up the run.

Teams use the run to open up the pass…so there is no reason the pass cant be used to open up the run.

This is the defending super bowl champion steelers…and they just need to tweak a couple things and stay strong till Troy gets back.

Well, I was watching this game through crappy peer to peer tv, but I still managed to form plenty of strong opinions.

1. The defense was about what I expected. We were without our best DB and we were going against a QB that can really move the ball. Not that we had anyone who could pick the ball off, but he was careful with the ball and very efficient. 17 points isn’t really that many, and neither is 275 yards. They had a good game plan and didn’t let our pressure get home.

2. Bruce Arians (or whoever is calling plays) may have improved as a playcaller this offseason. I believe this may have been the best called game I’ve seen since Whis left. Like usual, the offense stagnated after the first drive, but unlike numerous other games, I don’t feel the playcalling was largely to blame for it. We continued to throw the ball (including sometimes on first down!!) and we even got the running game going by using (gasp) man blocking. I felt the offense had a sense of urgency and purpose on each drive, which has always been one of my biggest issues with Arians. We have yet to go up against a defense that uses man coverage, which was our biggest issue last year, but for now I’ll give him a “B” (which, if you factor in his learning disability, should be an “A”).

3. Stat of the week, thanks to ESPN’s cool additional stats this year: Santonio Holmes – 5 receptions, 14 targets. Wow. That’s 9 incomplete passes, many of which were dropped. According to their stats, there were only 3 incomplete passes targeted at someone else and no other receiver missed more than one. I don’t know if it was all Holmes’ fault or if it was a combination of him and Ben, but the execution was very poor, and it cost us the game. Santonio Holmes, you are Arians for a day!!

4. Ultimately, we got a taste of our own medicine. We let a team we should be beating stay with us, suffered from a “home field advantage” that makes opposing kickers miss otherwise easy kicks, and through some poor time management allowed the other team to put together a clutch drive (even though it was one of the least impressive “game winning drives” I’ve seen) to finish the game. Hats off to the Bears. Nice victory.

5. While I’m very disappointed that we lost and that the Ravens are up a game on us, I’m encouraged about our prospects as a team. All our opponents aren’t going to bring in U2 to ruin Reed’s footing, Holmes isn’t going to be this awful all the time, Ben won’t have that many mediocre games, and Troy will return and make this defense great again. I would have been a lot more depressed if our offense was a disorganized mess like usual and we almost pulled off a last minute victory in the 2 minute offense. If our offensive playcalling really can be average or even an asset, we could beat people on both sides of the ball.

6. Next week is going to be big. Palmer has put up a lot of yards and points (for both teams), and without Troy, we’re not going to get many interceptions. If we do what we can do, we should be fine, but if our execution is sub-par again, the Bengals will be more than happy to send us to 1-2.

Chicago had no turnovers. They had a smart game plan on offense, using quick passes and screens to neutralize the Steelers blitz. Their defense, even missing Urlacher, made enough good plays to slow down the Steelers offense, at least after the first drive. Their special teams shut down Logan for the most part.

The Steelers, on the other hand, failed to adjust on defense, had problems in the red zone, dropped passes, and missed two field goals. Clearly a “B” game at best. As defending champions, we had better get used to the other team giving us their best shot. Right now, we are not taking it well.

Ben’s arm was hit as he threw the pass to Wallace. It was not necessarily a bad decision. Maybe he saw an opening. Wallace was behind his defender.

Defense played great against a very potent QB they only gave up 17 points. I will say it again and every week Coach Tomlin is blowing smoke about run concerns and is furious that he can’t run the ball. Championships are won and lost on 3rd and 2’s and if you can’t pound it between the tackles get used to tuff losses. Da Bears and the whole league know that on short yardage Ben is looking for dump offs and will continue blitzing and dropping guys to pick up the RB flaring out. You must be able to run to win PERIOD! Last year teams were still thinking we ran first so Moore was able to catch flares and pick up yards this year he may get a couple big plays but the D is gonna start swarming. I am very scared of the Ravens because they RUN the ball down your throat. Run game was looking good till they go short yardage. In regards to the O coordinator I think he is good but after the first 15 script plays he loses focus and wings it need a gameplan for the whole game coach not just the first 15 plays but hey he is a champ so its all good.Even with the many mistakes on O (drop balls etc. we still were the better team Reed you just choked this game twice go beat up another towel dispenser and forget about it! Go Steelers

FROM the actual stadium, I saw a few times when Ben aired it out that other people than who he actually threw to were open. There was one specifically and Blitz, I actually think it’s what you raised in your initial question about Wallace that Hines was wide open in the slot. The safety was actually BEHIND him, so it would have been about a 15 yard gain or so getting tagged once he caught the ball.
Whoever he actually did throw to, and I think it was Wallace had a defender or two right with him….it just surprised me because Hines is the vet AND he was open…but guess Ben didn’t see him….couldn’t tell what play was called but he threw it pretty quickly tho the Line had good protection and CHI wasn’t blitzing…

Anyway, I think there were some problems…across the board…but it’s week two, I’m sure MIke T gave them an earful…and you can kinda tell from the post-game press conference quotes that was the case.