Steelers Vs. Texans: 10 Story Lines That Aren't Being Discussed

• Curtis Brown looks good. I noticed him on ST too. As stated a couple weeks back the Steelers need to get him on the field as soon as he learns something about the defense. Gay doesn’t cut it.
• Out the window with best athlete available. The Steelers need a big Guard and a CB that can cover. The offensive line blocks no one. Ben will be lucky to see week 16.
• The O line woes could be why Mendenhall has had issues getting untracked. Of course Redman and Mewelde look pretty good. Too much dancing Rashard! Are you auditioning for Dancing WIth The Stars?
• Strange how al Qaida has asked the Iranian President to quit with the 9/11 hoax stuff because they know they did it and they want the credit. Soon only Mendenhall will believe the USA mass murders its own. At least Mendy didn’t fumble.
• Pouncey may be struggling with the sophomore jinx. Also he is probably struggling to block 4 people on every play because he is getting no help. The O line blocks no one. Still…keep Gilbert in the line up and let him develop. Agree with MB.
• How many times did Ziggy and Woodley whiff on runners getting to the outside? These two showed very little speed or tackling instincts yesterday. A Smith played a decent game IMO and made a couple big 3rd down plays. That said, it’s time to see Hood & Heyward and let them develop.
• Besides the O line the Steelers have MAJOR ISSUES with their field goal kicker. He isn’t any good. He will cost them a game or two unless the FO finds a real kicker. As stated previously, I had no isse cutting Reed if he was detrimental to the team. But they had a entire off season to find a kicker…and didn’t. Is David Trout around Pittsburgh anywhere?
• The Texans will make the playoffs in 2011. So will the Ravens. The score should have been 35-10 yesterday. Debacle. It’s a long season and the Steelers are 2-2. Many issues but the playoffs are not out of the question.

I will be pretty glad to see Trai Essex never play LT ever again. I thought going into the game there was no way he could be any worse than Scott. Boy was I wrong.

I think Foster played the best of the interior guys. I thought I saw some nice blocks later in the game when our running lanes started to open up.

He’s too slow to cover TE’s, and he is much too easily blocked to be a factor in run stoppage. Foote isn’t much better.

Why don’t they play Troy near the line sooner? He is very disruptive in that role but he doesn’t play there until we need to come back in the 4th quarter and shut down their offense.

Throughout the entire game I kept yelling at my tv screen for short quick passes. Those will basically take the place of our run since we don’t really have the capability to consistently run the ball. That said, I know Mendenhall went down with a hamstring injury, but I think Redman looked good, hitting the holes and getting north to south.

I completely agree with not starting Essex at LT, nouf said.

I don’t know what our future holds but I try to remain positive because there is a lot of football to be played

I remember that play, I kept thinking check it down check it down you can’t hold the ball that long.

I think the offensive line and BB exacerbate each other instead of playing to our strengths. O-line is not good but BB holds the ball too long in certain instances. But I guess that is who Ben is. You would think that the FO would make a bigger commitment to finding players that can protect him and his style of play.

i’m annoyed as hell with that loss.

however, i needed to first write that the pouncey late hit was not a penalty at all!

first, the penalty was a dead ball call, meaning the problem was that the ref’s decided the play was over when pouncey made a block. i thought the flag was for a block in the back somehow, but when they declare it a dead ball foul, the insinuation is that it’s a legal hit, but just late.

second, as tomlin has said many times, tell me when was the last time you heard a whistle to blow a play dead? reviewing that play, maybe the audio wasn’t up, but i sure didn’t hear a whistle on that play at all, let alone before pouncey’s hit.

third, and last, when pouncey made his block, mewelde wasn’t even on the ground yet!

maddening!

But I truly believe that if we can get some good play out of our OL, this season could still end with a trip to the playoffs. All of our final 7 games are winnable, and at least two of the next 5 should be wins (Ari and Jac). Wins against Ari and Jac and 6 of our final 7 puts us at 10-6 (likely in the playoffs this year with the Jets struggling and no strong teams in AFCW/S).

yes, the D had some issues, but 17 points to this team is an excellent job, and arians with all the weapons he has ought to be able to get more than 17 points against a crappy defense.

the texans (can’t call them the texain’ts after that loss) managed 10 pts in the 1st half.
and here are their second half stats:

 - total first downs: 3
 - 3rd down conversions: 1 for 5 (20%)
 - total net yards: 102 (but 72 yards came on two consecutive bad plays)

troy blew a couple of plays, but he came up huge in the 4th after the foster TD run to keep game within pts.

PFF gave Gilbert the only positive ranking for the game yesterday. He gave up 2 sacks and 1 pressure, but was a stud in run blocking.

Not surprisingly, Trai Essex and Kemo were the worst.

the play when deebo got hurt, many ridiculous things on that play:

first, is that legal for a lineman to helmet-to-helmet hit a linebacker? i’m not whining for deebo, but that seemed a little ridiculously blatant.

second, casey caught that ball and stupidly decided to try to leap over troy… haha! he got hammered by two other steelers as he came down.

third, he fumbled that ball. if there were more cameras (like if this were a sunday night game), they would have reviewed the crap out of that. with deebo’s injury, i figured when we came back from commercial, tomlin was going to review that.

on replays, you can clearly see the receiver’s pink gloves, and you see them move off the ball. anyone know who is the steeler’s “gameday” coach ala tressel for the colts?

I got lucky yesterday with my Sirius radio having the play-by-play for the game while cleaning the garage. Heck I even cracked open a few cold ones and all I could gather from yesterdays loss was it seemed like
A) the penalty on Pouncey was a momentum killer
and
B) the Texans took advantage of our O+line deficiencies as it sounded like a jailbreak most of the time.

We need some time to gel but 7’s health should be priority. I know it is something the FO looks at in keeping their franchise QB upright, but IMO I’d rather have Ben line up 5-wide and win with short passing a la brady. Oh yeah- BB isn’t a pocket passer and Brady is. It also reminds me of the Tommy-gun offense we had back then.

I like to add a few, if I may. Just observations with no real support or backing. Apologies if I’ve repeated something, but everybody is frustrated with the same problems.

1. I don’t think the O line played better after the half just because they got chewed out. I think there is something behind the scenes with Mendy and the O line. They knew Redman and Moore were going to get the call, and stepped up. There is a possibility of conflict between the outspoken Mendy and the O line – he never really takes full blame, only mentioning that it’s a group effort, from the coaches on down etc, etc. He’s starting to sound like fast willie. I dunno, just sayin’

2. I think the idea this year was to shore up the secondary play, which they’ve done, only to have the run defense suffer. I think it’s a scheme thing, and below average push off the ball. The D – line is being shoved every which way.

3. I think Ben is playing poorly, and Bruce A is calling for plays that take too long to develop. Honestly, we all try to defend him, but BR isn’t playing smart football, from reads to throws to trying to be superman. He’s ALSO in control of his health. Get rid of the ball, or go down like brady does.

4. The ravens d looks scary – like the steelers used to look. They are all over the place, have speed and strength (tough machups for everybody) and are coached very well. Right now only two players are there – Harrison and Troy. Timmons and Hampton are getting there, and Ike is a blanket. Good news for the rest of the secondary as lewis and others played well enough to limit the pass.

5. I fear there is conflict between the offense and defense. I watched some of the post game interviews, and people know who didn’t cover their assignments. Harrison was pissed, and mentioned something about one player missing a block or tackle and the rest of the “squad” suffers. I was just reading between the lines, so to speak.

Lastly 6. Isn’t the middle line backer like the qb but for defense? I think Farrior is there because he knows the protections and schemes, and can call out defensive alignments, but is just too damn slow and weak. Same with foote. They can’t keep up. The ravens exposed that in game 1. Who else would fill that spot? Anybody care to comment on this?

next three weeks against Tennessee, Jacksonville and Arizona.

I think we’ll see where the Steelers are in these games. If they can get three wins, then maybe the Steelers could still hope to earn a wildcard spot.

If the Steelers can balance the ship in these games, suffer through a couple weeks against NE and BALT, then they have the ability to finish well and see how the playoff rankings shake out. I could still see 11-5.

Is it not clear that the ball needs to come out of Bens hands a bit quicker? So much of this game is about adaptability. We have more than enough talent on offense to get into a quick passing attack approach and yet it doesn’t happen.

I think Ben calls the shots on offense and let’s face it, I don’t think he’s spending to much time looking at tape. I don’t think Ben is that smart anyway. This is a guy who has incredible naturally ability and he’s got the rings to go with it.

This is where he can use a coach and BA fails here big time but he let’s Ben run the show because Ben keeps this man employed. Tomlin lets is go on obviously.

With the O-Line being as bad as it is he needs to be in the shot-gun about 75% of the time and OH! You can run out of this formation too!!

Wallace, Brown,Sanders and Heath should be seeing balls co me their way in a short to intermediate way.

I saw at least 2 fantastic back shoulder throws to A Brown yesterday. This has to happen a lot more and yet we see the same nonsense out of this group.

Not adjusting to circumstances is a failure of leadership. Right now it’s also a failed marriage between coach and qb.

If Smith doesn’t play next week like I think will be likely and Keisel isn’t ready yet (is he expected to be back this week?) Do the Steelers make Cam Heyward the starting DE opposite of Hood or do they play McLendon? Do the Steelers activate Corbin Bryant or Miguel Chavis?

I’m glad someone was watching Curtis Brown and it’s good to know that we’ve got such a promising kid on the bench. But I’m not sure that we can read too much into the performances of Pouncey, Kemo and Foster. When things start to fall apart on the OL, it’s a bit like a machine that’s missing some key parts. I think if we can get the most pressing OL positions under control, the other guys’ play will improve as well.

By the way, did you see how the Jets’ OL fell completely apart last night against the Ravens just because they lost their starting center Mangold? Even one bad part can screw up the machine.

What the hell is up with Mendenhall? I know the OL is struggling, but he still doesn’t look the same. God and Memo looked better yesterday behind the same line.

I would say that the Texans would have a higher ceiling. Better Offense, younger Defense. No Peyton Manning. So how could you justify saying the Steelers have a higher ceiling? If anything the Steelers might have already reached the peak, and on the way down.