Where Do the Steelers Go From Here?

But really, after they went up 29-7 the D returned to its old form (Sorta). It took a while, and it might’ve cost the game, but it returned that way, even when the Ravens were still trying to score. Factor in the 7 TO’s and us only losing by 28, and I agree, I feel pretty good too right now. Not great, but not like I was punched in the gut either

Sorry for the grief you received! Sounds like you handled it very well!!! It reminds me when I went to Kansas City to watch the Steelers play back when Tommy Gunn was our QB. We got beat that day and man were their fans excited about it and gave me huge amount of grief after the game was pretty much decided in their favor and after the game. Man you would have thought they just won the SB or something. Fans who I had heard were usually very nice and respectful to the opponents fans sure didn’t act like it that day.

My only answer to the Chiefs fan on my way out to my truck, was act like you done this before, oh thats right yall probably haven’t beaten us before. But trust me I wasn’t speaking up too much. It almost seemed dangerous walking out of the Stadium. I had my aged dad with me and I sure wasn’t wanting any trouble.

My point being just like the Chiefs fans that day, this was the Ravens SB and one of the biggest wins in the Franchise’s history. I have forgiven the Chiefs fans, in retrospect, it did mean a lot to em and I kinda understand. I respected the Ravens before this game. I am kinda down on em now. But HATE em…..nah

Now the Patsies, Bungles and Cowgirls………yeah HATE is not a strong enough word : )

I’m glad for the fights as well, and if the score had been reversed and the Ravens hadn’t started fighting I would have relegated them to Bengals status, you don’t just accept a beating like that.

I can’t put them up into hate category for me, but they have broken the arrogant “You can’t beat Ben with Flacco” feeling I’ve enjoyed heading into Ravens games, and even late in close ones. November 7th is going to be intense. The comments made about you can’t have a one-sided rivalry and the Ravens not being able to get by us to get to a Super Bowl; the Ravens didn’t take that lying down. Flacco’s attempts to defend himself in the press was funny, Sunday wasn’t.

The lingering concern I have for our next meeting is Vonta Leech. Their O-Line is better by virtue of players going back to more natural positions, but with a great blocking FB they have the tools to run on us. Blocking FB, one cut runner, check and check. They have some old nemesis of ours, athletic TE’s and a RB that is a dangerous receiving option. This team isn’t copying NE and GB, they are copying the old Titans and that SD Chargers team, only with a better defense.

What hurts, I mean really hurts, is that they just beat us in an old school Steelers beatdown. QB hearing footsteps and throwing picks, yep. Running at will, imposing your will on the defense, yep to that too. Watching Leech pound our LB’s and Ray Rice following will remind you of Jerome, only without the helpless DB’s getting crushed.

I don’t feel good about Nov. 7th. Maybe if the Ravens line shows it isn’t that great and their defense shows chinks I’ll feel better, but I’ve seen how the opponents big talk and plans for payback go when Lester/Whitman/Kreider come through the hole and blows up your run defense.

I don’t have any doubt that much of Sunday was on us, defense and offense. I also think this Ravens team might just have the tools to beat us in a close nasty game now. I also know that the next 7 games (6 for Baltimore) are almost nothing but warm up for Nov. 7th. That just became the biggest game on the schedule.

I’ve been predicting a 14-2 season for us since before the preseason based on our schedule. A friend of mine who’s a Ravens fan (friend is a strong word, but what the hell) and I disagreed on how this game would pan out – he was right. I was embarassed.

But I still think we go 14-2, and maybe 15-1 this year. Week 8, we’ll have our own little showdown with our nemesis, and we’ll be steamrolling and gaining steam through week 9 after something like this. As has been said by man people, the Steelers are a better team than we showed, and our schedule doesn’t bother me at all.

Insofar as other teams’ fans go, I learned a while back not to get too obnoxious and cocky (it’s fans like that that inspire “hatred” in a team and their fanbase). I still get ribbing from my friends about our losses and shortcomings, but only because they know my passion for my team, not because I’m an asshole all year long. I’d have to be a Dallas or Chicago fan to do that.

I was not around during the 70s, so I can’t compare my hate for the Ravens with any other rivalry in Steelers history. I do know that since the first moment of being a fan (I learned the beauty of football and the Steelers in 2004), I have loathed the Ravens to the highest degree. This game only confirmed that feeling.

That said though, I thoroughly disagree on the two point conversion even being a point of contention. We have discussed this to exhaustion in the fanposts, and I am convinced that it was in the Ravens’ best interest for that game and even the rest of the season to execute that way. With that one little play, they just showed the rest of the league what happens when you overload one side in an attempt to block a kick – which I am sure will give them a decided advantage in a future game decided by a point or two. Hated it while it happened, but realized upon reflection that it made perfect sense.

Off topic… and I’m not trying to stir anything up here. I just want to give a few observations as a Ravens fan.

I have to say that I’m disappointed with the way the Steelers players have acted after the game. It seems like they’ve been whining, taking jabs at the Ravens -which include implications that they were running up the score and even going so far as to say that the Ravens were playing dirty.

After the game, I heard Clark, Ward and Roethlisberger imply that the Ravens were running up the score supposedly to embarrass them, and just today, Casey Hampton was saying that the Ravens were blocking him illegally all game…

“They were doing [illegally chop blocking] a lot or trying to do it alot. At times, I got out of it. It’s kind of tough when you’re engaged with a guy and you’re not even worried about the guard and they come and just chop your legs out. That’s kind of tough. There’s nothing you can do about that.”

No penalties were called on the Ravens for any illegal chop blocks Sunday.

“They were doing it all day,‘’ said Farrior, the Steelers defensive captain. "That’s pretty bad."

I think it’s funny that Hampton would be talking like this since only a few days before the game he said…

“They talk a whole lot,” Hampton said. “They don’t like us. I think they don’t like us a lot more than we don’t like them. I think they have to talk themselves into it, kind of, know what I mean? Since I’ve been here, we’ve beat them a lot more than they beat us. They have to talk about it a whole lot.”

The irony is that the Ravens are often accused of being a whiny team… mostly due to the way the players acted after the 2007 Patriots game, but I honestly cannot remember them saying anything ‘whiny’ after a Steelers loss -ever. They usually own up and only show extreme frustration with themselves. I certainly have never heard the Ravens’ players or coaches disrespect the Steelers, either before or after a game, like the Steelers have done to the Ravens.

Frankly, the way the Steelers players have disrespected the Ravens this off-season was disgraceful and completely unprofessional. I’m sure many here will try to say that the Ravens have been just as disrespectful in the past… and I would ask those who believe that to provide me with quotes or examples of that.

I know that Suggs is outspoken with his hatred of the Steelers (the shirts and stuff), but he has never outright disrespected them like Woodley, Hampton, Farrior and others have done. The only other thing that I can think of is they sometimes talk about Hines Ward’s cheap shots, but the entire league complains about that… they even made a rule against it.

What I’m trying to say is that… for all the talk about the Ravens ‘talking’ and whining all the time, it seems to me that it’s been the Steelers that have been doing all the talking -before and after this game.

Help me out here guys. This is just my opinion as a Ravens fan, and I’m open to reason.

they talk about Hines’ blocks being dirty, well, wasn’t JJ’s block on Hines very similar to the way Hines’ blocks are? I know it was behind the LOS and it was legal, but didn’t he come from an area Hines was not expecting someone to come from? JJ laid into Hines good, we all saw him go airborne, and we say that was a good hit. What if that was Hines laying into Ray Ray, Suggs or Reed that way, would Ravens fans still think it was a good hit?

Yeah, I hate the Ravens. A whole room full of us Black and Gold fanatics chased another room full of Ravens fans out of a bar in Austin, TX. several years back when the Steelers, on the way to another Super Bowl, knocked the bogus birds out of the playoffs for the umpteenth time. We were chanting “NO more bird sh*t!” while they glumly walked out. That was fun. So Sunday we got our comeuppance, which always happens to every team eventually. But the Ravens are jealous thugs and yes, they did pull dirty, illegal blocks like Casey Hampton said afterwards, they did disrespect our guys and try to get the Steelers to fight, they did try to run up the score to embarrass us. So Nov. 7th, we’ll probably be a very different team from the one the Ravens played Sunday. And you can bet our hatred for the bogus birds of Baltmo will be at a fever pitch. After all, the Ravens are nothing more than ex-Cleveland punks who moved to Baltmo in disgrace. We beat the crap outta them when they were the “Mistake by the Lake.” We’ve beaten them consistently since they became “Gay by the Bay.” And now they’ve pissed ALL of us off. Yuns come ta’ Pittsburgh Nov. 7th, and we’ll give yuns all the purple and black bruises yuns can stand. And a lotta mo. And a LOTTA Mo’. PS, hating Oakland is natural for a Pittsburgh fan.

How are the Ravens different from any other wanna-be team that whips the Steelers in one game and thinks it means their moment has arrived? Remember a couple years ago when the Bungles whipped us twice during the season and thought they’d won a Lombardi? This is nothing more than the East Coast version of “Who dey?”

The rematch will be here soon enough, but we’ve got to focus on getting better and beating the teams we play between now and then. Otherwise, the Ravens rematch might not mean much except for bragging rights. In the Burgh, we’re not into bragging, we’re into winning championships.

down,way down…going to be a very disappointing and sad year for us

Rec’d.

And I get the sentiment. It is the same reason I agreed with Mike Frazier when he made his post. And honestly, other than the statement about the class of Harbaugh or focusing on them running up the score, I did (and do) feel that the Ravens exerted a lot of energy for it being the first game of the season.

I too remenber the Raiders of the 70’s, and also despise them, even now. I also spread that emotion to the Cowgirls. Both teams, powerful competitors to the 70’s Steelers, crossed lines that can never be forgiven (Tatum’s blatant attempts to decapitate Swan, Bradshaw; self-annointing the moniker “America’s Team”).

Until last Sunday, I used to tell my co-workers (mostly from Baltimore) that my 2nd favorite team was the Ravens, because they played football like the Steelers.

However, what they showed last Sunday, the lack of class, and frankly, the bush league attitude that they had accomplished something of note (maybe to them, but c’mon guys, its only the first game) and frankly the blatant cheap shots and attempts to do physical harm. Harrison aside, the Steelers have rightly been known to play intimidating football, but NOT for the sole reason to hurt or maim another team’s players.

After last Sunday, Baltimore is now in my HATE column as well, along with the Raiders and Cryboys.

Would we feel the score was run up if we were the winners of a game with 7 turnovers? I doubt it, I think we would be reveling in the victory (rightly so). Let move on and focus on the next one – Hopefully this will fuel the teams fire for the season!

I gotta say i heard the “what happened to your steelers, they got there ass kicked” a few more times than i expected this week, but i guess the folks in Green Bay are a little more humble than the Folks in the Washington DC/North Virginia area.

look the Seahawks don’t have a Ray Rice so the D better shut down the run. I would be upset if they gave up more than 75 yards this week. I am upset over last week beat down from Rice more than anything, but I feel he is a very good back, one of the best we see all year

Although my HATRED for the Ravens/Browns and Oilers/Titans tied that of the Raiders for me some years ago.

I am not dismissing the debacle, fiasco, goat-fuck (I refuse to call it a “game”) that occurred on September 11, 2011 as a “bad game” and nothing more than that.

The Patsies* neutralize the Steelers pass rush with quick crossing routes over the middle, using Welker and the TE’s.

The Packers did the same thing in the Super Bowl with mind-numbing regularity. This just in!! Jordy Nelson caught another pass over the middle!!

Now, the freaking Ravens – the effing Ravens, with their crappy WR’s and two no-name TE’s – did the same thing.

If the Steelers do not solve this problem, and instead rely on the opposition to run, run and then send their receivers on 15-yard out patterns to give Harrison and Woodley time to get to the QB, then I am concerned. Not panicked, not abandoning ship. Just … unsettled.

The NFL is filled with teams that have a solid OL, good passing QB’s, and a solid corps of TE’s. The Steelers need to fix this issue.