The Steelers played the Ravens at home with a chance to get to 4-0 and put an early stranglehold on the division. Especially as we saw the other division game unfold and the Browns upset the Bengals. Sadly, after two missed field goals by Jeff Reed, the Defense gave up a late TD pass from Flacco to T.J. Houshmandzadeh and the offense could not respond. Even still, the fact the Steelers got to 3-1 without Ben Roethlisberger is no small feat, and I think we could beat the Ravens down in Baltimore to even the score. On to the grades.
Quarterback: D
Charlie Batch missed some open wide receivers today. His total of 141 yards, no TD’s and an interception late just plain sucks. Granted most of the playcalling for some reason was asking Batch to air it out down the field. Where are the short screens? Where are the quick out routes? This was a Ravens secondary playing without Ed Reed. This team clearly misses Big Ben but at least he’ll be back in week 6 for our next game.
Running Back: A
Rashard Mendenhall had 79 yards and 2 TD’s against this strong Ravens Defense That’s one hell of an effort. Many of Mendenhall’s runs were successful because he improvised and managed to gain yards on plays that got blown up.
Wide Receivers/Tight Ends: C
Most of this grade comes from the playcalling, as I think the underneath stuff would have worked in this game, but for whatever reason the game plan was to bomb it down the field. When Randle El is your best receiver with 50 yards, you know it wasn’t a good day throwing the ball. No doubt this unit can’t wait for the return of Big Ben.
Offensive Line: C
The O-line only gave up 2 sacks today, They did allow Batch some time to make throws downfield. There were also some nice blocks for Mendenhall on the day. On the negative side, they had some critical false start penalties, including at crunch time when the team needed a first down to ice the game.
Defensive Front Seven: C*
I’m going to give a C with an asterisk. The Steelers front 7 only generated 1 sack and not much of a pass rush for the entire game. However anyone watching the game could clearly see Michael Oher of the Ravens false start the entire game and I don’t think he got called for it other than maybe one time. I’ve never seen such obvious missed calls. He was also holding James Harrison the entire game and only got called once. They did hold the Ravens running game to 70 yards rushing total, and James Harrison had a massive hit on Willis McGahee to force a fumble.
Secondary: C-
Was that an actual Ike Taylor interception sighting today? William Gay had some key stops on the next to last Ravens drive to force a turnover on downs. That’s about where the praise ends. Flacco ended up with 256 yards but it just seemed the entire game our defenders were playing off the ball and letting the Ravens drive the ball down the field with ease.
Special Teams: D
First two obvious screwups were Jeff Reed missing two field goals. Second obvious mistake was Antonio Brown running the ball from the Steelers Locker room to try and make something happen on the last return. He only made it to the 10. Randle El muffed a fair catch on a punt return and luckily recovered the ball. Everywhere you looked today, the Steelers Special teams were screwing up except for Daniel Sepulveda. The holding call on Keyaron Fox on our last punt was a killer.
2 comments:
Jeff Reed needs to go. He shows a clear lack of effort if he has to involve himself in anything other than kicking (you know, like running AWAY from where the returner is going), and he lacks heart. He is not a trademark Pittsburgh kind of guy (and I am not a Stiller fan). Ditch his sorry ass. THe NFL is full of kickers that suck just as bad.
A lot of Steeler fans are getting tired of his antics.
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