It is dark times for Beer We Go Nation!<\/p>\n
The Ravens beat the Patriots for\u00a0revenge in\u00a0the AFC Championship. Now, as Beer We Go Nation, we are forced to choose between protecting “Sixburgh” or rooting for our arch rivals!<\/p>\n
Here is my final Report Card for the 2012 Season.<\/p>\n
GRADES:<\/strong><\/p>\n Coaching: B<\/strong>, Mike Tomlin guided the Steelers through his roughest season as Steelers Coach.\u00a0There were several distractions including the Todd Haley v. Ben Roethlisberger love triangle, as well as several crushing injuries. The Steelers offense looked unstoppable at the beginning of the season but never recovered after Ben’s injury.\u00a0Dick LeBeau continues to be the greatest defensive coordinator in NFL history. After a very slow start\u00a0the Steelers defense picked up and were first\u00a0in\u00a0passing defense\u00a0and second in rushing defense.\u00a0Keep in mind that they lost Polamalu for nine games, Silverback for three, Woodley for three, Ike Taylor for four, and Keenan Lewis for two.<\/span> The lack of turnovers was a black mark, but the defense really turned it up in the second half. It is hard to argue with the coaches given the amount of injuries.<\/p>\n QB:\u00a0B<\/strong>, Big Ben\u00a0was off\u00a0to the best start of his career when he was sidelined during the Chiefs game.\u00a0That injury effectively ended both his season and the Steelers. The Steelers\u00a0lost\u00a0two of out of the\u00a0three games.\u00a0Charlie Batch put an exclamation point on his career with the big comeback win over the now AFC Champion Ravens.\u00a0I wrote this last season and will write it again, if this is his last season with the Steelers, \u00a0I will remember him as a great contributor who did what was needed! Byron Leftwich was a ghost and again was injured and ineffective.<\/p>\n RB: F<\/strong>, It was\u00a0a\u00a0horrendous season for Rashard Mendenhall and his career with the Steelers looks to be at an end. He had attitude problems and he put the ball on the ground way too much. Ike Redman and Jonathon Dwyer both had flashes of brilliance but\u00a0were inconsistent at best. Chris Rainey was a huge disappointment and then he decided to punch out a woman so\u00a0we won’t be seeing his sorry act anymore.\u00a0This\u00a0will definitely need to be\u00a0upgraded in the offseason.\u00a0The lone bright spot was Will Johnson, who played a great fullback!<\/p>\n WR: C+<\/strong>, It was a\u00a0very strange season\u00a0for the wide receivers as Manny Sanders and Antonio Brown were bona fide threats and stars, but both had very costly turnovers. Mike Wallace was dreadful all year and his contract situation was a major distraction. He looks\u00a0to be\u00a0on the way out of the\u00a0‘Burgh.\u00a0Jericho Cotchery was\u00a0solid and the Plaxico Burress show was a nice addition mid-season and deserves an encore.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n TE: A+<\/strong>, Heath Miller is the best tight end in football and for the first time in his career got to showcase it.\u00a0 When people run down Haley’s offense I point to the season Miller had.\u00a0David Paulson was a nice contributor, as was Leonard Pope when called upon. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n OL: C<\/strong>, It was a tale of two seasons for the offensive line. The starting line played well and started to gel nicely. Then injuries hit, four out of the five starters went down. Max Starks was the last man standing.\u00a0The biggest disappointment was Willie Colon, going down for the third year in a row on IR. He played an excellent guard and was an absolute mauler some weeks. But three years on the IR should seal his fate. Maurkice Pouncey was spectacular at times, doing duty at Center where he was an All-Pro and Left Guard. The emergence of Dave DeCastro and Kelvin Beachum together with the development of Marcus Gilbert and Mike Adams makes this unit a future bright spot. \u00a0<\/p>\n DL: C+<\/strong>, The defensive line put together a good, if not very spectacular, season. Casey Hampton, in perhaps his swan song as a Steeler, anchored the line and got better as the season went on. Brett Kiesel put together back to back good seasons. \u00a0He made several big plays and he pressured the QB all season. Ziggy Hood and\u00a0Steve Mclendon both took steps forward, “Steelhead” Heywood took a few steps back and needs to put together a better 2013 campaign.<\/p>\n LB: C+<\/strong>, The strength of this team\u00a0was once again hurt\u00a0by injuries. Silverback and LaMarr Woodley combined for only ten sacks and only showed flashes of the greatness that they have in the past. Lawrence Timmons is now the best linebacker on the Steelers and he had his best season. He was unstoppable at times and played well within his strengths. Great things are on the horizon for Timmons. Larry\u00a0Foote put together a nice campaign and provided the veteran leadership that was missing when James Farrior retired.\u00a0Jason Worilds is developing nicely and had significant playing time, Stevenson Sylvester was injured and took a huge step back! This unit is seriously lacking depth.<\/p>\n DB: A<\/strong>, The Steelers secondary had a great season and again have young, exciting talent that is beginning to develop. Ike Taylor was a\u00a0great contributor and he\u00a0had an excellent season\u00a0until his injury.\u00a0Ryan Clark was a killer in the secondary and was arguabley the defense\u2019s best and most consistent player. Troy played well when he wasn’t injured, but again, he missed nine games and never got totally on track. Keenan Lewis was injured but had a good season and appears to be headed out of town. That will open the door for Cortez Allen who is emerging.<\/p>\n BEER WE GO STEELERS! BEER WE GO!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is dark times for Beer We Go Nation! The Ravens beat the Patriots for\u00a0revenge in\u00a0the AFC Championship. Now, as Beer We Go Nation, we are forced to choose between protecting “Sixburgh” or rooting for our arch rivals! Here is my final Report Card for the 2012 Season. GRADES: Coaching: B, Mike Tomlin guided the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bwg-gr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}