The Steelers dropped their third in a row to the division rival Ravens, 21-14 capping a three-game road stretch in which the offense has been non-existent, raising several questions on what kind of team this really is. The Super Bowl\u00a0contender or a middle of the road\u00a0“also ran”?<\/p>\n
Ben\u00a0Roethlisberger played his second horrendous game in a row.\u00a0In hindsight\u00a0it might have been a good time for\u00a0him to sit and wait a week. He was consistently\u00a0off, missing targets, getting picked off once and it should have been twice. He also\u00a0took a\u00a0terrible game breaking sack.\u00a0Roethlisberger finished with 264 yards passing, but, until the final 10 minutes, was 8 of 18 for 54 yards. He is a warrior and a true leader\u00a0taking the onus on himself for the Ravens loss despite\u00a0a heroic return to the\u00a0lineup 20 days after torn meniscus surgery.<\/p>\n
The Steelers were committed to running the ball and the Ravens were committed to stopping it. There was no room to run, \u00a0Le\u2019Veon Bell didn\u2019t have a run longer than 4 yards for 3\u00bd quarters and\u00a0had only 32 yards on 14 carries, his lowest output in nearly two years. The Ravens stacked eight defenders in the box. Losing Maurkice Pouncey who didn’t finish the game, certainly didn’t help. The protection for the most part was very good, but the passing game was never on target.<\/p>\n
The defense is getting shredded in the traditional media. However, they played their best game of the season, they had consistent pressure up front, the Ravens had one busted play a small hitch route to\u00a0Mike Wallace\u00a0that Mike Mitchell was caught flat\u00a0footed on. Artie Burns had a respectable start and only the Wallace play was a blemish. It is hard to argue with the performance of the secondary when Joe Flacco put up a 43.8 QB rating\u00a0and\u00a0passed for 241 yards with\u00a095 yards on one broken play.<\/p>\n
Up front the difference between having Cam Heyward on the field was apparent. The Ravens never had room to move, racking up only 50 total yards on 29 carries. Ryan Shazier if healthy is an absolute difference maker, he was all over the field. James Harrison and Jarvis Jones took turns whipping up on LT Ronnie Stanley. Silverback recorded his first two sacks of the year, inching him closer to Jason Gildon’s\u00a0Steeler record\u00a0and he was held on nearly every play.<\/p>\n
The Special Teams was an absolute embarrassment after making some nice plays the week before. Penalties for roughing the punter extended\u00a0a Ravens drive. They had a\u00a0too many men on a field-goal attempt, which turned a 50+ field goal attempt into a 49 yarder.\u00a0They were offside on a kickoff.\u00a0 Then “Little Bos” duffs the onside kick attempt to keep any hope alive. The blocked punt by Javorius Allen however was the “kill shot’ it resulted in a 14-yard scoring return and a 21-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The Coaches have to take this one on also. The game plan was terrible and the Steelers are down three scores and they are still calling draw plays, it makes no sense. If Roethlisberger wasn’t ready…he shouldn’t have played. It is that simple. There were a ton of penalties, including 10 in the first half which shows the absolute lack of discipline.<\/p>\n
They are running out of “some days” and they have the Cowboys looming.<\/p>\n
BEER WE GO STEELERS, BEER WE GO!<\/p>\n
My \u201cGAME BEER\u201d goes to<\/strong>: James Harrison, there was talk about not giving a\u00a0Game Beer out, but Silverback delivered a vintage performance and let’s be honest, he is loved by BWG, so we wouldn’t stiff him.\u00a0Also considered; NO ONE!<\/p>\n Where I watched the game:<\/strong>\u00a0At the house with the “Tailgate Kids”, although no KGB this week was rough, the snacks definitely suffered. I had Iron City as the beer of choice, which I dumped out after the Roethlisberger sack! Dante was running pass routes in the yard at 8:30AM, Little Miss Tailgate played against him in a one on one football game. Luc was the only calm one. We also switched seats to change the mojo. The kids were pumped to be home watching the game. I missed having KGB and frankly she would have calmed us all down! I texted with my buddy Bill and the Janick. This is a family friendly blog so I wouldn’t post some of the stuff going\u00a0back an forth. In the end it was a terrible game<\/p>\n My Stat of the week:<\/strong>\u00a0FOUR in a row. There are several stats but none that makes me madder than this one. The Steelers have no lost three games in a row to the Ravens and the Ravens are terrible. It isn’t the Ray Lewis record setting defense out there, they finished 5-11 last season and they are mediocre at best this season. They now have lost SIX of SEVEN to the Ravens.<\/p>\n My thoughts on Next Week:\u00a0<\/strong>The Steelers will need a much better effort to beat a rejuvenated and tough Dallas team. WE WILL BE THERE, so follow us on Twitter.<\/p>\n This weeks Jersey:\u00a0<\/strong>Roethlisberger, “designer” jersey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Steelers dropped their third in a row to the division rival Ravens, 21-14 capping a three-game road stretch in which the offense has been non-existent, raising several questions on what kind of team this really is. The Super Bowl\u00a0contender or a middle of the road\u00a0“also ran”? Ben\u00a0Roethlisberger played his second horrendous game in a […]<\/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-2381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bwg-gr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381","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=2381"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2396,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions\/2396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}