It was late, it wasn\u2019t pretty and at times it was downright awful, but the Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens and swept the depleted team after three postponements. It was a breakdown on almost all fronts, in an effort that Coach Tomlin called \u201cjunior varsity\u201d.<\/p>\n
The good was the Steelers beat a bitter rival and still control the division, behind an adequate defensive performance against a ragtag squad of backups and practice squad players that the Covid infested Ravens could put together. The bad they made several key mistakes and had breakdowns on offense and specifically on special teams.<\/p>\n
The receiving crew which is arguably the team\u2019s strength had a complete and total meltdown during the game. Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Ray-Ray McCloud and Eric Ebron combined for several drops and three fumbles, with McCloud\u2019s coming on special teams and leading to the Raven\u2019s first touchdown. It was hard for Ben Roethlisberger to find any kind of rhythm, he had his challenges and the team never could get on track offensively.<\/p>\n
Roethlisberger had a red zone turnover and didn\u2019t see a wide-open Derek Watt for a sure Touchdown. The Steelers couldn\u2019t effectively run the ball despite the many players missing from the Ravens. Benny Snell hung tough in his first start of the season. His numbers were pedestrian, but he effectively helped put the Ravens away with 68 very tough yards.<\/p>\n
The Defense was not spectacular but did enough to win the game. Joe Haden had a pick six touchdown. T.J. Watt had a monster game with two sacks and was all over the Ravens backfield. The front seven bent but never broke to the Ravens running game. Two busted plays accounted for the majority of Baltimore\u2019s yardage, a 70-Yard missed tackle pass caught by Marquise Brown and a 39-yard run by the ghost of Robert Griffin III. There was a level four Mondeaux sighting and he chipped in with two tackles. Steelhead Heyward had a one handed sack of RG III. The extremely bad news is that, late in the fourth quarter the Steelers lost Bud Dupree to injury and it looked like it was season ending.<\/p>\n
After rebounding the special teams once again proved a near Achilles heel. Ray-Ray McCloud had the key fumble, that led to a Raven\u2019s touchdown. Chris Boswell missed another extra point on the Haden\u2019s interception touchdown. The return teams made several mistakes and kept the Steelers in tough field position all day.<\/p>\n
They were lucky to pull this out and if it wasn\u2019t for a miracle catch by James Washington who caught a Roethlisberger floater on the last drive, this would have been a very different week.<\/p>\n
Despite poor play, the Steelers did enough to survive and now must focus on a very fast turnaround.<\/p>\n
BEER WE GO STEELERS, BEER WE GO!<\/p>\n
My \u201cGAME BEER\u201d goes to:<\/strong> This was tough because the performance was lousy but going with James Washington. Washington has made so many tough catches this year and his catch yesterday all but assured the victory. Also Considered: Benny Snell Jr. who crashed and bashed his way to 60 yards and helped close out the Ravens. T.J. Watt who cracked double digits in sacks for the third time in three seasons.<\/p>\n Where I watched the game:<\/strong>\u00a0We were at the house and working during the game because of the odd time. The \u201cSteel the other team\u2019s snacks\u201d, was on hold this week because of Thanksgiving and then because it was going to be Monday night and then because it was in the middle of the damn week in the middle of the damn day. KGB made everyone an individual chip plate with Guacamole and Ghost Pepper dip. Dante had his White-Rock Root Beer!<\/p>\n My Stat of the week:<\/strong> The Steelers are now 5-6 on Wednesdays and have played the second most times on Wednesday, 11 times, trailing only the Detroit Lions who have played 13. Honorable mention is FIVE, the amount of games back, the Ravens are now mathematically eliminating them from winning the division!<\/p>\n My Thoughts on next week:<\/strong> Quoting the words of Admiral Ackbar again, \u201cIt\u2019s a Trap\u201d the sequel! The Steelers now have the unenviable task of again playing a quasi-matinee on Monday against a team that is fighting for its life. The Steelers have a tough game the following week against a game Buffalo Bills squad. The Steelers need to play much better and not let teams like this hang around too long.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s Jersey:<\/strong> Rod Woodson #26, Home Black, This is not a throwback Jersey, this is my actual jersey, the first I bought when I got a few dollars in my pocket. It also was my Turkey Bowl gamer, that I wear during the annual Turkey Bowl, which had to be cancelled this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was late, it wasn\u2019t pretty and at times it was downright awful, but the Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens and swept the depleted team after three postponements. It was a breakdown on almost all fronts, in an effort that Coach Tomlin called \u201cjunior varsity\u201d. The good was the Steelers beat a bitter rival and […]<\/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-3073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bwg-gr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073","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=3073"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3077,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3073\/revisions\/3077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}