Game Balls, Game Goats & FU's..........week 2 vs Browns.....

[Chicoman]

Well it all started off great with a big play by the Steelers Defense as Alex Highsmith plucked the football out of the air and took it to the house for an early Steelers lead 7-0. Our offense is not good as a matter of fact I'd say we might have 2 of the worst starting tackles in the NFL right now....while our #1 Draft Pick sits on the bench and doesn't even get 1 ******* rep in the game! Why are they not giving Broderick Jones any play time? I know the kid is a rookie but cmon man, Dan Moore & Chuck Okorafor are below the line as Tomlin likes to say. Pickett still looks very shaky and his accuracy was an issue again tonight.....slightly better than last week but it wasn't good again tonight and on the INT by Delpit he stared down Pickens as soon as he took the snap.....any DB would have stepped in front of that for the INT. Kenny has to get better because right now he's just not good. He made some throws today but missed just as many if not more. I know were all in agreement here Matt Canada is absolutely terrible OC. I mean there were plenty of examples of that tonight....most notably the decision to get for a 2 Point Conversion after taking a 16-11 lead and deciding to get for 2 you line Najee Harris up as a single back and run it stright into a Browns Brick Wall with all 11 guys on the Line of Scrimmage as Najee takes the handoff and tries to do the impossible. When you watched Cleveland go for 2 they bring in an extra linemen and then add a linemen in the backfield and they easily pounded it into the endzone for two. Matt Canada did you see that? Also in the 4th Quarter Najee and the Steelers running game get going with 2 runs of 20 & 18 yards....Drive Killa Canada gets cute and runs a jet sweep for a loss.....Why no play action passing there? Another thing that bothered me was the 3rd & 2 play call and letting Pickett try and run it? You've got Jaylen Warren & Najee Harris 2 capable back and you almost get your QB Destroyed on what almost looked like a broken play or a missed assignment in blocking.....it gave Cleveland another chance with the football. There were some great Defensive efforts tonight by individual players but again the Defense was gashed for 408 yards after being gashed for 396 yds last week. There is too much talent on this Defense to be giving up this kind of yardage. Teryl Austin needs to be given his walking papers....too many times tonight I saw 2 Linemen and the Browns ran the ball down our throats when the Steelers lined up in that formation. I saw good pressure from Keanu Benton (he can create problems out there) tonight in his limited time in there.....he should be getting more reps. Also Montravious Adams had a great game tonight and DeMarvin Leal showed out there too. Obviously Alex HighSmith & TJ Watt both had big games and both scored Defensive TD's tonight to lead this team to victory tonight. Without them this game is a loss! We saw Mike Tomlin finally win a good challenge tonight in the first half but he made up for it with one of the worst challenges I've ever seen in the second half that cost us a Timeout. I thought Tomlin was supposed to have someone up in the booth helping him with Challenges? That Challenge in the 2nd Half was absolutely awful and it cost us a Timeout....it didn't cost us the game this time but it was a WTF moment when I saw Tomlin toss the Red Flag. Lets enjoy this one for the next 24 hours as the Steelers get ready to hit the road with a meeting in Vegas vs the Raiders.....history has shown that the Steelers just don't play well vs the Raiders on the road. BTW Congratulations to TJ Watt on becoming the Steelers All-Time Sack Leader with 81.5 Sacks passing James Harrison.

Gunner - Concussion
Minkah - Chest Injury, went to hospital for X-Rays
Elandon Roberts - Able to get back in the game

Game Balls:
Alex Highsmith - 7 tackles, 1 Forces Fumble, 1 Sack, 1 INT, 1 TD....TJ Watt Pimped him up after the game and rightfully so....Highsmith had a great game tonight
TJ Watt - 1 Sack, 1 Fumble Recovery for a TD.....The Game Winner. Congrats to TJ Watt becoming Steelers All-Time Sack Leader 81.5
Damonte Kazee - 6 tackles tonight and I counted at least 3 against Nick Chubb and on 2 of those plays Kazee made TD saving tackles....Kazee is about a 170lbs....I hope he's ok but he tackled Chubb tonight head on.
Montravious Adams & Larry Ogunjobi - Both guys stepped up tonight and got good pressure tonight
Pressley Harvin - Good job puntint tonight....possibly his best game as a Steeler 45.7 yd avg and a nice coffin corner punt to the 1 yd line...also di a great job on Boswell's 2nd FG that was a bad snap.
Chris Boswell - kicked 2 FG's tonight from 50+...he was clutch tonight and it helped a struggling offense put point on the scoreboard
George Pickens - first 100 yd game receiving....4 rec 127 yds 1 TD....71 of those came on a nice catch & run. He was targeted 10 times tonight but some of Pickett's throws were absolutely terrible.......if Pickett can get the ball into Pickens hands he's going to have some monster games

Game Goats:
Levi Wallace - This guy is absolutely terrible! Took another terrible angle at a RB and lost contain that resulted in another long TD run for the 2nd week in a row. Joey Jr needs to be starting over Levi Wallace.
Kenny Pickett - It was nice to see him hit that TD pass to Pickens but he continued to look pretty bad again this week having problems with ball placement and accuracy. Also staring down his WR early in the game is not something that can continue.
Gunner Olszewski - This guy is absolutely awful....He shouldn't be on the roster!
Mike Tomlin - Good Challenge in the first half but he made up for it with one of the worst challenges I've ever seen in the 2nd Half that cost us a Timeout. Fortunately the Steelers still won....but.....

FU's:
Matt "Drive Killa" Canada - **** MATT CANADA! This guy is absolutely an awful OC. I hope he gets ****-canned going into the Bye Week. Watching the play calling and seeing our WR's bunched up downfield is not a good design. Also questionable play calling and no play action passing even after 2 successful runs of 20 & 18 yds in the 3rd quarter...Canada ran a Jet Sweep for a loss setting up a 3rd & long killing a promising drive. And WTF was that 3rd & 2 play in the 4th QTR that could have sealed the win....he called a keeper to Pickett and he got blasted. The 2 point conversion play call was another example of the play calling by Matt Canada that is just absolutely awful. Steelers had 9 First Downs tonight & 255 yds total offense is all the pr00f you need to see that Matt Canada is in over his head!

Teryl Austin - This guys piss poor coaching week in week out is only being over shadowed by how awful Matt Canada is an our OC. Teryl Austin was a terrible DC in Detroit from 2014-2017....the Defense got worse each and every season and in 2018 in Cincinnati he was the DC of one of the worst NFL Defenses in NFL History! Time we get a real DC!

 

[DesertSteel]

Game balls to TJ, Alex, Pickens and the punter.
Kenny Pickett sucks.

 

[madinsomniac]

Point 1. Gunner should be cut 0.5 seconds after he clears concussion protocol… ok i get it, he is a fine locker room role model… but he is a negative impact player on the field … ignoring the fumble… that kickoff return showed an utter lack of positional knowledge that flabbergasted me…

Point 2. If Tomlin praises the Oline again, someone needs to give that guy an IQtest

Point 3. If Mincah is out long term along with heyward, we are likely screwed

Point 4. Damn Harvin… just damn!!! What a performance

Point 5. What kind of loser get 2 offensive face mask penalties in the same game?

Point 6 TJ Watt had a sack and defensive td but Highsmith was the hands down DPOTG…

Point 7. The offense needs a tuning fork… last year pickett was more accurate, but got a ton of drops on key plays… this year we aren’t seeing tge drops, but he dramatically regressed… the run game is non existent and there are so many unused pieces it is sickening.
Point 8. Add levi Wallace to the names of guys who aren’t playing as well as last year
Point 9. This was tge first game I noticed Larry Ogunjobi… he was really motivated out there…
Point 10… that last challenge was beyond stupid based on the risk reward of it

 

[Avoid_Lloyd]

This game reminded me alot of the season opener last year at the Benglas: heroic defensive effort saves a putrid offense.

Take away points off turnovers and our offense scored 9 points, and 7 points last week.

Our D will be gassed Sunday on the road and be totally shredded by mid season, say hello to .500 again

We all know Canaduh is trash and wont be renewed thankfully

But it is time to worry about and question Pickett, he was TERRIBLE again. This season is probably most about evaluating him and maybe planning for a future without him if this play continues, I hope im wrong but I kinda doubt it

 

[Litos]

Canada and Tomlin trying to outsmart the other coach is what I see as the reason for those play calls, Stupid and arrogant.

- Hey let's run it without protection, they'll never expect it, who cares if they have a loaded front?

- Hey, leave it to Pickett to get the first down with his legs , our truck of a RB will only be a decoy...

Etc, etc

 

[slashsteel]

I didn't think Peterson had that great of a game either. But yeah Levi takes some horrible angles in regards to tackling.

The coordinators definitely aren't doing well.

I agree on Gunner, they should be vet shopping.

I think it is time to put that high draft pick onto the field. No justifiable reason to let him get no reps.

Going to enjoy this win on a short week.


Team had me stressed out. Just not a good team right now. Just looks like the same version of last season where they hover at or just above.500.

That 100 percent falls on the HC,OC, and DC. With Rooney not being exempt from blame.

 

[jitter77]

I don't even know what to say about this game except it was ugly
Game ball - Watt, Highsmith, Harvin, Warren, Refs. TJ was relatively quiet but had a couple splash plays. Highsmith had an excellent game. Harvin kept the Browns pinned down. The refs were friendly to us. We had a pretty blatant facemask on watson that wasn't called when the Browns were pinned back. The final play JPJ probably could have been called for PI. The ball was probably not catchable, but usually the refs favor the offense.
Goat - Gunner had a terrible game. Oline is not good, tackling was bad overall can't keep giving up long TD runs. Pickett is very close to being on this list
FUs - Watson, he stinks glad we made his life miserable. Coaching, pretty much terrible all around. Not playing guys, poor schemes, our TEs were invisible, poor playcalling etc etc

 

[fedderone]

The coaching triumvirate ALL need to go.
Tomlin, Austin, Canada.
All three are ruining great in their prime players' careers.
If I were Watt, Fitzpatrick, Highsmith.......I'd be irate that my career was getting wasted.

And for whatever this offense is, or is supposed to be, CLEARLY Jaylen Warren is a better fit for it.
CLEARLY he is doing more with less.
Someone needs to explain to Warren that one of his duties is pass protection, but as far as running and receiving, he is CLEARLY the starting RB.
And maybe it's just Canada's garbage offensive scheme, or our not so good O-Line, or circumstances.
Whatever it is, Warren looks head and shoulders above Najee.

 

[Troglodyte]

Point 5. What kind of loser get 2 offensive face mask penalties in the same game?

He’s known for grabbing things.

 

[pittbull]

Gunner needs to go. He touched the ball twice and twice the results were negative.

Canada and Austin are horrible. It seems to me our star power on defense overcomes the coaching and gives the team a chance. Tomlin talks about the routine stuff routinely, but the Steelers defensive routinly get gashed. TJ and Alex won that game for us.

Accuracy had never been a problem for KP. You don’t just forget how to throw a football. There’s got to be more. Does he not trust his line? Are the blocking schemes not giving him the best line of sight? Not saying he’s blameless, just wondering what exactly the problem is. If you think about it, he’s had only one camp as QB1 and he hasn’t played a full season yet. I still think he’ll be fine. I personally think that one pass over the middle where he missed Pickens…it appeared to me that Pickens hesitated in his route.

How can this O Line be so horrendous? They supposedly upgraded the ‘weak link’ in an ’improving’, and ‘gelling’ line, but it looks like they regressed.

Is Pat Freiermuth still on the team? Did he piss off Canada or KP?

 

[SteelerSask2]

I missed the gunner kick return and clearly he shouldn't be on roster but the other play has nothing to do with it. Kenny put him in no mans land and basically fed him to the wolves.

 

[TDX27]

One of Canaduh's worst calls was on the 3rd and 1 later in the game. He has KP lined up in the gun and runs him. That just won't work against the Clowns D. They are too good and fast. He should have had him at the line and just ran the sneak. It works almost every time. Have big 80 in there to come behind and push KP. You could go on and on with Canaduh.

KP struggled again but also settled down a bit. I am not sure what happened from the preseason to now with his accuracy/timing on the easy throws but he needs to work on it badly.

If not for the turnovers, our D was awful. They got run over again for the 2nd week in a row. We need a big NT. Give Fehoko or someone a shot. This is getting ridiculous. They won't be able to rely on turnovers from Watt and Highsmith all year. And some of the dumb plays where we still give up 3rd and longs even had the announcers scratching their heads. Miscommunication and or just dumb schemes but they need to fix that crap. Get off the field. And, someone cover Cooper. He was wide open on every 3rd down.

Gunner has to go.

Harvin earned his keep last night. A couple of great punts to pin them deep but a huge deal was on I think it was Boz's last FG. The snap wasn't good and Harvin snagged it and got it down and in position like it was nothing. I think that is still a huge reason they have held onto him. That easily could have been a missed FG to give the Clowns good field position.

 

[Black & Gold Bleeder]

Who the **** toe taps a kick off thats going out of bounds?

 

[Badcat]

The weak spot on the Brahns defense is the middle of the field (See Picken's TD catch) and yet our TE group got one total target. One. This offense is pure bullshit. Want to open up the running game? Play action hitting the middle with TE's and crossing routes to freeze the ILBs. It's 101 offensive concepts.

 

[Steeltime]

Who the **** toe taps a kick off thats going out of bounds?

It was the stupidest play I have ever seen in an NFL game. That play makes Joe Piscarcik's fumble look like The Catch.

 

[madinsomniac]

One of Canaduh's worst calls was on the 3rd and 1 later in the game. He has KP lined up in the gun and runs him. That just won't work against the Clowns D. They are too good and fast. He should have had him at the line and just ran the sneak. It works almost every time. Have big 80 in there to come behind and push KP. You could go on and on with Canaduh.

KP struggled again but also settled down a bit. I am not sure what happened from the preseason to now with his accuracy/timing on the easy throws but he needs to work on it badly.

If not for the turnovers, our D was awful. They got run over again for the 2nd week in a row. We need a big NT. Give Fehoko or someone a shot. This is getting ridiculous. They won't be able to rely on turnovers from Watt and Highsmith all year. And some of the dumb plays where we still give up 3rd and longs even had the announcers scratching their heads. Miscommunication and or just dumb schemes but they need to fix that crap. Get off the field. And, someone cover Cooper. He was wide open on every 3rd down.

Gunner has to go.

Harvin earned his keep last night. A couple of great punts to pin them deep but a huge deal was on I think it was Boz's last FG. The snap wasn't good and Harvin snagged it and got it down and in position like it was nothing. I think that is still a huge reason they have held onto him. That easily could have been a missed FG to give the Clowns good field position.

It feels like we have been burned by cooper a lot since he got there. I think our plan is just let him go to stop the run or something stupid…

As for the NT idea, Tomlin hates big NTs … we are more likely to get another ilb or safety at NT than a hampton clone

 

[madinsomniac]

The weak spot on the Brahns defense is the middle of the field (See Picken's TD catch) and yet our TE group got one total target. One. This offense is pure bullshit. Want to open up the running game? Play action hitting the middle with TE's and crossing routes to freeze the ILBs. It's 101 offensive concepts.

We are currently the window lickers on O… such concepts confound us…

When we do layer routes, the D knows the underneath one is always a decoy so they ignore it

 

[Paul G]

I missed the gunner kick return and clearly he shouldn't be on roster but the other play has nothing to do with it. Kenny put him in no mans land and basically fed him to the wolves.

He made one of the best toe taps along the sideline I have seen in years ......... instead of letting the ball go out of bounds which it obviously was going to do and give us a starting drive from the 35 yard line

 

[troymania]

I think Pickett will be fine once Canada is gone. He has played against two top-five defenses in the first two weeks. He is also hamstrung by an OC who won't let him audible on the line and has a game plan most high school coaches wouldn't run. His accuracy has been off but with proper protection that will improve. The OC and DC have no business coaching on this level of football.

 

[ianv2012]

I think Pickett will be fine once Canada is gone. He has played against two top-five defenses in the first two weeks. He is also hamstrung by an OC who won't let him audible on the line and has a game plan most high school coaches wouldn't run. His accuracy has been off but with proper protection that will improve. The OC and DC have no business coaching on this level of football.

Exactly... let's see 3 years, 3 different QBs (one a HOFer), same exact output, outcome, and results.....yeah sounds like it's just the QBs who stink. Canada is one of the worst coaches I've ever seen, he doesn't know how to draw up route schemes, he doesn't know how or when to call plays, he won't allow his QBs to audible.....he is absolutely the problem and until he's gone we won't know what we have in any QB who lines up in black and gold.

The reason Kyle Shanahan is so good is because he doesn't try to outsmart anyone, he doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. He just runs a tried and true offensive scheme with tried and true plays, and he knows when to call them and set them up. There isn't anything "innovative" about his offense, he just knows how to game plan to attack defenses to set his guys up for success. Canada doesn't know how to call 911 let alone an offensive call.

 

[Steeltime]

I watched the Dolphins offense against a very good Patriots defense, and witnessed Mike McDaniel's schemes get the ball to his star players in a position where they can hurt the defense. He combines quick slant patterns that eat up chunks of yardage with speed runs to the edge to gashing runs up the A-gap. He is playing 3-dimensional chess while Matt Cana-DUH is googling the rules for checkers.

 

[SteelerSask2]

I don't know about the play where Larry O recovered. I thought there was a new 4th down rule about automatic review. But let's say I give that as a Tomlin win and certainly a turnover trumps a blown toe tap challenge. I will give you as good of an example of Tomlin the checkers player as I can. Right before half there is 40 some seconds left and the Browns are linning up for a 50 plus field goal. Their guy already missed once. Steelers have three timeouts. The play is to take TO right away. He misses you got ball at 40 some yard line two time outs. Every and I mean every coach is taking that TO and it even adds pressure to kick. MT waits till there is 20 some seconds left like he didn't know clock was running. C'mon.

 

[Steelmann]

The weak spot on the Brahns defense is the middle of the field (See Picken's TD catch) and yet our TE group got one total target. One. This offense is pure bullshit. Want to open up the running game? Play action hitting the middle with TE's and crossing routes to freeze the ILBs. It's 101 offensive concepts.

It’s ******* mind boggling. I’m almost getting sick & tired of mentioning the TE lack of usage. Just how can they not see this? My football fantasy would be going to the after game Mike Tomlin press conference,and just takeover asking these type of questions. And then when he gives his typical run around BS ,never saying anything relevant to the question,call him out for that too. I just don’t get it anymore.

 

[madinsomniac]

I don't know about the play where Larry O recovered. I thought there was a new 4th down rule about automatic review. But let's say I give that as a Tomlin win and certainly a turnover trumps a blown toe tap challenge. I will give you as good of an example of Tomlin the checkers player as I can. Right before half there is 40 some seconds left and the Browns are linning up for a 50 plus field goal. Their guy already missed once. Steelers have three timeouts. The play is to take TO right away. He misses you got ball at 40 some yard line two time outs. Every and I mean every coach is taking that TO and it even adds pressure to kick. MT waits till there is 20 some seconds left like he didn't know clock was running. C'mon.

The second one was horrible because you are trailing late and those Time outs are invaluable for either stopping the clock on them or stopping it for your O and you gamble on a very low percentage play to overturn… it isn’t like they were in scoring position or anything..

 

[madinsomniac]

Exactly... let's see 3 years, 3 different QBs (one a HOFer), same exact output, outcome, and results.....yeah sounds like it's just the QBs who stink. Canada is one of the worst coaches I've ever seen, he doesn't know how to draw up route schemes, he doesn't know how or when to call plays, he won't allow his QBs to audible.....he is absolutely the problem and until he's gone we won't know what we have in any QB who lines up in black and gold.

The reason Kyle Shanahan is so good is because he doesn't try to outsmart anyone, he doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. He just runs a tried and true offensive scheme with tried and true plays, and he knows when to call them and set them up. There isn't anything "innovative" about his offense, he just knows how to game plan to attack defenses to set his guys up for success. Canada doesn't know how to call 911 let alone an offensive call.

The 49ers are the most pressured offense in the league so far this year, we are like 3rd by percentage… the difference is that tge 9ers Oline is built for run blocking more than pass blocking and the routes for their O are all quick YAC routes… not comebacks in the flat… they scheme to help the qb… its why scrub QBs go there and look good