Initial Thoughts on bugles Game

[steelcan58]

Two initial thoughts

1) JPJ will be ok. He's had a big learning curve having to be CB1 left alone in man coverage most of the time. He's taking some penalties but not all deserved. Him doing what he's doing has allowed our mostly subpar secondary to not get exposed. I'm confident he'll get better. Not a good game today but he did enough that they at least controlled the best passing game in the league.

2) Impressed with Jones today. Not only did he have a good game blocking, but he took the initiative a couple of times to calm Pickens down. Shows he has the potential to be a great team leader. He's going to be good one for many years.

3) Yea Pickens got out of line a couple of times again. It's being addressed and he too will be fine. I'm glad all these GMs that want to trade him aren't Omar. Talent like Pickens doesn't grow on trees.

 

[mightyguru]

Russ killed it.

Cam with another great game.

Where's Minkah?

 

[mightyguru]

Oh yeah, **** you Pratt.

 

[Fiji Mariner]

Arthur Smith and Tomlin deserve credit for changing the offense to throw more, not necessarily total number of throws, but by throwing more on 1st and 2nd downs. They also attacked the middle more and got Freiermuth involved.

The run game looked good too, not because they were trying to run into a brick wall with predictable play calling, but because they mixed in the pass and run so well that the defense was guessing. This has to be the path forward.

I still don't understand why Warren is used so sparingly. If you want Najee to be the lead back, fine but the carries should be more like 60/40 at least.

Again zero targets for Mike Williams. I get it that you like blocking but in a game where you opened things up and Russ was cooking, how could you not get at least 1 deep shot for Mike Williams?


Let's talk JPJ. He is a bit handsy and he is being unfairly targeted by the refs. Both can be true. Every DB puts hands on WRs to keep track of them but Joey has such long arms that it's easier for the refs to see it and they flag him for contact that is rarely called on other DBs. Even other steeler DBs get away with contact that Joey does not.

Tomlin needs to make an issue of this with the league. Send in a reel of JPJ getting called for minor contact followed by other DBs doing worse with no call at all. Maybe just pick one of the Ravens DBs and show the 10+ plays per game where they grabbed with no call,. You could do this with almost any DB.

You could also make a very long reel of JPJr holding, grabbing, yanking jerseys and committing all sorts of holding/DPI without being flagged too.

Dude is more than “a bit handsy”.
He cheats far more frequently than Broderick Jones, luckily so far he hasn’t been flagged on even half his penalties.

They just started calling him on it in Cincy.
He’d better clean up his act or he may see more games like this one, I think the word is getting out to watch him a bit closer. The more you watch, the more he is out there cheating.

 

[Badcat]

You could also make a very long reel of JPJr holding, grabbing, yanking jerseys and committing all sorts of holding/DPI without being flagged too.

Dude is more than “a bit handsy”.
He cheats far more frequently than Broderick Jones, luckily so far he hasn’t been flagged on even half his penalties.

They just started calling him on it in Cincy.
He’d better clean up his act or he may see more games like this one, I think the word is getting out to watch him a bit closer. The more you watch, the more he is out there cheating.

Bengals in a third and long and told the misses it was going to be a long ball to Chase to draw a PI. Yep, exactly what happened. Opposing teams are going to do this often if JPJ don't clean up his play. Ravens used to do that **** a lot when Flacco was their QB. It usually worked too.

 

[Stewey]

Since it CONTINUES to happen, you have no choice but to lay the blame on the Coaches. Which one is up to you, but if they wanted it to end, they would do what it takes to end it.

Easy to say “blame the coaches”, but what if he’s not listening to the coaches. Bench him?
How many times has Tomlin had a talk with Pickens?
Apparently even a “players coach” isn’t able to get through to him.

 

[Fiji Mariner]

Two initial thoughts

1) JPJ will be ok. He's had a big learning curve having to be CB1 left alone in man coverage most of the time. He's taking some penalties but not all deserved. Him doing what he's doing has allowed our mostly subpar secondary to not get exposed. I'm confident he'll get better. Not a good game today but he did enough that they at least controlled the best passing game in the league.

2) Impressed with Jones today. Not only did he have a good game blocking, but he took the initiative a couple of times to calm Pickens down. Shows he has the potential to be a great team leader. He's going to be good one for many years.

3) Yea Pickens got out of line a couple of times again. It's being addressed and he too will be fine. I'm glad all these GMs that want to trade him aren't Omar. Talent like Pickens doesn't grow on trees.

Gotta agree with 2&3 but 1???
Minkah is supposedly excellent-obviously not being used properly as he’s been invisible
Elliot is excellent
DJ playing lights out
Cam/Beenie pretty solid in the slot

I’d say the weak link in an otherwise pretty solid secondary is and has been JPJ this year. He’s regressed quite a bit imo and is the weakest link, maybe Minkah

 

[black and gold apex]

total of 204 yards of penalties taken. This crew takes for ever to actually call the penalty. Three calls on one play, what are the officials looking for. Mr Goidel let teams play. Time Tomlin stop the Pickens antics. Porter needs a coach his play had Bungals at the three yard line three times with his penalties. Positive Steelers kept up with the Bungals, Fields make the play at end all is good.
If you have not seen the video by DK sports a fast action of Bungal fans going down the escalator is perfect.

 

[SteelerSask2]

Despite a gifted TD and 5 or 6 penalties on one Corner( some were legit, some were meh). And a few other bs calls their franchise QB, star receiver and most importantly HC made a huge deal of a bad call on a false start. That my friends is how you become perennial losers.

 

[steelcan58]

Gotta agree with 2&3 but 1???
Minkah is supposedly excellent-obviously not being used properly as he’s been invisible
Elliot is excellent
DJ playing lights out
Cam/Beenie pretty solid in the slot

I’d say the weak link in an otherwise pretty solid secondary is and has been JPJ this year. He’s regressed quite a bit imo and is the weakest link, maybe Minkah

I'll have to disagree respectfully. And I very well could be out to lunch. But without JPJ taking on the roll of shutdown corner I don't believe the inefficiencies of the rest of the secondary would be covered up as well as it has. It's the one area of our team that always worries me.

Minkah - I don't even know what to think anymore. He just hardly ever seems to be around the ball

 

[alancac98]

Now that we won AGAIN time to fight all the ******* TOMLIN haters all week on SteelerNation

Where are all you ******* at?

I'm right the **** here! I hate Tomlin more than most on here and have since the beginning. He typically spends more time creating catch phrases than thinking about x's and o's. His terrible clock management reared it really ugly head again at the end of the 1st half (very Eberflus like on that bullshit). Listen, I'm ecstatic for any win and it looks like someone got to Tomlin and told him to STFU and leave the offense to Smith! I hope he continues to stay out of the way. He should still immediately hire someone to manage the clock for him, because after 20 years, he still completely ****** sucks at it! You can feel free to love him all you want, but Mediocre Mike would have been fired long ago if he coached for any other franchise. He's lucky Deuce is a dunce! He has more holes in his coaching than baby swiss cheese! We can continue talking about them if you want, but they are well documented on any Steeler fan board and not that hard to find either!

 

[Fiji Mariner]

I'll have to disagree respectfully. And I very well could be out to lunch. But without JPJ taking on the roll of shutdown corner I don't believe the inefficiencies of the rest of the secondary would be covered up as well as it has. It's the one area of our team that always worries me.

Minkah - I don't even know what to think anymore. He just hardly ever seems to be around the ball

It’s perfectly cool
To agree to disagree
Just different views
I’ve been wrong many times

To my eyes he’s been far from shut down this year and should be getting far more flags than he has received. At a minimum he obviously holds with a jersey tugging away from a receiver 4-5 times a game and frequently commits uncalled DPI as well.
I’d say the majority of friends I watch with weekly have stated similar views.

We’ll see if he has become a league focus in the coming weeks. Dude has great size, speed and reach he just needs to refine his technique and trust his skills cuz he’s way too grabby. He needs to flip his hips, stay in the receivers pocket and play the ball instead of panicking and grabbing on.
A little help over the top could be the answer to him regaining his confidence.

 

[Confluence]

Bengals in a third and long and told the misses it was going to be a long ball to Chase to draw a PI. Yep, exactly what happened. Opposing teams are going to do this often if JPJ don't clean up his play. Ravens used to do that **** a lot when Flacco was their QB. It usually worked too.

Bert threw the best DPI ball in NFL history

 

[bermudasteel]

Ladies and gentlemen. Calm down...

We won.

W showed the league that we can play ANY style of football.

Lest ye forget - we will play the Bengals again and showing them the soft zones, in game 1, was good. I fully expect to see 'something different' when we play again at home.

More food for thought...

Alex Highsmith will be back soon and I'm praying that Troy will be ready by the end of the month, no, let me retract that, ready for the Christmas Day game.

This team is starting to be a real NFL team and barring injuries---they can beat any team in the AFC and based on the outcome of the Philly game - we'll know how far they can go in January and February...

Have a nice day.

 

[Fiji Mariner]

Ladies and gentlemen. Calm down...

We won.

W showed the league that we can play ANY style of football.

Lest ye forget - we will play the Bengals again and showing them the soft zones, in game 1, was good. I fully expect to see 'something different' when we play again at home.

More food for thought...

Alex Highsmith will be back soon and I'm praying that Troy will be ready by the end of the month, no, let me retract that, ready for the Christmas Day game.

This team is starting to be a real NFL team and barring injuries---they can beat any team in the AFC and based on the outcome of the Philly game - we'll know how far they can go in January and February...

Have a nice day.

Holy spin zone Berm

The only good thing about that 31 given up by the D was that Coach T has many coach ‘em up opportunities resulting from a W

I can’t agree showing them our lack of ability to play zone OR stop the run is a good thing

I think judging on the amount of calls on JPJ next game will say a lot as to whether the league microscope is on him and his endless cheating ways…if he is under that microscope our D just got pretty shaky which doesn’t bode well against the better offenses like BUF/KC that will 40 burger us in the playoffs

It’s great that Highsmith will be back soon, the run D definitely needs him

 

[Black & Gold Bleeder]

Larry can do better.. That would help the Run D.

 

[Steeltime]

Ladies and gentlemen. Calm down...

We won.

W showed the league that we can play ANY style of football.

The team putting up 520 yards and 44 points cannot be overstated. Seriously, last year we would be thrilled with 44 points in TWO games. The ability to throw the ball to every spot on the field, go deep, go middle, go short, use the WR, and TE, and RB as receivers means the team can go toe-to-toe with dynamic NFL offenses and come back from 10 or 14 down.

More food for thought...

Alex Highsmith will be back soon and I'm praying that Troy will be ready by the end of the month, no, let me retract that, ready for the Christmas Day game.

Herbig has been very good as a replacement rushing the passer. Despite his relative limited playing time, he is tied for 30th in the league with 6 sacks and is 2nd (!) in the league with 4 forced fumbles! He is definitely not as good as Highsmith against the run, however.

This team is starting to be a real NFL team and barring injuries---they can beat any team in the AFC and based on the outcome of the Philly game - we'll know how far they can go in January and February...

That game, Chefs Christmas day, and playing the Rats in Baltimore are definitely going to be barometers of how good they are.

 

[slashsteel]

Larry can do better.. That would help the Run D.

Both of their best run plays was with Heyward on the sideline. Larry isn’t a problem depth performing better is…

 

[Black & Gold Bleeder]

Both of their best run plays was with Heyward on the sideline. Larry isn’t a problem depth performing better is…

so youre saying larry was on the field when their best runs happened?

 

[BLITZ]

At no time in the past 4 years did I think the Steelers would score more points than any other team in the league for the week

 

[slashsteel]

so youre saying larry was on the field when their best runs happened?

I am saying the guy holding down Cam’s spot when he was taking a breather wasn’t up to snuff.

Unless you think Larry took that moment to be deficient. Wouldn’t add up IMO..

 

[slashsteel]

At no time in the past 4 years did I think the Steelers would score more points than any other team in the league for the week

Amazing what a competent OC will do for you.

 

[Black & Gold Bleeder]

Loudermilk and lowry got better grades on less snaps than larry. IDK why but larry always getting a pass and the guy is invisible.

2 tackles credited. No other stats to speak of.

 

[bermudasteel]

I'm getting concerned with Minkah. On the season, he has 0 INT and only 2 passes defensed. Here's Burrow's passing chart. Plenty of throws over the middle including 3 TDs and he's barely involved. I understand him playing center field so maybe he's too deep to be involved in many plays but even in the redzone where it's compressed, he just doesn't seem involved.

If Minkah is grading out well each week IE, he's doing what the coaches ask of him, then maybe you need to consider asking something else of him from time to time. Is there no other DB on the team that can be trusted from time to time to play the deep third so Minkah can go make a play?

I'm not as worried. Teams do not throw at Minkah anymore. That's making plays without making plays.

I didn't like seeing the HB run thru the DLs, LBs and secondary on the long run. Obviously they were in a pass defense and got gashed on the run...

 

[slashsteel]

Loudermilk and lowry got better grades on less snaps than larry. IDK why but larry always getting a pass and the guy is invisible.

2 tackles credited. No other stats to speak of.

Better grades per who? I didn’t give him a pass for overall play I gave him a pass for the big plays given up in the game.