Reacting to yet another Pittsburgh Steeler loss, this time vs. CIN
Photo via NFL Plus.
Well, the Pittsburgh Steelers have fallen off a cliff right in time for the playoffs. I, for one, am absolutely taken aback by these last few weeks. From 10-3, in control of the division, and competing for the #1 seed, to 10-7, and in absolute freefall, now needing to buckle up for a wild card matchup in Baltimore. But, I’ll kinda wrap up the regular season, and talk about the playoffs later this week. For this post, we’re recapping the 19-17 loss, to the Cincinnati Bengals. Here we go.
The Cincinnati Bengals came into our house 8-8 and playing for their playoff lives, and stole a victory from the reeling Pittsburgh Steelers. That’s four straight losses for the Steelers, dropping us to the 6th seed in the playoffs. The Bengals will miss the postseason despite winning five straight games to end their regular season. They have their defense to blame for a majority of their losses, but you wouldn’t have known that based on how they played against this allegedly new-look Steelers offense. No doubt, this offense has had some awesome moments this season. But, at this point, it’s feeling like the 2023 Steelers every time the offense takes the field, and that really sucks.
There was a point, early on in this game (like the start of the 2nd quarter) where I was actually feeling pretty good. Sure, we fell into a 10-0 hole, but I loved the way the offense ran the ball on that first touchdown drive. Immediately after the Najee Harris touchdown, the Steelers defense forces a 4th & 1 that the Bengals elect to go for, and the Steelers get the stop on a Cam Heyward batted pass. Vibes were certainly high, in my mind, at that point in the game. The Bengals are one of the worst defenses in the league, mind you. I thought to myself, surely, the offense will wake up and we’ll end the first half on a strong note. Nope. Offense goes 3 & out on the ensuing drive.
That certainly wouldn’t be the last time they go 3 & out in this game, and it’s such a shame, because the defense absolutely balled out. Real stingy in the red zone, and had a sick INT that got credited to Beanie Bishop Jr., but could’ve gone to Patrick Queen, too. They held one of the best offenses in the league to 19 points, and our offense could only muster 17 points against the 25th ranked scoring defense in the league (and I bet they were ranked lower than that before Saturday's game, I just don’t care enough to look).
Shoutout to the defense, for sure, and shoutout to Teryl Austin who finally dialed up some blitz packages like we’ve been begging for. The four-man pass-rush just hasn’t been cutting it, and I’m glad he finally made that adjustment. The offense, though, continues to be as predictable as ever. And, unfortunately, those things happen when your number one offensive weapon has seemingly checked out during this four-game skid. George Pickens showed up to the game with boxing gloves on, and had I don’t know how many drops. The only drop that truly mattered was the deep ball on the sideline on 3rd down in the third quarter. If he hauls that in, we’re well into Bengals territory with an opportunity to put some points on the board, finally. Instead, he flat-out drops it, and we punt, which would result in a Bengals FG, bringing their point total to 19. That one drop could be looked at as a potential 10-point swing. At that point in the game, we only had 7 points on the board. That drop was significant, and it speaks to his readiness for this game. Then, there was the little fade(?) at the end of the game to Pickens. I guess it’s your call who you want to blame on that one. Russell Wilson certainly missed some throws in this game, although he also made some that were dropped by others, too. It looks like Pickens is definitely expecting a different ball than he got, so who knows what went wrong there. It should’ve been an easy completion for those two, putting us right around Chris Boswell’s FG range with time running out, and a chance to win. Instead, it falls incomplete, resulting in a 4th down that the Steelers would go for, and not convert. Ball game.
While George Pickens probably has checked out a bit, and certainly shoulders some of the blame for this loss, this is on Arthur Smith and Mike Tomlin in my opinion. They want, so badly, for their identity to be that of a run-heavy football team, and this team just isn’t built to do that. The offensive line is still a year away, and missing someone that I consider a key piece in Troy Fautanu, considering they spent a first round pick to get him. Then, to ask guys like Najee Harris and Cordarelle Patterson to go out there and constantly make unblocked guys miss, or run on an outside zone concept even though neither one of them has enough acceleration to hit that corner. It’s just bad. And, we rely so heavily on the deep ball, and when it isn’t there, we have nothing. We have no one that can create YAC or work that intermediate part of the field outside of Pat Freiermuth. Maybe, Roman Wilson will help out with that next season. Who knows? Outside of that, our whole offense is run, run, deep ball. Run, run, deep ball. Run, run, deep ball. Run, run deep ball. Do you feel insane reading that repeatedly? I feel insane watching it repeatedly.
So, yeah. That sucked. And, there’s no time to figure anything out. Right into the fire and the flames we go in what is expected to be a snowy wild card game in Baltimore. What a fuckin disaster this season has become. This is a truly impressive fall from grace.
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