So it's begun.
Last night the Steelers started another Super Bowl title defense season (that never gets old saying). I'm gonna try really hard this year to not bitch and moan about too much because honestly, we've won 2 Super Bowls in 4 years, we're still in a grace period.
The Steelers kicked off their season by whipping up the crowd in the usual Pittsburgh way, by lighting off fireworks, but enough smalltalk, let's move on to some points from the game.
1. Big Ben is indispensable. He is the one person that this team can't afford to lose. Right or wrong, he takes a lot of shit from time to time for his personality, but when it boils down to it I don't want anyone else as QB of this team. I'll explain that one later. He was rusty at first, underthrowing a wide open Wallace on the first series and forcing balls in the first half, but he got over it and led that dink and dunk no huddle offense to perfection.
2. Speaking of not affording to lose players, it appears that the Steelers will be without #2 most indispensable player, Troy Polamalu. Him being out 3-6 weeks, or whatever timeline they give, makes a great defense, perhaps the best in the league, a very good defense. Us Steeler fans have seen in the past how an injured, yet still playing, Polamalu does to our defense. The sad thing is, he got hurt on a fluke play; a blocked field goal. I mean seriously, how many field goals get blocked by a team during the course of the season? 1? 2? 3? Regardless, my question is: What is he doing on the field on a play like that anyway?
3. Jeff Reed is money, and speaking of money and in the immortal words of Teddy KGB, "Pay that man his money". Reed is playing in the last year of his contract. He's clutch. He's nearly automatic. He kicks in the tough conditions of Heniz Field better than anyone. Pay him.
4. We did have some fortunate luck last night. A couple big passes went off the hands of Tennessee receivers that would have given them killer first downs and they had 2 missed field goals as well.
5. Our defense looked very good, albeit understandably for an opening game, somewhat sloppy at times with blown coverages and too big of cushions on the outside. I mean, come on guys, Tennessee's game isn't to throw downfield, so why give those 10 yard cushions which effectively concede those out routes. I'm not saying that you have to blanket the guys, but a little tighter would be nice. Oh, and Lendale White can eat it now.
6. But I do have to give a long bitch right now, and that's about our still putrid O-line. Yes, I get it, we won the Super Bowl last year with them, but I tend to think that we won it in spite of them. They flat out stunk last night. Some credit has to go to the Flaming Tacks' defense, but still, there were no holes to run through (Parker and Mendenhall* did jack squat because of it) and Ben had to scramble more often than not. Which leads me back to Point #1, if you put Brady or Manning (the only QB's in the league who may be better than Ben) behind a line like ours, they would do very little. Give me Ben on this team all day, but just imagine if he had a good line to protect him and give him a running game to work with. The only reason Ben had time to throw in those last couple series is because they were doing 3-step drops and getting rid of the ball quickly and the Tacks were tiring from the no huddle.
* The best idiot fan moment came when the guy in front of me bitched in the 3rd quarter after a no gain by Mendenhall that he sucks and we should get Parker in there. He looked like some hippie just out of college anyway, so I loathed him to begin with.
So take the win and move on. It's a long season. There's a lot of good to take from the game, and there's plenty that needs improved on. I will say though that it won't be the cakewalk that many predicted if play continues like last night.
Links:
- Starkey has a list of points on the game, which I swear I didn't read until after I wrote my post.
- P-G's recap here.
- Collier on the poor running game here.
- Dulac's report card here. Come on man, an F for the backs but only a C- for the line?
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