It was a close game, but you can make an argument that either team should have ran away with it.� The Pats had 2 red zone turnovers that most of the time would have resulted in at least 10 points, and the Steelers had a bonehead play by Randel EL and a FG penalty what would have resulted in at least 6 points.� The Pats definately looked like the better team in the 2nd half, throwing against us pretty steadily and having all day to throw the ball.
--- Ben went to sleep for most of the 2nd half, showing us glimpses of this past January with Bad mechanics, bad decisions or no decisions.� I don�t think Ben is used to being pressured like that on a regular basis and he will need to make adjustments.� Whipple really needs to hammer this guy on his technique under pressure and for all 60 minutes.� It seems he threw much more flat-footed floaters as the game went on.��� This type of game proved that Ben is still learning and is not there yet.
--- I thought Willie ran pretty well against a stacked run defense that killed our OLine most of the day.� His average was only 3.2 YPC, but he had some decent yards after contact and took what he could get.� I don�t think Duce at his best would have done much better.� I�m not a x�s and o�s expert, but it seems that they should try to run Wille left and right at least SOME of the time.� I love the whole Cowher pound the ball thing, but this guys is a friggin burner, let�s see if he can turn the corner once in a while!!� Maybe they tried it early and I missed it as I had to suffer through the end of the Jet-Jags game before they turned on the Stillers (I�m from NY).� Again, not enough passing plays to Willie�� This game was screaming for it and I think they threw to him twice.
--- Whether it was good D, lack of size in our WRs, pressure or indecision on Ben�s part, the passing game collapsed in the 2nd half.� I wonder is this is the first game we needed Plax or another tall receiving threat�. Hey like Heath Miller, our number one draft pick!!!� How about him?� What do you think?� He gets one grab, helping Ben beat a blitz and getting a few tough yards after contact to get a first down� What a play!� How many times did they throw to him after that?� None.�� The 2nd half was a tailor-made time to get this guy going and it didn�t happen.�� How can giving him a few more opportunities hurt?� I realize that our 3rd and 4th WRs are really solid, but even the 4WR sets were not working that well.� I hope Cowher gets this guy going before the season is over.�
--- As Mill and others
have pointed out, our inability to rush Brady without blitzing killed us in the
2nd half.� There were a few
nice sacks here and there from Kimo, Haggans, etc, but when crunch-time came, Brady played the
blitzes to perfection most of the time and all the time on that final
drive.�� This is a pretty big hole for us
especially against teams that know how to play blitzes, like
--- I did like Cowher�s move to try and exploit Chad Scott on 4th and 11, but that pass-interference call was iffy in my opinion.� Still a nice move though.
--- Reed�s streak is snapped due to a stupid penalty� great streak though�
--- The secondary
played ok as I thought most of the big plays were due to lack of pressure on
Brady.� Ricardo did miss a couple of
tackles and Troy took a bad angle here and there, however they did not give up
a huge play even when Brady all day and kept everything in front of them.�
--- Dillon got stuffed again and taunted the Stillers fans again after it was over.� Nice job Mr. 2.7 yard per carry!� At least Willie was able to muster over 3!
***
---Finally, lets hear from Cowher on why he did not call a timeout with 30 secs left in the game or whatever it was:
����������..Why didn�t you
call a timeout before the winning field goal?
Just
to get in their mind a little bit. Since I didn�t take a timeout, I thought,
hopefully given how much time is left they�d have to rush into it. [Adam] Vinatieri, how many times has he been frozen? I was hoping
that he would think that I was going to freeze him. I was just trying to play a
little cat and mouse game��������..
Adam
Vinatieri has hit 2 clutch FGs
to win Super Bowls� do you think you�re going to psyche him out in Week 3 by
not calling a timeout?� 30 seconds is
plenty of time to give Reed a chance coming back especially with a good runback
on KO, which we had a couple already.�
This was one of the worst moves I�ve ever seem him make, period.� Also, what message are you sending your
offense, intended or not, that you don�t give them another chance.� Am I missing something here?� Ugh, lets hope Cowher learns from this if we
are able to make the playoffs and never tries this stupid move again.
Go
Steelers!
