Comments on: Week 12 Recap: Heartbreaker

By: chris

chris — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:37:48 +0000

Andrew, with all due respect, I think there are more differences on our defense than just Troy being injured. Last year we had McFadden, who is a good solid corner. This year we have Gay, who completely sucks. Last year we had Aaron Smith, this year we don’t. Last year Deshea Townshend and James Farrior were one year younger. This year, they both look like they’ve lost a step or two(Deshea has totally deteriorated)

Add it up and you have a defense that had an all-time great season last year falling to good to pretty good this year.

With the defense down a notch or two, you need the offense to step it up. Instead, they’re as bad as (or worse) than they were last year. And you’re absolutely right, it’s all on Arians.

His stupidity was tolerable last year because the D covered for him. Now it’s not. Dialing up 40 yard bombs to Wallace in OT or having only one designed QB run play for Slash 2.0 is totally INEXCUSABLE.

I’d love to see him go but I have a bad feeling we’ll need to waste another year before the Steelers realize what we all can plainly see.

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:16:03 +0000

Good game, shame we screwed the pooch…

Clearly without Troy Polamalu this team cannot win. That is, essentially, the only difference between this year and last.

Arians butchered this gameplan like he always does. Only one designed rollout, and it got a TD. Only one QB run, and it got a TD. Yet despite those two big plays, not a single one of Dixon’s best skills were put to use.

Not a single shenanigan in sight aside from Dixon’s run. No Mike Wallace run, no reverses, no nothing.

Lot of people get the blame, but to me Arians has to go after this year.

By: "O"

"O" — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:39:12 +0000

Probably more mad than anything else. To be that close to winning without Troy and Ben. You are right it was balanced but the play calls were less than creative. I also would have liked to see him move the pocket or even more of the option. Dixon is at home using the option. But we can say this, Baltimore had a hard time hanging with us without Troy or Ben. We still have a shot at a wild card. Who knows we still could win it all.

By: JLAW

JLAW — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:03:24 +0000

Chris I think you’re correct about the aggressive play calling against the secondary and lack of clock control late in the game with a lead. Watching Sportscenter while the boy naps. They are talking about Ben’s concussion. It’s an argument I can see both sides. I miss a lot of press conferences and news updates because of my job. So Im sure it’s old news to ya but they did say Hines and Ben have made ammends over the comments made. So hopefully everyone clears Ben and he hits Hines for about 300 yards over the next two games to prove it is officially behind them.

By: chris

chris — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:19:47 +0000

O, I’m by no means an Arians fan and I’d be the first to celebrate if he was canned but I really don’t think you can lay this one all on him. Mendenhall had 24 rushes and Dixon threw 26 passes. That’s about as balanced as you can get. And, yes, Rashard was running well but I don’t think he “owned” them or you could say he was running right through them.

I have no problem with Arians mixing in a pass play or two. My issue was with the plays he picked. Dix’s best pass was the rollout where the Ravens thought he was going to run so they froze which left Holmes wide open for the TD. They never called that again! And Dixon did okay with dumpoffs and screens. Why were they dialing up 40 yard bombs to Wallace? Especially in OT!!

I do agree with you about the offense controlling clock and taking pressure off our D but that applies when Ben is in there, too. Too bad BA doesn’t seem to get that idea.