Steelers Morning Huddle 9/10/2013
By Kim Myers
Huddle up!
Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE
The freak-out from Sunday’s stinker against Tennessee is far from over for Steeler Nation. The fall-out is worsened by the players who were lost to injury during that game. The Steelers lost a lot when Pouncey, Foote and Stephens-Howling all went down with season-ending injuries. Now it’s time to make sure the Steelers don’t lose any more games as bad as they just did. Here’s what’s being said around the block about your Pittsburgh Steelers.
Steelers Roster Moves
It was no surprise that by Monday afternoon the Steelers announced they were placing Larry Foote, Maurkice Pouncey, and LaRod Stephens-Howling on the team’s Reserve/Injured List. To fill their roster spots the Steelers signed Jonathan Dwyer, C/G Fernando Velasco, and K Shayne Graham. Yeah, that Shayne Graham. Steelers K Shaun Suisham suffered a hamstring injury during warm-ups of the game but nobody noticed on account of he wasn’t needed to kick anything until the extra point for the touchdown the Steelers scored in the final 2 minutes of the game.
Titans DT Jurrell Casey disrespects Terrible Towel
You’d think the Titans would have learned from past mistakes about the “Curse of the Terrible Towel”? Apparently Tennessee’s Jurrell Casey was very irritated at the sight of those towels during Sunday’s game and took pleasure in the fact that there wasn’t a whole lot for the fans to wave them about as the game went on.
"”We made sure we put those Terrible Towels up their butts all day long. They waved them at the beginning of the game, but they left pretty early.” – Jurrell Casey"
Yeah, it was a home game, the towels are kind of our thing, and they were going to be waved regardless. Not sure why Casey has such an undesirable location for the towels to be, but I guess that was his way of saying that Tennessee took the Pittsburgh crowd out of the game. Sure hope that doesn’t come back to bite him in the butt. Or have a towel stuck up there or whatever it is you guys do down in Tennessee.
Blame Haley
Dejan Kovacevic of the Trib didn’t pull any punches in his column from Sunday night following the Steelers loss to the Titans. Kovacevic placed the blame squarely on one man’s shoulders; Offensive Coordinator Todd Haley. When you see how the offensive play calling played out over certain periods of the game you can’t really argue with him. The Steelers managed only 14 first downs and 195 yards of total offense to a very beatable team. If Tennessee had been a more talented team it could have been a blowout. Kovacevic points out the play calling for Redman’s fumble on the opening drive was a result of a miscommunication in terms of personnel. The play was supposed to have 2 tailbacks with Felix Jones flanking Isaac Redman to create confusion as to who the ball might be handed off to. Unfortunately David Johnson ended up in the huddle with not enough time left on the play clock to adjust so Johnson lined up behind Redman and the Titan defense instantly knew Redman was getting the ball. Kovacevic hits it right on the money when he says that there is basically no excuse for Haley, who had all summer to get on better terms with Ben, re-tool the playbook to familiarize the terminology for the players, not to mention prepare for the Titans and this was the best he could come up with. A bad exchange on a goal-line play and nonstop screens and sideline routes. Awesome. Here’s a tweet that might put things into more perspective as to just how deficient the Steelers offense was on Sunday.
The Eagles have had 53 offensive plays in the first half. The Steelers had 53 offensive plays ALL GAME yesterday.
— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) September 10, 2013
What are your thoughts Steeler Nation?
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