Steelers Morning Huddle

Welcome to Week 5 of the 2014 NFL Regular season. The Steelers will be heading out on the road this week to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars and we’re busy looking around for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s what’s being said about your Pittsburgh Steelers around the block for Tuesday, Sept. 30^th.

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Keisel wants consistency

Of all the words you can use to describe the 2014 Steelers so far after a quarter of the season has completed, consistency, isn’t one of them. Sure, this time last year the team was staring down a winless record and at least this year there are some numbers in the win column, however, through four games the Steelers have been anything but consistent. Teresa Varley spoke with Steelers DE Brett Keisel about what consistency means in terms of winning football games.

"“This is big business in this league and you always have a new tough opponent the next week. You want to be a consistent team. You want to be able to stack winning performances together. If you want to be a good football team you have to win consecutive ball games. We felt good about how we performed in Carolina and we don’t feel good about how we performed yesterday. It’s something that needs to be addressed, and something hopefully we can quit talking about and actually do it.” – Brett Keisel"

Todd Haley hate off-base

Todd Haley is not a popular man. The offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh never seems to be, until he’s gone apparently. ESPN Steelers reporter Scott Brown explains that the criticism directed at Todd Haley following the Steelers loss to Tampa Bay is just plain misguided. It’s pretty obvious if you follow Snoop Dogg on Instagram that the rapper is not a fan of Todd Haley at all. If you follow any kind of social media at all you’d probably see that the majority of Steeler Nation aren’t major Todd Haley fans either. Is that just sheep, going with the popular opinion that the easiest person to criticize when things don’t work out is the OC or are the criticisms warranted? Brown explains that the numbers the Steelers offense have put up this season so far (ranked 5^th in the league) and against Tampa Bay in that game certainly don’t suggest that Haley’s play-calling has been the downfall of the team.  Steeler fans sometimes criticize the team for doing things out of habit but quite possibly the criticism of the offensive coordinator is something fans do out of habit as well.

Steelers secondary aims to improve execution

Mark Kaboly of the Trib points out that it was just a matter of time this season when the Steelers secondary got exposed. That’s just what they did late against Tampa Bay. While the defense actually held Tampa Bay the majority of the first half after two quick scores by them. In the fourth quarter, the Steelers defense held the Bucs on an fourth and goal to give the Steelers the ball back with less than two minutes to play. That typically spells a victory in most situations. When the Steelers offense failed to convert what would have been a victory-clinching first down, the Steelers defense had to go back out on the field and the secondary was exposed not just on the game-winning touchdown, but the 41-yard reception by Louis Murphy that set that game-winning touchdown play up. With the Steelers secondary the weakest unit of the defense, they clearly can’t afford these mistakes going forward.