Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Steelers Week 1, more comments

1. Tunch & Wolf are mystified why we fans are giving up hope (the hometown fans abandoned the stadium quickly, it was so ugly). Well it's because of the 0-4 preseason, which showed that last year's problems had not been fixed: no o-line, no running game, no defensive turnovers. We lost 5 of the last 7 in 2012, all preseason, and now game one in the HOME OPENER. There's reason to think the team not only will suck, but that the coaches don't have a clue how to fix it.

2. I asked the 'depot: does the salary of an IR player hit the cap? Dave Bryan says they do. That sucks. But Bryan emphasizes that the players you pick up in September do not hit your cap that much anyway.

3. Tomlin has much to blame here. When he says "the standard is the standard", I'm not certain he places any standards on himself. The team has been getting worse since 2010, not better, and in ways we all recognized. Moreover, his game-time decision making is very poor. We can all rip Rex Ryan for putting Sanchez in the 4th quarter of a pre-season game, leading to an inevitable injury (playing behind a non-cohesive, 3rd string, o-line = no protection), but Tomlin did the same bad thing. He used "LaSH" as his primary back instead of Felix Jones, who was dressed for the game! LaSH is a small, fragile back that you use for maybe 20 carries a game as a change of pace back. And when Tomlin used him on 5 straight carries, he broke. Why dress Jones?

4. There are more key problems from Tomlin, who has not shown me that he can do the job he was hired to do. This hurts me to say, because I think he's a cool character and I like him being the face of the franchise. But he can't coach, can't prepare players, can't improve the problems, and apparently can't draft well.

See these for more: Mike Tomlin Should Be on the Hot Seat | Bleacher Report & Homer's Take

5. For the record, I put some key blame on Defense. They failed to get off the field on key 3rd downs, and AGAIN no turnovers. Yet unlike offense, they had all of their starters! What was their excuse?

6. Some random thoughts: We just pay too much money to old vets and can't use the money to improve o-line. With pouncey out, maybe we'll again get Starks back. And its crazy that everyone in the division lost, but (a) Ravens & Bengals were *away* (b) both were playing against teams with winning records in 2012 (esp. the freakin' Broncos with Peyton Manning!) After we saw the Ravens lose, and with the Bengals playing away a 10-6 team, this was the week to win (holding aside we were playing a poor team at home). Gevalt.

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