Pittsburgh Football in 2013 - A Final Look Back

Before we get too immersed in the NFL Playoffs and Monday's BCS title game, a final look back (and a tentative look forward) on the local scene.

STEELERS

If you are really interested, you can see what I had prognosticated for the 2013 Steelers back in September here:

http://www.grandstander.blogspot.com/2013/09/its-steelers-time.html

If I say so myself, I think I was pretty perspicacious in my predictions.  However, if you don't want to read the whole post from five months ago, here is the relevant passage:

As for 2013, I see the team being anywhere from 7-9 to 9-7 and not making the Playoffs this year.  I see Baltimore winning the AFC North with the Bengals - I can't believe I'm saying this - finishing ahead of the Steelers, who will still be better than the Browns.

Well, the Steelers finished 8-8, so I was on target there.  Yeah, yeah, I know, I was way wrong about the Ravens, who failed to make the playoffs.

This is the second year in a row that the Steelers went 8-8.  In 2012, they started 7-2 and then crashed and burned , going 1-6 in the final seven games.  This year, as we all know, they started 0-4, then rallied to go 8-4 in the final twelve games.  What to make of that?  Nothing, because 8-8 is the very definition of mediocre, and, essentially, that is what the Steelers have been for the last two years.  I think it would be a mistake for anyone to think that that nice 8-4 finish means that things are okay with the Steelers going into next year.

On the positive side, the Steelers seem to be a good offensive team.  Ben Roethlisberger remains a franchise quarterback, and Le'Veon Bell came on strong after he got healthy and looks to be a Grade-A running back.  Despite everyone's constant bitching about OC Todd Haley, the Steelers problems do NOT appear to be on that side of the ball.

The Steelers defense continues to age and continued a trend from '12 of not being able to hold fourth quarter leads.  Can that ship be turned around for the 2014 season?  That is the big question in my mind as the off-season gets underway for Rooney U.

PITT

You can make all the fun you want about a win over a MAC team in a minor league bowl game, but the Panthers victory over Bowling Green in the Pizza Pizza Bowl, was impressive and, I think, important to the team as they closed out a season that sent somewhat mixed messages.  (In addition to that, it was an entertaining and fun game to watch!)  The fact of the matter is that Pitt did NOT win those minor league bowl games the prior two seasons, so that alone makes the Pizza Pizza win a good one.

As the guys in the ticket group I am in watched Pitt throughout the season, we kept wondering just what kind of team they were.  Well, they finished 7-6, won a game or two we didn't expect (Notre Dame) and lost some they should have won (Navy, North Carolina).  As my expert on all things Pitt (Dan Bonk) said prior to the season, "if they win seven games, that would be a good season for them." So, there you are.

I keep thinking that 19 freshman received significant playing time for Pitt this year, and I'll be optimistic and say that that augers well for the future.

I will say that Pitt fans had better enjoy and appreciate Tyler Boyd in 2014, as I am sure that he will be gone to the NFL as soon as rules allow him to opt for the NFL draft.  He is a remarkable football player.

PENN STATE

I have decided not to comment in this forum on what has gone on there this past week.  Still too touchy and emotional an issue, and I'm just going to let it lay there.  

Steelers Beat Packers; Still Alive!

In a wild game that was unbelievably entertaining, the Steelers beat the Packers yesterday, 38-31, and, amazingly, kept their playoff hopes alive as they head into the final weekend of the season next week.

This game had just about everything:

• another very good game by Ben Roethlisberger, who may well be having the best season of his career,
• a successful fake punt by the Steelers that resulted in a thirty yard gain,
• a 100 yard rushing game by Le'Veon Bell; it had been 22 games since the Steelers had a 100 yard rusher,
• an interception returned for a touchdown by Cortez Allen
• a blocked field goal,
• yet another fourth quarter lead that the Steelers defense could not hold, followed by...
• a fourth quarter TD by Bell that regained the lead,
• a Packer kick-off return and a Steelers penalty that almost allowed the Packers to tie the game,
• an incomplete pass into the end zone on the final play that would have forced the game into overtime,
• and, oh yeah, an apparently blown call by the officials following that blocked Packer FG attempt, that would have loomed REALLY large had the Steelers ended up losing that game.

Local media types have been trying to gin up a controversy over Mike Tomlin's decision not to eat up time on the clock by not having Roethlisberger kneel down for two plays and then kick a FG at the end of the game.  Instead, Bell scored the winning TD (and did the Packers let him score there?), and the Packers got the ball back with over a minute to play, and ended the game, thanks to that 70 yard kick return, inside the Steelers ten yard line with a chance to tie the game.

Sorry, but I'm with Tomlin on this one.  When you have a chance to score, you try to score on the very next play.  Plus, the idea of an Offense trying not to score, while the Defense tries to allow  you to score, just strikes me as wrong.  This happened in the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl two years ago, and it just didn't sit well with me.  Besides, how many times is a strategy like that going to work for you? One in ten times? A hundred times? A thousand times?  Yeah, it almost worked for Green Bay yesterday, but the key word there is almost.

Oh, and a word about Le'Veon Bell.  After a slow start, due to injuries, it is now apparent, Bell appears to be the real deal as an NFL running back.  Big, fast, strong and with an almost freakish ability to hurdle defenders.  One of the things I like most about him is his ability make what should be three or four yard losses into one or two yard gains.

As I have been saying for a few weeks now, whatever else the Steelers have been this year, their games, with one or two exceptions, have been tremendously entertaining, win or lose, and that game yesterday may have topped them all.

And you have to hand it to the NFL, they do know how to milk the playoff possibility game.  With a win next week and help from three other teams in three other games, the Steelers could find themselves with a seat at the table when the Playoffs begin the following week.  Probable? Not very, but still possible, and if it happens, I will remind you that all twelve playoff teams will start with a 0-0 record.  And to the Gloomy Guses who may root against this happening because it will "only spoil our draft position", get over it.

******

Two other NFL observations:

The Seattle Seahawks, who may very well be the best team in the NFL, lost yesterday to the Arizona Cardinals.  The Cardinals are now 10-5, very much alive in the NFC playoff hunt, and are coached by Bruce Ariens, who was shoved into "retirement" by Art Rooney II two years ago.  Make your own judgements there.

In Detroit, Coach Jim Schwartz, a singularly annoying individual, with time on the clock and times out in his pocket, elected to play for a field goal to tie the game with the Giants yesterday rather than try to score a touchdown.  The fans at Ford Field made the displeasure with this strategy known, and Schwartz was seen turning towards the stands and jawing with the fans about it.  The Giants won the game in OT, and Schwartz is said to be on the ropes in Detroit.

Steelers 30 - Bengals 20

OK, be honest now, who saw THAT coming before last night's game?

At the Stonebrook Village Christmas dinner party last night I said, and this is the God's honest truth, that while I didn't expect a Steelers win last night, I did hold some hope that the first place Cincinnati Bengals would still be eminently capable of playing like the Cincy Bungles that we have come to know and love for a couple of generations now.  Damned if that isn't exactly what happened.  When we got home from the Party, the score was already 7-0 and in the blink of an eye, it was 21-0, still in the first quarter, and the game was essentially over.

Chris Collinsworth, who for my money is the best analyst currently working on network television, had a couple of great lines.  One was, you couldn't tell which team was 9-4 and which was 5-8 coming into this one, and then he said that the Steelers were playing like the old time Steelers and that the Bengals were playing like the old time Bengals.

As I stated a couple of weeks ago, despite the fact the the Steelers are going nowhere, playoff-wise, that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy each game on it's own merits, one that can be fun to watch and entertaining, and especially satisfying if your team happens to win it.  Such was the case last night.  And while the Steelers have many problems, and they are great (as Chas Noll would put it), you have to say that, with one or two exceptions, their games have been extremely entertaining this season.

The Steelers at the Quarter Pole

I have been meaning to write this post for the last two weeks, ever since the Steelers loss to the Vikings in week four of the NFL season, but other things, mainly the Pirates run into the MLB Post Season, got in the way.  The title of this post is now somewhat irrelevant since most NFL teams have played five games, but I like it, and I'm sticking with it.

OK, so now I'm going to write about the Steelers, the 0-4 Steelers, and where do I begin?

We all know by now that this is the first time since 1968 that the Steelers have been 0-4, and we all have some cultural or personal touchstone to relate to that fact.  You know, things like Lyndon Johnson was President, Barack Obama was only seven years old, I myself was a senior in high school, gasoline was thirty-four cents a gallon, and you could mail a first class letter for six cents, but I like this one, courtesy of Gene Collier: The last time the Steelers were 0-4, the Beatles were not only still together, they had yet to release the White Album!  Ob-la-di-la-da!

It seems to me that there have been a couple of predominant themes when discussing the 2013 Steelers:

1. Injuries to key players (which happen to every team, by the way).  
2. There appears to be a schism on the team between the older veterans, defined as "guys who played on the '08 Super Bowl champs", and the younger players, defined as "everybody else".
3. Locker room turmoil over who gets to use the ping pong, pool, and shuffleboard tables
4. The Steelers can't run the ball
5. The defense has yet to force a turnover (that is mind-boggling in and of itself)
6. The offensive line stinks and will eventually get Ben Roethlisberger killed.
7. And in perhaps the best development of all, defensive captain Ryan Clark points the finger and blames offensive captain Ben Roethlisberger for the teams woes. (Remember, Clark is the captain of a defense that has produced no, as in zero, turnovers in four games.)
8. Todd Haley gets in the news for all the wrong reasons and needs to go.

Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that read and hear about when you are discussing bad football teams.  In years past aren't these the kinds of things you expected to read about the Bengals or the Dolphins or the Jets?  Face it, folks, what we have here is a bad football team.  

Why are they bad?  Simple answer, poor drafting and not enough good players, and how is that for insightful, cutting edge commentary?

How do you fix it?  Again, I'm being simplistic, but you need better players, and that won't happen overnight.  There was an interesting story in the Post-Gazette this morning about how when Chuck Noll came to the Steelers after that historic 1968 season, he basically said "you guys just aren't good enough, and I'm going to have to get rid of most of you."  I sure hope that these Steelers aren't that bad,  but maybe they are.

One of the things you don't do is get rid of Mike Tomlin, who has taken this team to the Super Bowl twice in his tenure.  I will say this, though.  After the Steelers went 1-13 in Noll's first season, I recall players saying, upon reflection, that Noll "never lost the locker room" despite all the losing.  How Tomlin handles what appears to be cracked, if not fractured, locker room over the remainder of the season will be a big test for him.

As for today, the Steelers take on the 3-2 New York Jets.  Who could have imagined when the schedule came out that the Steelers would be 2 and 1/2 games worse than the Jets when they played this one.  And I am not overly confident that they can win this game unless the defense, are you listening, Ryan Clark?, can take a hand in forcing the outcome.  This is what it has come to - wishing and hoping for a win against a crummy team like the Jets.