Championship Game, Baby! This is what it’s all about. Gotta love it
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I’ve spent quite a few years touting Ben Roethlisberger. It started with his 2nd preseason game in August of 2004. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I had just recently begun doing a sports talk show on Saturday nights. A thought occurred to me as I watched him play.
The thought was that this quarterback had more poise than any Steelers quarterback that I had ever seen since Bradshaw.
Even in those very early days, Roethlisberger never seemed out of place. I came on theshow that Saturday night and said that Ben should start game 1 because he was already better than any Steelers quarterback since Bradshaw.
My first caller that evening said, “You are an idiot!” Ha!
So it goes…..
Rex Ryan is the best coach in pro football. His team is outplaying their stats and it’s because of Ryan’s defensive schemes and his brilliant work as a psychologist. But unfortunately for dear Rex, his message is going to be a tough sell this week.
All of the situations play to Pittsburgh. The Jets just beat the Colts and Patriots in successive weeks. The Colts had knocked the Jets out of the playoffs last year. The Patriots just beat the Jets 45-3 a few weeks ago.
Do you think the message was hard to get across? Absolutely not.
But all of this plays against the Jets this game. Road playoff teams off 2 straight up underdog wins are just 3-11 lifetime.
What will the Jets energy and emotional level be this game? The above stat gives you quite a clue.
There is more bad news for Rex Ryan. He can’t even say to his players that we got our asses handed to us in Pittsburgh last time! But you better believe Tomlin will be taking advantage of that 5 point loss to New York this season.
The Steelers are 10-1 when revenging a game against an opponent last three years.
The Jets have the superior advantage in special teams. But the fact that they got a big return TD against Pittsburgh in the previous game makes you think that the Steelers will be extra focused to not allow that to occur in this game.
Finally, Pittsburgh is 17-2 off a home win the last 3 years.
The Steelers are not only in a better spot. Pittsburgh is the much better team. The public thinks the Jets have a great shot to win. But they are wrong.
Yards per play differential
Steelers +1.0, Patriots +0.4, Colts
+0.1, Jets +0.1
Yards per pass differential
Steelers +1.8, Patriots +0.9, Colts +0.4, Jets +0.1
How can the Jets even compete here?
This game should be very simply to handicap. The Steelers will stuff the Jets running attack behind a great run defense and a frenzied crowd, and force Mark Sanchez to beat them with his piss poor 6.2 Net yards per pass average.
Rex Ryan has major problems with his game plan here. Does he stick to his run first mentality and lose? Or does he come out throwing in an attempt to win the game? If Ryan chooses plan B, it will be his only chance to pull off a win. But this would be a tough call for him to make.
Cowher had issues with this for years. He would never want to get away from what he does best. Because if it backfired, he would most likely regret it for 6 months. This is all brought on by having a less than championship quality quarterback.
Run first teams don’t win championships. If they did, Earl Campbell, Barry Sanders, OJ Simpson, Eric Dickerson, Tomlinson, would all have at least 1 Superbowl between them.
The Steelers defense will shut down the run and force Sanchez to beat them. His lack of efficiency will become amazingly apparent in this game.
The Jets will walk away wondering if he can ever get them to where they want to go.
Rex Ryan will become known as a coach who can’t win the big one. That would be very unfair to him of course. But that label has been tossed around to a lot of great coaches that willed their team as a far as they could possibly go with mediocre talent at the Quarterback position.
Meanwhile Pittsburgh enters the game with a defense that seems to better each game. Pittsburgh allows just 4.5 Yards per play against a schedule of offenses that gain 5.4 yards per play on average. The Jets offense meanwhile gains just 5.2 yards per play against a schedule of teams that would allow 5.3 yards per play defensively on average. In other words the Jets may not be able to move the football much at all in this game.
The Jets are in a lot of trouble.
Roethlisberger is in a great spot. The Jets defense dominated the Colts and Patriots offenses. Roethlisberger said that he doesn’t know what he can do against them. Oh yes he does. You have to love this situational spot for big Ben. You just get the feeling that he is in a great frame of mind.
If we take the Steelers +0.7 net yards per play differential and divide by 0.15, you would get about 4.6 points. Now add 3 points to the home team and all of the situational angles that play into Pittsburgh’s favor, and we should see a Steelers victory reach double digits.
This really isn’t that hard folks.
Pittsburgh 27 Jets 13
I REALLY hope you're right. I've been thinking the same thing. Before the Jets beat the Pats I said if they somehow pulled it off I had no doubt we were going to the Superbowl… sadly the more I've heard the love fest for the Jets the more I can't help but let it creep into my head.
I agree with you, our D is going to make Sanchez look like a scared little puppy out there. The Jets actually ran on us well relatively speaking. I don't think there's any way they do it twice in a season.
Ben vs. that D worries me though. The first time we played them I thought Ben would be sacked 15 times in one game, but we seemed to move the ball with relative ease. I have no idea how. I think the offense will struggle. I heard that Revis will be covering Hines, if that's true I like it. Wallace is definitely our most dangerous WR at this point, and he'll kill Cromartie.
I really want to agree with you, like I said I was thinking alot of the same things as you, but it just seems like there's always 1 or 2 freak plays that keep it close every game. Last week it was the lame fumble return TD by the Ravens. Last time against the Jets it was the opening kick return and later the blown block for a safety.
The Steelers are definitely the better team and should win this game. The things that scare me are special teams and and turnovers. If we can avoid giving up big returns or committing any crucial turnovers, we should be rolling to Dallas. if we can't, it will be a dog fight. I think it will be close but Ben, the crowd, and the D will prove to be too much for Sanchez and the Jets.
Steelers 24 Jets 17
Thank for for the post. Great reading as always. Just a few thoughts:
1) I think the Jets will use a lot of screen passes, dump offs to RBs and tomlinson is great at the short pass game. Could be an issue especially if we are aggressive on defense (i'm sure we will be).
2) I see Revis man to man on Wallace with Cromartie on Ward. Cromartie is just as physical but a tad bit slower. However, on third downs, I can see Rex mixing it up and switching to Revis on Ward like he was for the first matchup. This matchup combination would allow to jets not to double cover wallace as much and focus on our other options. It would mean our young guys and Heath having to make clutch third down receptions — something I am sure they can do but not something I'd like to hang my hat on.
3) Turnovers, especially on things like the blind side sack due to horrible line coverage worry me every game. Things like that make every other stat meaningless.
4) I think the Jets will play a lot of coverage and try to get pressure with just 3-4 people on most plays. Man to man with revis and cromartie as detailed above and then a zone on the rest of the wr's/te's might make for a long day and prevent too many long pass plays.
I do think we're going to destroy these jets though.. mostly because of how well our Defense is playing. The one thing that neither the Pats nor the Colts have is a defense. Their defenses can't stop a nosebleed… our defense causes them. Sanchez is in trouble.
Steelers 27 Jets 16
Dutch please use the word "hopefully" and not "as a matter of fact" way when predicting ok?
Thank you for analysis
Did you guys listen to my interview with Dutch?
On offense, I like the Steeler matchups with Heath and Sanders/Brown on the Jets LBs and nickle/dime CBs. I think NYs safeties are average at best. I like Mendy coming out of the backfield…no one can cover him on the Jets.
I like the Steelers D vs the Jets offense. I think Timmons is a versatile chess piece in coverage vs Keller and Tomlinson/Greene. I like Woodley and Harrison vs the OTs. Polamalu is a bonus.
Without a ST score, the Jets don't hang.
If it's unfair to label Ryan as a coach who can't win the big one (after a whopping 2 postseasons, one of which hasn't actually ended yet), then it's also unfair to call him the greatest coach in football after two years. It's not like the Jets don't have any talented players, they've signed a Pro-Bowler/first round pick at just about every position.
Ryan's a great coach and he is certainly the best fit for his collection of loud-mouth players, but calling him the best coach in pro football is akin to calling Sam Bradford the best quarterback in pro football. Let's give it another couple of years before we start that kind of talk.
Still, I hope Ryan ends up going to the Pro Bowl as a coach. I'd much rather see him there than Tomlin.
Antonio Cromartie is probably one of the fastest players in the league. Dunno who he's "a tad bit slower" in that Jets backfield, or on their whole team for that matter. It sure ain't Revis.
That said, Cromartie also can be had and will get caught peeking into the backfield/trying to jump routes. Wallace can, and already has, handled him. I hope like mad Rex decides to use Revis to shadow only Ward. It'll basically be a waste of Revis, and they'll still be able to get guys open on key third downs by flooding Revis' side of the field from the bunch formation. Revis can't cover 3 guys by himself.
They want to use Revis to "neutralize" Ward, I say have at it. The Steelers should still be able to move the ball with Miller, Sanders, Brown and Wallace vs. the rest of that secondary.
I think you're totally wrong about that. Wallace doesn't always play a well-rounded game. If he's one dimensional and just tries to beat Cromartie with speed, I'm not sure he'll win that matchup. Cromartie might be fast enough to hang with Wallace; Revis isn't. Ward always kills Cromartie, because Cromartie's game is from the neck down and Ward knows how to fool people. Wallace can't always do that.
I was praying Rex would put Revis on Wallace, because there's no way Revis can run with Wallace, and Cromartie has a ton of trouble with savvy, crafty, physical guys like Ward.
Lets just hope the players dont read this blog this week! They will get cocky because you are absolutely right!
Oi! Oi! Oi!
CAN'T WAIT for Dallas!!
Here we go Steelers!!!
Wow! you nailed it. Nice game preview!!!!