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Steelers vs Bills: Quick Thoughts
By Dagger | August 15, 2008
We’ll have much more over the next day or two but for now…here are our unedited quick hitters fresh off the game.
1. Offensive Line struggled in the running game; never could get a consistent push off the line of scrimmage
2. Woodley may be getting lots of pub right now, but the past 2 games have been a tad dissapointing. Tonight he was shut down 1-on-1 by a RB on a few occasions as he blitzed off the edge.
3. Defensive Line is going to be a huge issue this year. Absolutely no depth, and the starters are looking slower and older.
4. Santonio Holmes is going to have a monster season.
5. Timmons needs to start.
6. Didn’t hear Bruce Davis’ name once.
7. Pass defense looked soft 2 games in a row.
8. You can’t blame missed tackles and the inability to win 1-on-1 battles on Lebeau or the “Vanilla Defense”. The D plain old looks bad right now.
9. Nice to see the offense utilize the RBs (3 catches) and TE (2 catches) in the passing game. Steelers need to dump the ball to Mendy, Moore and Parker more often.
10. Would be nice to see Polamalu get healthy, but he is not the reason the D is struggling.
11. The DLine was getting blown off the line of scrimmage the entire game; very dissapointing to see that.
12. Steelers defenders seem to struggle shedding blocks and making tackles in space.
13. Opposing QBs are completing 64% of their passes vs our D
14. Willie Reid takes one step forward, one step back, one step forward, one step back
15. Our offensive skill guys look great; we have one of the best groups of skill guys in the NFL, the OL line will either make or break them
16. Keisel might be the most overrated player on the roster. He is all over FSN commercials, laughing it up, getting in front of the camera, but really he hasn’t done a whole heck of a lot for this team to warrant the attention he receives from announcers, fans, etc…he looks extremely average on most plays.
17. We finally saw a drop from Sweed but it still looks like he will become a solid player over time
18. Steelers secondary recorded 0 passes defended (patted balls, pass breakups, INTs) this week.
I would rather see all of our weaknessess and warts exposed now than to have our players enter the season thinking they’re “ready” only to be in for a rude awakening once they start seeing live fire week 1. Look for screencaps, breakdowns, and a roundtable over the next few days. We didn’t do much following the Eagles game, but with 2 weeks worth of ammo we now have something we can actually look at and learn from.
Topics: NFL, Steelers | 7 Comments »
August 15th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Yeah the dline looked terrible today. With no push up front I don’t think our secondary can get much done.
I think we have so many guys fighting for our 4th and 5th receiver spots its crazy. I think Baker and Rucker have done some impressive things with limited touches this preseason. I hope we can find a way to keep Baker and Rucker around. Rucker has so much potential it would be a shame to lose him. Maybe we can stash one of them on the practice squad for another year.
Is it me or does the oline look OK except for the glaring weakness that is the RT spot? I know the coaches like Colon’s attitude but the guy just doesn’t seem to the be able to play.
I was down on Dixon initially but I am a believer now the kid was worth a 5th rounder, maybe more. I would be okay with him being our number 2 QB next season.
Ben still needs to work on his deep ball, holmes was WIDE OPEN and Ben barely hit him. Ben is a great QB but still has some things to work on.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Are we becoming the Cincinnati Bengals? Great at the skill positions but no strength in the trenches?
August 15th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I would agree with that statement about us becoming the Bengals, except they have a better oline.
I blame Colbert, the guy is a bad GM and needs to be fired. He helped make Detroit Lions the joke that they are.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Steeltown….yeah. It’s a stupid, bass-ackwards way to build an NFL Team. If you can’t win battles at the line of scrimmage and on the corners, you cannot contend for the Super Bowl. All the linebackers, safeties, and skill players in the world won’t fix that.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
The coaching staff loves Colon, I don’t understand why. He seems to get a free pass. He isn’t awful but Starks didn’t get a chance to challenge for the RT spot. Whenever Starks looks bad, or gets beaten for a sack or QB pressure, it’s when he is playing LT behind Marvel Smith. I don’t know why his play at backup LT costs him his chance to win the RT job. We won a Super Bowl with the guy at RT, right?
Our secondary has always been sub-par….that makes the need for a pass rush all the more important. If we aren’t getting to the QB, we’ll get TORN APART this year. We face some really good passing offenses.
August 16th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Maybe it’s because Colon has room to grow? We’ve already seen Starks’ full potential…he’s a huge, soft, slow-footed tackle who’s great in the running game — except when he’s not. Colon is a brawler, he’s got better feet, and he’s not 6′8″ so he gets better leverage against the bull rush. Unfortunately, he has short arms, so he’s probably better suited at guard.
If anything, I’d rather see Essex get a shot at the starting right tackle job. I remember in his rookie season, the first time I saw him on the field, I thought he looked like a wide receiver who ate his way to 320. No more. Now he looks strong and fit, and he’s playing that way. Essex has long arms and maybe the best feet of any linemen on the team. He should have been given a chance to compete at tackle or they should have opened up real competitions at guard.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Even if Colon cut his number of sacks from last season in half he would still be a below average starting RT. Guys can only improve so much.