Don’t let the “W” fool you. The Steelers have some major, major problems right now. The way the offense played in the 1st half, they probably deserved to lose this game. Sure, you play all 60 minutes and every snap is important, we had some injuries, and getting beat in 1 phase doesn’t mean you “deserve” to lose….but come on….the Steelers are lucky to be 3-1 today. They were dominated in the 1st half, the offense was a joke for most of the night, and they had 6 plays inside the Ravens 10 yard line to put the game away for good and they walked away with a FG.
I’m a bit late to the anti-Arians party, but for the first time in 2 years…..I fear that no matter what offensive weapons you add to this team, Bruce Arians will keep them from maximizing their potential.
The RB injury issues didn’t have any real impact on this game on Monday (minus a Mewelde Moore carry on the 1 yard line). Don’t let that be an excuse for the offensive woes. Last year the Steelers averaged 68 rushing yards per game vs Bmore and Monday night we had 69. That’s par for the course. Against the Ravens defense we live or die via the passing game. Doesn’t matter if we have Willie Parker, LT, Clinton Portis, Maurice Jones-Drew, Jamal Lewis, Matt Forte, etc….nobody is beating the Ravens on the ground. The blame for our offensive struggles continues to fall on Bruce Arians and our OL…in that order.
Check out this clip from ESPN where Big Ben talks about offensive adjustments.
So, you’re telling me our offensive coordinator struggles vs the Browns, he lays an egg vs the Eagles and on Monday night he is so ineffective your statring QB basically “takes the keys” away from Bruce Arians and does his job for him? The offense was so inept that your QB tells your coach “we’re going no-huddle and I’m calling the plays from now on”. Wow.
Any clue what the Steelers Offensive Identity is? Running team, Passing team, Spread offense, Smashmouth, West Coast Offense, Ball Control? I have no idea.
We seem to have a Singleback Formation Spread Offense/Zone blocking scheme but we never throw to our RBs, we don’t spread the ball around to multiple WRs, we never have 4WRs in the game at the same time…..We don’t have a real fullback….we have 3 good TEs who never get a ball thrown their way….it’s just very, very confusing. If you’re not a power running team then why not get 4WR in the game, spread the ball around, hit the RBs out of the backfield and move the ball quickly down the field? Under Arians we seem to be caught in between 2 or 3 offensive schemes or philosophies and we’re absolutely not taking advantage of the offensive weapons on this team. A real legit OC would be like a kid in a candy store with the weaponry on this squad. Imagine a mad scientist like Mike Martz or a guy like Al Saunders, Holmgren, Jason Garrett, or Wisenhunt at the helm with our offense at their disposal.
-Seen Dixon on any trick plays yet?
-Seen Mendenhall and Parker in backfield together yet?
-Seen any RB screens?
-Any reason for only throwing a DEEP ball 1 or 2x per game?
-Any reason why Mewelde Moore hasn’t been more involved?
-Matt Spaeth had 3 TDs last year in limited action…have you seen him in 2008?
-Dallas Baker and Limas Sweed can’t get into the game why?
-You can’t “burn a blitz” with guys like Moore, Holmes, Miller, and Ward on the field at the same time? It took Arians 2 full games to realize quick passes and slants over the middle were the key to beating a pass rush. wowzers.
Ever find it amusing that whenever the Steelers have a real “big play” it comes from Ben scrambling around, avoiding the pass rush, and IMPROVISING? What does it say about your Offensive Coordinator and his ability to out-scheme the other team when all of your big offensive plays come when the play YOU DESIGNED breaks down and the offense goes into improv-mode?
If you’re writing a comedy script or screenplay for a movie/tv show and all of the funny lines that get the biggest laughs from the audience come when the actors are “going off-script” and ad-libbing, what does that say about the jokes you wrote?
I said to my wife “This is as talented as I’ve ever seen a Pittsburgh team. It’ll be a shame if it’s all squandered because of bad coaching.”
Then I went on a 12 minute tirade about not running the ball up the gut for two yards on every first and second down.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed that the offense picked up as soon as Ben turned off the helmet mic and started calling his own plays.
I think they threw more to Mewelde in overtime than they did to Willie the past 2 years.
If they move Colon to guard and Starks to tackle, I think they’ll be force instead of winning the North by default.
It’s sad to say but I think our best play over the past two games was when Ben quickly dumped it off to get the ball to the 30 for a do-able game winning field goal.
It was the first time I saw a response to an aggressive blitz that didn’t require Ben to improvise.
You should send a copy of this article to the Steelers Front Office… Bruce Arians… Tomlin…. well…. the entire Organization…
Where did Arians coach before coming to the burgh? I don’t care how buddy-buddy he and Big Ben are, he’s not getting the job done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Arians#NFL_Coaching
He was Manning’s QB coach.
I’ve been saying for most of last year that Ben’s great plays have come from improv not by play design. Under Whis, he did improvise, but he also worked well with the play design. When a defense focuses primarily on keeping Ben from improvising, he looks bad and gets sacked 8 times. Just think: that offense that moved the ball down the field with a rookie QB when it mattered against a good Steelers defense? That could have been our coordinator.
There have been a few Arians decisions that have REALLY annoyed me personell wise.
His decision that Carey Davis should be our full back and backup running back. Why? He can’t block, run or catch well, what is his purpose? To be average at everything and useful for nothing? Give me a real blocking full back like Krieder any day.
Matt Spaeth- A third round choice, rumored to have been taken at Arians request. We are dying for oline and we use a day 1 pick on backup TE? I think Spaeth has like 2 cathes this year. We can get that kind of production from an UDFA.
And oh year his schemes stink. His is one dimensional (chuck it deep, nothing under 10 yards, but not too deep either, Its like we only go after intermediate passes, nothing short or deep)
Remember how often with Whiz Ben would drop back and hurl the ball downfield IMMEDIATELY. That was because the play worked as designed and the primary target was open, this doesn’t seem to happen anymore. Ben looks downfield, the primary guy is covered and he switches to “improve mode”, the line breaks down shortly and you know what happens next.
Lane Kiffin would be a nice OC.
Maybe, but the team can’t change OC’s until after the season.
This offseason there should be a slew of OC’s to pick from. Kiffin looks good now but they’ll be guys like Linehan, college guys, proven old OC’s etc…
I will always wonder what could have been if we had gotten Cam Cameron.
Ben set all those records last year, it would have been real, real hard to make an OC change.
This offseason though, unless there is a drastic change, I see no reason why Zerlein/Arians would be kept.
My dream scenario? If the offense looks as stagnant against the Jags, Arians gets fired Monday morning. Tomlin gives Kiffin the two full weeks before the Bengals game to learn the terminology.
On a more serious note — this is one of the problems of having a young head coach who saw action exclusively on the defensive side of the ball. He doesn’t know how to take the reigns from Arians or how to tinker with his system.
Honestly — the Raiders offense, which has far fewer weapons that the Steelers’, has looked far more dynamic than the Steelers’ offense through 4 weeks. Probably scored more points, too.
“Ben set all those records last year, it would have been real, real hard to make an OC change.”
Yeah I can’t argue with that. I had issues with our offense last year. We were so inconsistent and our redzone playcalling was poor. We seemed to live and die by the big play.
But Ben did throw 32tds, so firing Arians would have been hard to explain.
I think the mistake was giving Arians the OC job in the first place. A team as highly regarded as the Steelers could have had their pick when it came to OC, instead we settled for a cast off from the Browns.
It would have been hard to fire Arians last year like it was hard to cut Joey Porter: to the general populace it would have been confusing, but to knowledgeable fans it would be an obvious move. The Steelers FO has always been so proactive with which players they sign or let go; why not with coaching staff?
“-Any reason for only throwing a DEEP ball 1 or 2x per game?”
Because the guards can’t hold their own in pass protection, and Ben can’t step into the pocket to throw deep. Arians calls TOO MANY deep passes, and they never get home because Ben either steps up into defenders, or gets snowed under by guys off the edge because Ben can’t step up into a pocket.