My Pittsburgh Steelers dropped another winnable game in Houston yesterday, losing to the Texans 17-10.
It’s not that they lost to the Texans – Houston is legit and finally proved to everyone out there that they won’t be pushed around. It’s HOW the Steelers lost.
Our offensive line sucks. We couldn’t protect the Ben Roethlisberger. We couldn’t run the ball until the second half. The stiffs that were on the offensive line were getting hurt.
As a result, Pittsburgh may be without Big Ben next week in what is shaping up to be a HUGE matchup with the suddenly resurgent Tennessee Titans. I am not too confident, especially given how hot Titans QB Matt Hasselbeck is.
If the offensive line being bad isn’t bad enough, the defense suddenly looks ordinary. Teams are starting to do what hardly anyone did to Pittsburgh the last 5-10 seasons: run the football, and do so successfully.
Not only did the Texans run the football on the Steelers, they conducted a damn clinic. Arian Foster smoked the Steelers for 155 yards on 30 carries, and is still running as I type this. Now Chris Johnson comes to town next weekend, and more teams are taking note on how to run on the Steelers’ D.
Those two factors make me come to the following realization: my Steelers are done.
No defending the conference title. No defending the division title. Hell, not even making the playoffs!
Unless they making changes, such as bringing in someone to play left tackle instead of rotating those stiffs Jonathan Scott and Trai Essex (hello Flozell Adams), making in-game adjustments on defenses, we will not win more than nine games this season.
Sure we are only four games in. I get it: it’s early.
I just don’t think it looks good for the home team.
Categories: NFL, sports story
We used to call this kind of assessment the stuff of band-wagon fans. But it does happen. After wait your turn draft picks for years thins the talent in spots – be prepared for the inevitable rebuild as the ageless wonder-warriors finally bend a bit to father time. I remember the pain of watching a Seattle game that ended the reign of playoff and super-bowl runs – Howard Cosell played Thanks for the Memories.
As Joe Greene said to a question about that 1st year of missed playoffs after a long, fan-spoiled decade – We just got tired.
You will too some year.
Ahh, I remember those playoff-starved 1980s. Where I had to see the Bengals and Browns (especially the Browns) ascend to AFC Central supremacy. Thank God for Cowher and Tomlin, right?
Still, I gotta be real on the 2011 Steelers. They are just missing something…
Watching that game, I knew the Steelers were in trouble when the Texans took the opening drive 95 yards over 10 minutes. How many times has Dick LeBeau let that happen?
I watched that game at home, and soon as the Texans drove 95 yards on my Steelers I thought to myself “Oh crap…” And wouldn’t you know it, it went downhill from there…