Topic: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly - Week 5 - Jaguars

I wanted to put these together.

This blows because it's true.

 

Perhaps GB has better schemes, game planning and leadership

 

THIS!

Ben is not playing like a top 5 QB. He's not even playing like a top 20 QB right now.

This team is built to win now. The defense has given up some rushing yards, but still isn't giving up alot of points. There is no excuse for this offense to score 9 points against any team. Bell, Brown, Bryant and that OL should be able to score 25+ points with any competent starting caliber NFL QB. If the offense scores 25 and doesn't hand anybody 14 free points, they are going to win almost every game they play.

I hold out a modicum of hope that Ben can turn it around and be the player they need him to be, but I think that's going to be up to Tomlin and Haley. They need to reign him in. They need to force the running game and give Ben less control over the checks. He is a capable, accurate passer. I just don't think they can count on him to make great decisions 40 times per game. They need to make him more of a game manager and less of a gunslinger and, unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the direction they are going! Both Tomlin and Ben have called him a gunslinger in the past two days...not making me feel any better!

 

Mano, if you were Todd Haley, you'd guarantee 30 points from this offense, not just "25+".

 

Okay so I'm reading all this about how y'all should be scoring more, and I decided to look it up. WOW, you guys should be mad. The Steelers have only scored 9 more offensive points that the Ravens (both teams have 1 non offensive TD scored).

This isn't some rival troll post. Your offense should be score far more points per game than the Ravens (neither team even averaging 20ppg). That's a lot of wasted offensive talent imo

 

I think Haley's ego and his desire to have that 30+ point offense is a big part of the problem. It truly does feel like this team sometimes stubbornly attacks a team's strength just to prove they can beat them that way.

 

This isn't some rival troll post. Your offense should be score far more points per game than the Ravens (neither team even averaging 20ppg). That's a lot of wasted offensive talent imo

Sadly, I think if we traded QBs right now, Pitts scoring would increase simply due to increased confidence and sheer joy in the time Flacco would have to operate, and the Ravens would see their scoring decline, with Ben playing even worse than he has this season, and likely sustain injury.

For those that don't access the All-22, they don't have a clear picture of just how incredibly BAD Ben has been this year. He has to be getting absolutely KILLED in film sessions on any number of fronts on Tuesdays/Wednesdays at team headquarters. He's not even playing in the top-half of the league at QB right now, and hasn't been at any point this year.

 

I haven't been watching Steelers games, but unless your pass blocking is truly dominating, I don't know if I'd say the bold part is true. Joe definitely operates better with time vs without, but I'm not sure he'd be an improvement off how he's played this season

 

I think Haley's ego and his desire to have that 30+ point offense is a big part of the problem. It truly does feel like this team sometimes stubbornly attacks a team's strength just to prove they can beat them that way.

^^^^Nah, its not Haley. Its Ben. Simple fact is with FIVE future Hall of Famers or HOF caliber talents (Ben/Brown/Bell/Pouncey/DeCastro) on offense, not to mention a pretty damn good 2/3 at receiver in Bryant/Schuster, and pretty solid OL in addition to the two Pro Bowlers previously noted...........Pitt should be able to TELL THE OTHER TEAM 80+% of the time at the line of scrimmage what play is being callled, and still simply "out-execute" them. Every 2nd/3rd and short (1-4 yards) should be a given or fail merely because someone completely screwed up on the play (dropped pass, fell down), not because of the play calling.

The offense will improve a lot more due to Ben than it ever will due to Haley's play calling.

 

Yup.

Wasted.

 

I agree that Ben is the key issue, but lets not let Haley...and Tomlin...completely off the hook here.

If they are seeing him consistently making poor decisions every week and not taking some of his options away from him, that's on them. Like Beach pointed out, if you watch the All 22, you can see the open receivers he's missing to convert first downs and heave it deep. You can see the zone coverage he's throwing crossing routes short of the sticks into instead of hitting the out route beyond the sticks. You can see him forcing the ball to double and triple covered receivers while there's openings elsewhere. He's making bad decisions far more than he's making good decisions right now. At some point, the HC and OC need to sit him down and say, "Its time for you to just run the plays we call." No more checks, no more audibles, no more run/pass options. Just a balanced game plan with one or two reads in the passing game.

 

I thought the coaches did a good job early in the Ravens game of limiting or eliminating Ben's post-snap reads by calling so many screens and shovel passes. I'll take more of that along with lots of Nix in the backfield as a lead blocker.

 

You took the words right out of my mouth. Bell should of had at least 10 more carries, and give Connor some too.

 

I never understand why a team chooses to play into another team's strengths. Ego? Stubbornness? Stupidity? Steelers should've stayed on the ground vs the Jags. If I recall correctly, Bell had 47 yds on 12 carries in the first half. That's (almost) 4 yards a carry. Why not more of that? Stupidity on a lot of fronts.

 

I'm in agreement with you Mano I think that the Haley and Ben are arrogant enough to think they can pass on anybody. They went into this game with the same attitude that they did vs the Dolphins last year. So what if they are weak against the run we are going to pass on them come hell or high water. Just like last year they ended up getting their rear ends handed to them.
If Ben is the one changing the plays then he needs to have a little less control. If Haley is the one calling the plays then somebody (Tomlin) needs to say hey you know its stupid to attack the strength of a team. Maybe they need to realize hey just because Brady can do it (take on a top pass defense and shred it) Ben is never going to be able to do that. why? Because Ben doesnt know how to play smart.

 

Maybe Aaron Rodgers himself is a big part of that.

 

I'm mad enough for everyone here just in case I'm the only one. There are lots of reasons why the Steelers are not where they should be, and the simplest reason is the best one. Ben sucks. Let's try not to overthink things.

Maybe Todd Haley is being exposed. In hindsight the game in 2015 when we shredded the Broncos' top-ranked pass defense might have done more harm than good for the psychology of this team. Haley has a tremendous ego, which is the secret reason why he was fired from his head coaching gig in Kansas City. It's very possible he saw that fluke of a game as a golden ticket to just call any play he could randomly pull from his ass from then on. I'll go back and find a post I made last week, in which I said something like the Steelers were surely planning on a run-heavy approach for the Jaguars. I think I said that under a headline I called "a notch above clickbait" that suggested Ben could go off for 500 passing yards against the Jaguars. In hindsight, knowing what type of approach the Steelers went with, that has to be the mark of sheer stupidity and ego. They surely knew what type of team the Jaguars had and didn't even care. Get Ben to 500 yards, YEE-HAW!

But, Ben is the field general. Even against the Jaguars he made sorry decisions when there were much better ones available. Maybe if his own ego weren't so huge, he'd have audibled to runs much more often. Amazing that he's pissed off one of his offensive stars one week and another the next.

EDIT: Since I don't want to triple-post, this is the post I made that mocked the 500-yard headline as nonsensical media speak prior to the game.

 

Big Dumb read that headline and went to town.

 

And perhaps McCarthy, Nelson, Cobb, and Adams too. Add in the RBs too while we're at it I don't see any of them arguing with ex players like that idiot Bell is on Twitter. Once again I'm not disagreeing that Ben is the biggest problem right now but it's more to it than that. As I said before this team is not wired right. They need to come together as a team and stop with the individual theatrics.

 

At this point of the season I expected a 3-2 record anyway but coming off a win vs Jacksonville. Hopefully Gilbert is back this week which helps get the offense on track.

We'll see what kind of team beloved Tomlin has built at KC this Sunday. I expect them to ALL play better showing a lot of heart and passion.