The Good, The Bad & The Ugly - Week 19 (Divisional) - Jaguars

This league is so corrupt.


http://www.steelersdepot.com/2018/01/big-ben-says-ref-told-juju-wasnt-held-enough-failed-4th-play/

 

I read that yesterday. If the ref saw it that means it should have been called. 4th down play definitely should have been called. Would we have won? Who knows? But we were very good at coming back and winning all season.

 

Are there any free agents out there that could fit the bill? Steelers don't appear to have much cap space.

 

This loss hit me hard and so I waited to post, not that it matters but still..... I'll forgo the standard format and just run with it.

Ben was mostly good. The Jags D is really good and Ben carved them up. This was a close game after the Steelers scored on the opening possession in the second half so I don't feel like it was garbage yards. Ben saying he will play three more years really makes me a bit less anxious about this team.

Bell and Brown both played well as always. I don't know how they keep Bell but I hope they can.

The stupid 4th and short calls really annoyed me. Haley overthinks things. Brady still QB sneaks and Ben should too. The Bell sweep that lost 4 yards was on a 4th and inches. Ben gets that. Rely on execution not trickery. The O is good enough to get what you tell them to. If Munchek gets the OC, he'll get that.

The onside kick. I hated that call. A LOT. The Jags will run the ball three times. I get the D blew for most of the game but you sell out and go for it. 2 time outs and the two minute warning means you kick deep ALL THE TIME. There is a reason these things are tried and true.

That's about it I guess. This loss bothers me like the 94 AFCCG. 13-3 is such a great record and I wanted so much for this team. If they were like the Titans or Bills and just got in, you say whatever, but I had high hopes and now we have to wait and hope that the good stays and the bad gets better.

 

I'm going to ask a question here, because I'm not sure the proper thread to put it on. Why all the hate for Haley?

I ask this because I see that the Steelers offense was ranked 8th in points per game and the defense was ranked 7th in points per game allowed. I recall early in the season, lots of posters blaming Ben specifically for the issues. I think Beach was doing weekly breakdowns of Ben's errors.

Fast forward to the divisional round, the Steelers offense puts up 42 points at home. Bad 4th down play calls aside, that's 42 points at home. The defense allowed 38 (and 7 came from Ben's fumble that I'm sure Haley didn't design to be a fumble).

After Arians left, most praised it because "Ben doesn't need a buddy at OC, he needs someone to take charge". Y'all praised Haley for awhile for keeping Ben healthy also.

I guess I'm asking, is this Haley hate just an emotional response from the one and done playoff game, or is there more I'm missing?

 

I can only speak for myself but his disallowing of more no huddle held back this offense. Frankly, with all the talent on this offense no excuse for not being top 3 in points scored. Horribly inefficient in redzone btw (among worst in league) which is why Fichtner is talking about improving that already. His situational football abilities were pathetic. Need I say more?

 

Because this fanbase thinks Ben walks on water. On another site someone was criticizing Tomlin's last 10 playoff games (4-6) so I put up Ben's last 10 playoff games...

Roethlisberger 13 TDs, 11 Ints

Some perspective:

Joe Flacco last 10 playoff games 24 TDs, 4 Ints
Russell Wilson last 10 playoff games 17 TDs, 10 Ints
Alex Smith 7 career playoff games 14 TDs, 2 Ints
Matt Ryan 10 career playoff games 20 TDs, 7 Ints
Drew Brees last 10 playoff games 24 TDs, 7 Ints
Eli Manning last 10 playoff games 16 TDs, 5 Ints

There's really no other current QBs with enough postseason starts (didn't even bother with Brady) to even compare him to and even with his 5 TD performance this past Sunday he's the worst playoff QB of the last 5 years. And we're debating why Tomlin can't win playoff games? Where's the debate on why Ben is hot garbage in playoff games compared to his peers?

 

What do you expect any qb to do (even a HOF one) in the playoffs when his strengths are completely nullified by bad offensive schemes that play to his weaknesses vs his strengths. That's why Haley just got fired and not Ben.

 

Ding.

So many have a problem with the SECOND 4th and inches, not just the call.........some complain about the ref not calling the hold on JuJu. Where are the people pointing out that YET AGAIN.....in a key moment of the game, Ben misses an easy throw to Eli Rogers right in front of his face in the flat for a 4-5 yard gain? The guy has nobody around him on the crossing route and is STANDING just to Ben's left. Its an easier throw than chucking it to JuJu who was well covered 15 yards further down the field. Points OFF THE BOARD because of a BAD DECISION. Jags get 7 the other way, so its a 10-14 point swing.

 

1. Haley was a disruption for the chemistry of the team, for both coaches and players.

2. He's way too prone to ruin promising drives by calling baffling plays that are apparently meant to catch the defense off-guard. Usually the defense is immediately ready for it.

3. Jumping off number 2, he's so far up his own ass that he doesn't use the personnel at his disposal to its full potential. How many offensive coordinators and coordinator hopefuls would kill to be able to work with the Steelers' roster? Finding and exploiting mismatches repeatedly should be easy, but Haley was determined to force a "genius" play that no one saw coming at some of the most inopportune times. Usually, no one sees it coming because it's a stupid fucking idea.

That's because Ben was awful at the start of this season. I mean, duh. Then he suddenly started playing much better. After that, Haley's ineptitude began to show even more. Every slow-developing run that would result in a loss of four yards was Haley's call. When the offense needed to mount a drive, Haley would be there to call a double-reverse for no gain. Or a bubble screen against press coverage.

It's hilarious that they managed to finish 8th in total points scored considering they didn't surpass 30 points until week 11 against the Titans. Prior to that, they scored more than 21 points in just three games (vs. Vikings, @ Ravens, vs. Bungles). When Ben turned it on, they never finished with less than 23 points in a game. Reportedly, Ben requested that Randy Fichtner (the Steelers' new OC) be used as a conduit between him and Haley after the Colts' game. That didn't change Haley's play calls, but the results in terms of Ben's performance (and that of the whole offense) speak for themselves.

And? Ben threw 4 deep TD passes that were caught due to sheer effort by Brown, Bell, and Bryant. Someone else brought this up in a different thread, and I fail to see how the points scored against the Jaguars are thanks to Todd Haley. Lest we forget, Haley did actually ruin other drives with his asinine play calls that Ben reportedly was not allowed to dispute.

By the way, why are we talking about Ben Roethlisberger all of a sudden? Can we acknowledge that Todd Haley was not good at situational play calling while also acknowledging that Ben has imperfections? It's been much rarer over the last six years for Haley to call a good game up and down the board than for Ben to have an out-of-this-world performance. Also, our skill position players happen to be the best in the NFL, so . . . there's that.

Me in a different thread:

Ben's not the same player he was circa 2011. He's less of a gunslinger and a daredevil and more of a field general. We've seen the offense sputter and stagnate under Haley, so now what Ben needs is someone who will keep the offense moving. Someone who can exploit mismatches and beat opponents with superior ability. Plain and simple.

Ben's a more mature player and far less likely to take risks (despite his ever-present love for the big play). What he needs now is not what he needed six years ago.

P.S. We're under-selling the job Mike Munchak has done to the offensive line. With a blend of high draft picks and undrafted players, he's changed this offensive line from bottom of the NFL to at or near the top. Don't forget that.

No, it's logical, even if it wasn't the primary battle cry all season. The biggest problem with this team is its rotten culture. Art Rooney can't fail this team and its fans; he needs to straighten things out in that regard.

 

It's difficult for me to knock the execution too hard when the play-call itself was just as bad.

 

If we had played the Patriots the way our offense was playing we would have hung 50 points on them easily, but the way our defense was playing they would have hung 51 on us.

 

I don't know where to put this, but I watched a little of the pro bowl. Every Steeler in the game started, coaching staff must have wanted to make themselves look better, and we won in Steeler standard fashion by a last minute 37 seconds TD.

The standard is the standard

 

With Ben, Bell and Brown on the sideline watching.

 

Yes, but I am referring to our coaching staff. They seem to be stuck in this kind of standard.