Steelers-Lions Week 5 postgame: Getting a little greedy

in Sports by griffn — October 12, 2009 at 8:00 am | 0 comments

James Harrison stole Daunte Culpepper's lunch money.

Steelers 28, Lions 20

▪ It’s always nice to get a win on the road, but it’s incredible to me how bad this Steelers team is at playing with a lead. There’s simply no reason why the Detroit Lions, playing without starting quarterback Matt Stafford and #1 wide receiver Megatron, should have been marching down the field in the fourth quarter for the tying touchdown. Our defense bailed us out with three straight sacks, but it should never have come to that.

▪ And here, once again, is my weekly rant about the Steelers second half play calling. It’s the fourth quarter, ten minutes left, Steelers are up by 15 with the ball at midfield. Rashard Mendenhall is averaging 7 yards a carry up to this point. So, what’s the play call? Three straight passing plays, two of them out of a shotgun, resulting in two sacks, -4 yards, and a ridiculous 1 minute 57 seconds run off the clock. Furthermore, after gaining 65 yards in the first half, Mendenhall only got 6 carries in the second. You can maybe get away with that against the Lions, but teams that don’t suck (like the Chargers and Bears) will stage a comeback off that kind of idiotic play calling.

▪ After the game, Steelers offensive coordinator Bruce Arians seemed to realize that the Steelers threw way too much in the second half: “We scored so quick in the third quarter when we had the ball and then we hit a lull,” Arians said. “We sat there for a while on the bench and I think we lost our rhythm. I got a little greedy there trying to hit the home run ball.” This gives me some hope that the fact that they’ve won the last two games hasn’t completely blinded them to how bad the play calling has been.

▪ Mike Wallace isn’t the best receiver on the Steelers roster; that’s still Hines Ward. But I’m halfway wondering if he isn’t better than Santonio Holmes. They both go over the middle well, they both have great hands, but Wallace is faster. Holmes, of course, has proven himself on the big stage (though hasn’t shined as brightly on the small one), and I recognize that he draws a lot of coverage away from Ward and Heath Miller over the middle. But over the past three games, Holmes has caught 9 passes for 120 yards and 0 TDs, while Wallace has caught 11 passes for 207 yards and 1 TD in significantly less playing time. And if Wallace doesn’t drop that pass in the second quarter, he’s got another 72 yards and a touchdown. I’m not saying Holmes and Wallace should switch places on the depth chart, but I think we should definitely see a lot more three WR sets.

▪ For the second time in three games, Ben Roethlisberger threw a touchdown pass to the other team. This time, he took the snap, looked briefly over the middle to draw the defense, then fired it outside to Mike Wallace without checking to see if he was actually open. He was bailed out of another interception by a roughing the passer penalty (a good call, by the way), badly underthrew Wallace on that deep touchdown pass, and fumbled on a botched handoff he never should have attempted. But other than those few miscues, he was near flawless. He bounced back from the pick-six by completing his next 13 passes in a row.

▪ I get the feeling the Steelers coaches don’t yet trust Rashard Mendenhall, despite the fact that he’s clearly the best running back on the roster– especially with Willie Parker slowed by a case of turf toe. Their trust might have been eroded further by that bad handoff exchange from Roethlisberger. It wasn’t Mendenhall’s fault, but he was through the hole and three yards down the field before he realized he didn’t have the ball. This was probably part of the reason he only got six carries in the second half. I think whenever Parker comes back, possibly next week, he’ll go back to getting the majority of the carries until circumstances dictate otherwise. If it was up to me, Mendenhall’s the starter and Parker comes out the bullpen every third or fourth series.

▪ Some time around the half, I was thinking that if it wasn’t for James Harrison, the Steelers defense would be downright mediocre. In retrospect, I don’t think that’s entirely true. At the half, they had held Kevin Smith to 19 yards rushing and the Detroit offense to six points– both a team effort. But it’s incredible how much better Harrison is than everyone else on the field. On a day when the defense racked up 7 sacks, Harrison had 3 of them.

▪ LaMarr Woodley doubled his pathetic season total with three tackles in the game. But he also got in on a couple crucial sacks late in the game– the first time he’s gotten a quarterback down this season. Blogging for Sports Illustrated last week, Woodley addressed the issue of his sophomore slump:

I had 11.5 sacks in 2008, but last year is last year. I was a new starter, and other teams didn’t know me. They didn’t have much to study, so they didn’t know how to prepare for me. This year, teams are doing different things against me — getting rid of the ball a little faster than they used to, for instance. I realize that right now my numbers are not high. Last season I had 3.5 sacks in the first four games. This year, first four games: zero.

But last year I also had seven games without a sack. Everything goes up and down. I used to get down on myself when I wasn’t getting sacks, but it wasn’t just about that. It was when I wasn’t getting sacks and we were losing. That’s when I get mad at myself. Most of the top pass-rushers have their ups and downs. The main thing for a pass-rusher is, how do you bounce back? For me, as long as we’re winning, I’m cool. Like last week against San Diego, it was good for me to get some pressure on the quarterback, but most importantly we won.

I haven’t gotten a sack yet this season, but I think I’m going to kick it off back home in Michigan this week.

▪ Keiwan Ratliff is terrible.

▪ The Steelers defense finally got its second interception of the season (the first came on that miraculous leaping grab by Troy Polamalu in the opener), but only because Daunte Culpepper dropped the snap, panicked, and threw a gift lob back across the field to Ryan Clark. So far this season, the Steelers have allowed opposing quarterbacks to throw for an average of 219 yards a game with 8 TDs and 2 INTs for a 90.9 QB rating. In other words, Polamalu can’t come back soon enough.

▪ How crazy is it that the Bengals are leading the division, with wins over both the Steelers and the Ravens? That’s absolutely insane to me, dogs and cats living together. The good news is that the Steelers have made up a two-game deficit on the Ravens in just two weeks. And next week is a bye week. No, wait, it’s a home game against the Browns. So, a bye week.

Tags: Bruce Arians Detroit Lions football James Harrison Mike Wallace NFL Pittsburgh Steelers