Pittsburgh Steelers’ fans are looking for someone to blame in the wake of the 30-17 beatdown they suffered at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens Saturday night that ended the 2014 season.
Good luck finding one culprit.
The simple truth is that it was a total team effort in the failure to secure victory. You can’t look at any phase of the game in which the Steelers didn’t lose the battle.
Offensively, the gameplan seemed to be focused on establishing the run with an undrafted rookie Josh Harris, a freshly signed Ben Tate and a flameout bust of a draft pick Dri Archer.
Makes sense to me.
I mean why on Earth would you want to put it in the hands of the guy who led the NFL in passing (Ben Roethlisberger) or the guy who had the most receptions in the league (Antonio Brown)?
The moment you move away from your strengths as a team, you set yourself on the path to failure.
In other words, this game was probably lost before it began.
The turning point of the entire game was on a pass into the end zone in which Antonio Brown couldn’t get both feet down for a touchdown on third down. Instead of seven, the Steelers had to settle for three and they also seemed to stop taking too many shots downfield after that play.
Defensively, we all saw the back of No. 23 all game long.
Yes Mike Mitchell, I’m talking to you.
Your absolutely stupid helmet to helmet hit on a play that was well covered by Antwon Blake gave the Ravens new life as well as an extra 15 yards in penalty yardage and Joe Flacco certainly didn’t miss the opportunity to make you pay for your stupidity. That set the tone early in this game.
Later in the first half, there was Jason Worilds throwing an open hand to the face of a Ravens player for another personal foul that helped the Ravens get down into field goal range. Don’t forget Shamarko Thomas hitting the returner out of bounds late after the Steelers closed it to within eight late in the game.
Every time the Steelers seemed to make some progress and claw their way back into the game a moment of stupidity ended it all.
Look at Roethlisberger’s interception after he returned from being checked for a concussion. Bruce Gradkowski had moved the Steelers down into striking distance before Big Ben came back in and threw the most ill-advised pass into coverage I’ve seen in a long time.
I watched a game in which the Ravens were hungrier and more physical on both sides of the ball. That was a team that just wanted it more. Pittsburgh looked like a team eager to collect their playoff participation ribbons and go home for the year.
Troy Polamalu was a complete non-factor and, one could argue, his presence seemed to disrupt the assignments of the other defenders who had probably grown accustomed to Will Allen playing sound fundamental coverage football.
Make no mistake about it, the Steelers got their collective tails walloped in grand fashion Saturday because they simply weren’t prepared to play a game of this magnitude.
Now the questions begin for 2015.
Who goes and who stays for the Steelers to build around for next year?
There’s a lot more questions than answers at this point which is exactly why the season ended.
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