After a nice stretch of football for the past couple of months, the Pittsburgh Steelers reverted back to their old ways Saturday night as they saw their season come to a close with a 30-17 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
There wasn’t much to like about the Steelers performance in this one on either side of the ball.
With that being said, here’s a look at how the team graded out in my weekly Pittsburgh Steelers Report Card.
Quarterback- Without the threat of a running game, everything was on Ben Roethlisberger’s shoulders and while he didn’t play terrible, completing 31-of-45 pass attempts for 334 yards and a touchdown, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Big Ben was under pressure all night long and the Steelers had to settle for field goals early instead of touchdowns. A couple of turnovers proved to be killers for the Steelers hopes. Grade: C-
Running Backs- The combination of Ben Tate, Josh Harris and Dri Archer gained only 43 yards on 15 carries. But where the team missed Le’Veon Bell the most was in the check down game and in pass protection. Tate not catching a ball right in his hands led to an interception and a quick Ravens touchdown that extended the Baltimore lead to 15. Grade: D
Wide Receivers- The Ravens secondary is not a very good one, but the Steeler could not exploit that this time around. Whether it was not having a threat of a running game to set up the big play in play action or Roethlisberger not having a great deal of time, the big play was all but missing.
Antonio Brown had one big catch and Heath Miller and Martavis Bryant made a few plays here and there, but it wasn’t enough. Grade: C
Offensive Line- Saturday night was the worst performance from this group in quite a long time. Kelvin Beachum’s holding penalty wiped out a late touchdown to Dri Archer. But overall, the offensive line struggled. Roethlisberger was pressured all night and sacked five times. Throw in the fact that the Steelers longest rush was for only eight yards and you can see how bad of a night it was. This game needed to be won up front and the Steelers didn’t get the job done. Grade: F
Defensive Line- The Ravens had success running against the Steelers early on as some big gains by Justin Forsett set up Baltimore’s first touchdown. The Steelers did better against the run in the second half, but Joe Flacco went to work and did so without much pressure. Stephon Tuitt’s fumble recovery was almost a game changer, but that was about it for this unit. Grade: D
Linebackers- It wasn’t a good day for the Steelers linebackers as they got next to no pressure on Flacco and really struggled in coverage. Jason Worilds was burned badly on the Ravens final touchdown and also took a dumb personal foul penalty that led to a field goal. Sean Spence had the Steelers only sack, but overall there weren’t any big plays to be found. Grade: D
Secondary- Pittsburgh should have known that Flacco was going to attack them down the field and that is exactly what he did. He hit a big play to Steve Smith, drew a couple of big pass interference calls and a personal foul on Mike Mitchell. A big moment in the game came on third and long when Flacco completed a pass to Owen Daniels and Mitchell took a poor angle on the play, allowing Daniels to get to the sticks. It wasn’t a good day. Grade: D
Special Teams- The Steelers didn’t get much from their return game, but didn’t let Jacoby Jones become a factor so they will take that trade. Shamarko Thomas blocked a punt, but also took a bad penalty with a late hit out of bounds. Other than that Shaun Suisham was pretty much all the offense the Steelers had on the night. Grade: B-
Coaching- It was a disappointing loss for sure, but at the end of the day it turned out to be the same problems that plagued the Steelers dating back to the beginning of the season. Offensively the inability to get six instead of three killed this team. Then there is the fact that the defense couldn’t get off the field when it mattered. Finally there was the penalties as the Steelers had 100 more penalty yards than Baltimore. Don’t blame the refs. It wasn’t an officiating problem it was a Steelers’ problem.
At the end of the day the Steelers looked much more like the team that struggled through a 3-3 start than the team that closed the regular season 8-2. You can cue Dennis Green. “They are who we thought they were.” Grade: D
Photo Credit: USA Today Sports
