Steelers News: Allen, Roethlisberger, playoffs

The Steelers will return to work in the hopes of regaining a playoff spot following their loss to Seattle.

While the Steelers set their sights on facing the 6-5 Indianapolis Colts we’ll be busy looking for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s your Steelers Morning Huddle for Tuesday, Dec. 1^st.

Maybe the defense is the weakest link after all

One game certainly doesn’t define a team or make or break the season but it seems as though the Steelers defense was severely exposed in Sunday’s loss against the Seahawks. Mike Prisuta has safety Will Allen’s thoughts on the defensive performance that allowed 436 total offensive yards, a season-high 39 points and failed to take the ball away.

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"“It stinks, the passing yards and no turnovers and the points. We can’t have that to be a dominant defense, it’s not good enough. We had the lead (27-26 in the fourth quarter), we didn’t finish it off. It’s similar to the Baltimore game, we’re up 20-7 and we didn’t finish. This is a great team, they fight well. Super Bowl champions and then they went back to the Super Bowl last year. We can’t keep opening the door and keep giving opportunities to really good teams.” – Will Allen"

The Steelers defense showed that when they aren’t able to get after the quarterback and force turnovers it exposes the shear lack of talent in the secondary.

Protect Ben

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is known for being one of the toughest guys in the NFL. Up until this season he hadn’t missed any significant time during the season due to injury for quite some time. Unfortunately this season, however, Roethlisberger keeps taking the hits one right after the other.

ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler suggests the Steelers need to protect their franchise quarterback. As if they don’t know that already. Aside from wrapping him in bubble wrap or strapping couch cushions to his back there’s not much else the team can do that they’re not already doing.

After spending the majority of the first part of his career being sacked heavily on a regular basis the Steelers offense now has it down to about a 1.7 sack per game average, which is reasonable but at the same time the sacks are going down, Ben Roethlisberger’s production is going up. The success of the team and the quest for No. 7 lies with No. 7.

No longer the sexy pick

Just like that the Steelers went from everyone’s dark horse pick to make the playoffs and dethrone the champions to looking in from the outside. Around the NFL’s Gregg Rosenthal paints the Steelers’ immediate future as pretty bleak.

Next: Steelers grades in loss to Seattle

Being that the Steelers have such a crappy conference and division record so far they’re going to need to win some big games coming up and it won’t be easy with the Colts, Broncos and Bengals on the horizon.