No, the sky isn’t falling, but the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t look good against the Raiders. Here’s what went wrong in Week 2.
First off, it’s typical for football teams to have a letdown after a big win the week before and it’s early in the season but after two games into the regular season some themes are developing: The cornerback situation is not good and the offensive line is even worse. The troubling thing is both of these shortcomings were obvious before the season began. It’s difficult to criticize Steelers GM Kevin Colbert but he did make a couple of pretty big blunders this offseason. Those being letting starters LT, Alejandro Villanueva, and CB, Steven Nelson walk.
Did you see that hit? Me, neither.
I’m really sick of all the new ‘player safety’ rules. Big hits used to be the number one topic of water-cooler conversation on Mondays. Now, every defender has to keep in his head what square inches of the opponent they’re allowed to hit, when it is permissible to hit them, and with what part of their own body they can hit.
Instead of feeling good about a big hit, now, every football fan has to live in dread waiting to see if the laundry is going to fly. That flag against ILB, Robert Spillane was totally ridiculous. Did you know that CTE occurs in 6% of the population and they’re finding people can have CTE without ‘brain trauma’?
They’re grown men. Let them play football.
Ben Roethlisberger “stinkin'”? Not really.
Ben Roethlisberger delivered a ‘mea culpa’ during the post-game press conference saying, “I don’t know, it’s frustrating because I put a lot of stinkin’ time in, more than I probably ever have. I’m not really sure. We got to get it figured out, though, because I’m frustrated that I’m not playing well enough,”
It was noble of him to do so but the fact is the Raiders were in his face all game. Also, he had no running game keeping the defense honest. The O-line’s effort was a total fail giving up 2 sacks, 10 QB hits, and producing no running holes for a beyond dismal 39 yards rushing.