3 things we learned from Steelers against the Minnesota Vikings

The Steelers furious comeback attempt fell short as we dropped another game, this time to the Minnesota Vikings

Is it me or does anyone else see a pattern with the 2021 Steelers with respect to slow starts on offense and furious comeback attempts that fall short, this time to the Minnesota Vikings? As a side note, my dad played semi-pro football in the ’70s for the Southwest Vikings.  My brother has his jersey and I have his helmet.

Anyway, neither here nor there.  Why do we seem to find ourselves in situations where we score little to no points in the first half, give up a ton of points then find a way in the second half to make the game close enough to actually have a chance to win?

I honestly don’t know the answer to that question, but if you have an answer, please share it with me because I am at a loss to explain the way the Steelers played against the Vikings.  We surrendered twenty-three points in the first half and scored exactly zero points.  How?  Why?

The Steelers offense was a travesty against the Vikings

So when I say the offense was a travesty, I am excluding Ben Roethlisberger, who frankly was the catalyst for the offense to have scored any points.  Say what you want about ‘Big Ben’, but after having been sacked five times, according to ESPN, thanks to an O-line that could do nothing right in the first half, he resuscitated the offense in the second half to put us in a position to at least tie the game at the end of regulation.

Make no mistake, had we had any other QB at the helm, I don’t think we would have scored as many points as we did or would have made what was on a trajectory to become a blowout into a competitive game. Unfortunately, being competitive is not sufficient to secure victory.

Although the Steelers ended up scoring twenty-eight points, twenty-one of those points came in the fourth quarter.  This has been a recurring theme for the Steelers offense.  Why does it take until the fourth quarter to get something going?

To me, the offensive woes lie in the scheme.  If the defense is stacking the box to stop the run, back them off by calling a deep pass and not a pass to the sideline.  Try throwing a ‘post’ or ‘crosser’ once in a while.  Hey, how about a ‘seam’ route to the TE, there’s an idea.

Let’s see what else we learned.