Game Thread: Wk 1 Steelers @ Redskins

[ATL96Steeler]

WK 1 @ WAS Recap

38-16

OFC…4.5/5

• · OL…4/5…they gave up one sack, but an otherwise stellar performance on the road. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall any presnap penalties. AVill got beat a few times, but the worse of the OL play was James…he had a hold, and whiffed on more than more block
• · Running game 5/5…DWill played 56 of the 68 OFC snaps, 26/146/2TDs…several key 1st downs…this from a 33 y/o RB
• · Passing game 4.5/5…27/37/300/3TD…the only reason I went 4.5 here was there were a few drops, off target passes, Ben lost the ball twice, the Rodgers TD was a lucky bounce. So not perfect, but this was mostly a dominant performance by Ben/WRs/TEs.

DEF…4/5

• · Pass Rush/DL…3/5…zero sacks and only 2 or 3 QB hits. I temper this so so rating by noting that Butler only rushed 4 the vast majority of the night. And they played with 2 DL quite a few snaps also. Cousins was hurried a couple of times, but for the most part he had a pocket.

• · Rush/Front 7…4/5…this was not as pretty as the rating…WAS had a 5 yd avg on their rush attempts, but once they got down 11 pt, they mostly abandoned the run…several missed tackles…they need to clean that up.

• · Pass DEF…4/5…this rating might seem a little high considering they gave up nearly 330 yds via the air, but they had two picks, and should’ve had 3. Also, when WAS got into the RZ the DEF tighten up considerably and forced 3 FGAs and did not yield a TD until 4Q. That said, it’s pretty clear that teams are going to target Timmons in the passing game and based on the results last night I think we can expect a lot more of it in the coming games.

ST…4.5/5…54 yd avg on punts, one should have been returned, not sure why he fair caught that one…1 for 1 on FGA.

Very solid win on the road vs a good football team that didn’t play their best game. I think they will need a better effort on DEF when they host the Bengals on Sunday.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

All in all, a very satisfying first game.

Outstanding work by Ben, AB and DeAngelo. Rest of the receivers looked very good, and the OL gave good protection. The offense had post-season written all over it.

But I'd give the Defense a B-. The three-man rush put almost no-pressure on the QB. And frankly, that loosey-goosey zone coverage WILL NOT WORK against a better passing team. Their receivers had too much room and too much time. The D either needs to get to the QB, or cover the receivers tighter, or both.

On a positive note, the D was very good in the red zone, and that bodes well for our boys going forward. Here's hoping that this is the year for that 7th Lombardi.

Agree 100% and I graded it somewhat similar in my recap. One thing I conceded was this was a game plan as they played a lot of snaps with just 2 DL and 2 OLB. The game plan did work, but the poor tackling once the WR caught the ball was disturbing. Agree, they need to tighten that up.

 

[Bridgeburner]

Butler was smarter than us...rushed 4 most of the night and it was more than enough...even without a sack!

DEF was very good in RZ tonight! Ben is a badboy!!

Butler is a better defensive coordinator than I am. Who would have thought?

STEELERS! WHOOHOO!!!!!!!!

Now THAT is how you start a season!

 

[Bridgeburner]

HAHAHAHA

Is he going for laughs there? Because I don't care who you are that there is funny.

 

[MISKO]

 

[MISKO]

its different than yours face

 

[MISKO]

Bitch done stirred up the curse! Now they are for sure going to lose!

 

[Ewa PGH Fan]

Great start to the season! Hope they keep it up for 15 more regular season games and through the playoffs!!!

 

[NorthCoastSteelersFan]

I could only give ^this^ one official "like," soooooooooooo.......

I'll throw in these:




BTW, I hate to be a spelling Notsee, but there's just one "L" in towel. You might want to fix the meme before posting it anywhere else, or St. Myron may haunt your home...and things that go "YOI" in the night can really screw up your sleep.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

WK 1 @ WAS Recap

38-16

OFC…4.5/5

• · OL…4/5…they gave up one sack, but an otherwise stellar performance on the road. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall any presnap penalties. AVill got beat a few times, but the worse of the OL play was James…he had a hold, and whiffed on more than more block
• · Running game 5/5…DWill played 56 of the 68 OFC snaps, 26/146/2TDs…several key 1st downs…this from a 33 y/o RB
• · Passing game 4.5/5…27/37/300/3TD…the only reason I went 4.5 here was there were a few drops, off target passes, Ben lost the ball twice, the Rodgers TD was a lucky bounce. So not perfect, but this was mostly a dominant performance by Ben/WRs/TEs.

DEF…4/5

• · Pass Rush/DL…3/5…zero sacks and only 2 or 3 QB hits. I temper this so so rating by noting that Butler only rushed 4 the vast majority of the night. And they played with 2 DL quite a few snaps also. Cousins was hurried a couple of times, but for the most part he had a pocket.

• · Rush/Front 7…4/5…this was not as pretty as the rating…WAS had a 5 yd avg on their rush attempts, but once they got down 11 pt, they mostly abandoned the run…several missed tackles…they need to clean that up.

• · Pass DEF…4/5…this rating might seem a little high considering they gave up nearly 330 yds via the air, but they had two picks, and should’ve had 3. Also, when WAS got into the RZ the DEF tighten up considerably and forced 3 FGAs and did not yield a TD until 4Q. That said, it’s pretty clear that teams are going to target Timmons in the passing game and based on the results last night I think we can expect a lot more of it in the coming games.

ST…4.5/5…54 yd avg on punts, one should have been returned, not sure why he fair caught that one…1 for 1 on FGA.

Very solid win on the road vs a good football team that didn’t play their best game. I think they will need a better effort on DEF when they host the Bengals on Sunday.

Good analysis ATL!

Agreed on all accounts.

Just to add my tidbits...

QB/RB... Not much to add. Ben & D-Will were animals out there. Would like to see Ben get rid of the ball quicker, but we say that every season. Couple of those mishaps were on him because he was holding onto the ball for too long.

O-line... Dominant performance against a good D-line. Lots of people are discrediting them by saying the Skins line isn't all its cracked up to be, but I disagree. Its the fact that the Steelers O-line is just that good. It's time for people to start recognizing it for what it is. Despite some missed blocks here & there, the unit gelled nicely as the game progressed.

TE... I know James had some missed blocks, but he also had a bunch of key blocks that sprung D-Will. I'll chalk it up to a work in progress, but there's a lot to be excited about with this kid. Surprised that we didn't see much action from Grimble. He was out there on a few 2 TE sets (16 snaps) but didn't get in on the action. They used him as a route running TE. Guess he wasn't needed because the rest of the team was feasting. Also gotta give a shoutout to DJ in the FB role. He blocked very well as a replacement for Nix.

WR... I was wrong about DHB having the stretch WR job handled. Coates saw 44 (64%) of the offensive snaps as opposed to DHB's 14 snaps (22%). Rogers showed just what the offseason hype was all about (47 snaps 69%). Should be interesting to see how these snap counts change when Wheaton is back. My guess is DHB will get phased out. So much for Tomlin preferring his vets.

D-Line... As you pointed out, 4-man rushes weren't generating much pressure but they were playing well. Glad to see Matthews get into the action and spell Heyward & Tuitt. Tuitt & Heyward's snap counts were 47 & 43, respectively (81% & 74%). That's around a 10-15% change from last season. That'll help out a lot in the long run!

LBs... Not quite the full-blown rotation I expected. Snap counts were 42, 33, 26, & 15 for JJ, Moats, Harrison & Chickillo. But as Butler stated, those numbers are definitely subject to change depending on the in-game situations. Obviously the Skins abandoned the run, hence why Harrison wasn't needed as much, and why Sean Davis was out there for 79% of the defensive snaps (Golden was in for 100% of them - 58 snaps). Butler's schemes definitely did not focus on the pass rush last night. So hopefully that will change against Cincinnati. Timmons was earning his paycheck playing 91% of the snaps. Few mismatch issues that Butler needs to sort out in his schemes. He had no business guarding DJax. Shazier was an animal until he got hurt. Hope he's good to go.

DBs... Pretty decent showing. As you pointed out they were stiff when they needed to be. Would love to see them play more aggressive and not give the 15-yd cushion off the line of scrimmage. But so long as they can keep holding offenses to 3 points, then I won't be too harsh on them. They were part of the winning formula, and that's all they need to do.

Overall... a great first game. Much is needed to be worked on, but that will come as the season progresses. Open field tackling is still an issue. Hopefully they can continue to build on the confidence.

Outlook... HUGE game coming up this week. Tomlin needs to keep his players' heads on straight & focused. Don't let the emotions control them. I'm sure we'll see some sort of social media spats this week. Both teams are 1-0, but this game will set the tone for the division.

 

[Caliskinsfan]

Congrats on an absolute ass beating. FIng embarrassing.

 

[MISKO]

I could only give ^this^ one official "like," soooooooooooo.......

I'll throw in these:




BTW, I hate to be a spelling Notsee, but there's just one "L" in towel. You might want to fix the meme before posting it anywhere else, or St. Myron may haunt your home...and things that go "YOI" in the night can really screw up your sleep.

oh yea well i found it on fb

 

[MISKO]

Congrats on an absolute ass beating. FIng embarrassing.

cheer up cali you got 15 more games they can improve in ... we still luv ya

 

[NorthCoastSteelersFan]

oh yea well i found it on fb

Even with the typo, I loved it.

 

[Caliskinsfan]

cheer up cali you got 15 more games they can improve in ... we still luv ya

I'm going to pretend the game was only 1 quarter...

 

[Shaggy]

Not alot of Steeler fans on here? @MISKO

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Good analysis ATL!

Agreed on all accounts.

Just to add my tidbits...

QB/RB... Not much to add. Ben & D-Will were animals out there. Would like to see Ben get rid of the ball quicker, but we say that every season. Couple of those mishaps were on him because he was holding onto the ball for too long.

O-line... Dominant performance against a good D-line. Lots of people are discrediting them by saying the Skins line isn't all its cracked up to be, but I disagree. Its the fact that the Steelers O-line is just that good. It's time for people to start recognizing it for what it is. Despite some missed blocks here & there, the unit gelled nicely as the game progressed.

TE... I know James had some missed blocks, but he also had a bunch of key blocks that sprung D-Will. I'll chalk it up to a work in progress, but there's a lot to be excited about with this kid. Surprised that we didn't see much action from Grimble. He was out there on a few 2 TE sets (16 snaps) but didn't get in on the action. They used him as a route running TE. Guess he wasn't needed because the rest of the team was feasting. Also gotta give a shoutout to DJ in the FB role. He blocked very well as a replacement for Nix.

WR... I was wrong about DHB having the stretch WR job handled. Coates saw 44 (64%) of the offensive snaps as opposed to DHB's 14 snaps (22%). Rogers showed just what the offseason hype was all about (47 snaps 69%). Should be interesting to see how these snap counts change when Wheaton is back. My guess is DHB will get phased out. So much for Tomlin preferring his vets.

D-Line... As you pointed out, 4-man rushes weren't generating much pressure but they were playing well. Glad to see Matthews get into the action and spell Heyward & Tuitt. Tuitt & Heyward's snap counts were 47 & 43, respectively (81% & 74%). That's around a 10-15% change from last season. That'll help out a lot in the long run!

LBs... Not quite the full-blown rotation I expected. Snap counts were 42, 33, 26, & 15 for JJ, Moats, Harrison & Chickillo. But as Butler stated, those numbers are definitely subject to change depending on the in-game situations. Obviously the Skins abandoned the run, hence why Harrison wasn't needed as much, and why Sean Davis was out there for 79% of the defensive snaps (Golden was in for 100% of them - 58 snaps). Butler's schemes definitely did not focus on the pass rush last night. So hopefully that will change against Cincinnati. Timmons was earning his paycheck playing 91% of the snaps. Few mismatch issues that Butler needs to sort out in his schemes. He had no business guarding DJax. Shazier was an animal until he got hurt. Hope he's good to go.

DBs... Pretty decent showing. As you pointed out they were stiff when they needed to be. Would love to see them play more aggressive and not give the 15-yd cushion off the line of scrimmage. But so long as they can keep holding offenses to 3 points, then I won't be too harsh on them. They were part of the winning formula, and that's all they need to do.

Overall... a great first game. Much is needed to be worked on, but that will come as the season progresses. Open field tackling is still an issue. Hopefully they can continue to build on the confidence.

Outlook... HUGE game coming up this week. Tomlin needs to keep his players' heads on straight & focused. Don't let the emotions control them. I'm sure we'll see some sort of social media spats this week. Both teams are 1-0, but this game will set the tone for the division.

Good post Face!

Good pick pick up DJ...a lot of good runs seemed to happen when he was on the edge. Also Coates deserves kudos on the block that helped spring DWill for 6...Ben certainly didn't miss it...gave him props on the field.

Shazier told Ed Bochette (sp) he was fine and I haven't heard much else so I hope that bears out.

I thought DHB would play more as well. I think Wheaton will get plenty of snaps when he returns as he can play slot or outside, but that big block and a few catches earned Coates some points by the staff for sure.

Hargrave had a very quiet game, both he and McCullers actually, but watching him on some iso plays when I ran the game back....the kid was getting major push.

CIN...IDT Tomlin will have much trouble getting them refocused at all...I think Butler will change up the scheme some this week...I expect a little blitzing...With Hill and Bernard, Timmons may get another heavy load this week.

 

[MISKO]

Not alot of Steeler fans on here? @MISKO

yea I know but the ones that we have are quality fans that know their poop

 

[Shaggy]

yea I know but the ones that we have are quality fans that know their poop

Lets try to get some more!

For what I saw, there aren't many big Steeler forums out there, or did I miss one?

 

[MISKO]

Lets try to get some more!

For what I saw, there aren't many big Steeler forums out there, or did I miss one?

not many that I noticed .. @FaCe-LeE-uS and @ATL96Steeler might know a few more