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- #21
ATL96Steeler
Well-Known Member
Welp... I ain't even mad. Tough loss but we had to know it was going to be a rough game going against a top 3 defense like that. Steelers D is every bit as good as the Bills D, but their offense is better than the Steelers' offense. It's pretty much as simple as that. Josh Allen being better than Duck was the main difference. The downside of having zero margin for error is sometimes these games just go against your favor. Especially against tougher competition.
Coaching... Not the most well-coached game, but they were putting themselves in enough positions to win the game but the players just failed to capitalize on it. The many penalties that stalled drives or setup 3rd & loooong situations were hard to stomach. Team was amped up, but maybe a little too amped up. Lots of undisciplined penalties. Offense struggled early, like it typically does. Still rolling out the same LOS route concepts and bubble screens. The run game was struggling so the resulting Run vs Pass numbers reflected that game flow. 15 runs vs 38 passes. That hasn't been the formula for success with Duck at QB. They were putting themselves into a LOT of 3rd & long situations as a result of not getting much of anything on 1st & 2nd downs. That seemed to be the case for the majority of the Steelers offensive drives. Need to get better on the early downs so they can set themselves up with 3rd & "manageable". The Steelers had FIVE drives that resulted in quick 3 & outs. That's unacceptable. That wears out their own defense too quickly. What worries me the most about this offense is that Randy doesn't appear to change anything. There's enough tape out there to blanket them now, and Randy does very little to switch things up. Fichtner just didn't do enough to help the team out early on. Didn't see Tomlin calling plays into the defense at all last night, and the secondary sat in zones for most the game forcing Josh Allen to beat them with his arm. Either the gameplan was set and they didn't deviate, or Butler was back to calling the plays. Seemed like Allen rose to the occasion many times to beat the zone coverage schemes, but overall the Steelers did a good job limiting the damage. C+
Offense... Very tough matchup for this offense, but they did ok. Turning the ball over 5 times was painful. 3 of which were either in the RZ or EZ. The pain came from the timing of said turnovers. Those 2 EZ INT's were on the final 2 drives that could have tied the game. Felt like getting punched in the nuts twice. But I acknowledge that it does mean the offense was moving the ball well enough to put themselves in position to win this game, and against a top 3 defense with a UDFA QB. Not to mention they took the lead in the 3rd qtr. Fairly impressive. I'm not throwing all the blame on him, but Duck Hodges was simply not good enough last night. Lots of inaccurate throws, staring down too many throws (doesn't have the arm strength to overcome this), holding the ball too long & taking sacks, not seeing open receivers, meager route anticipation, and a slew of "heave & pray" style throws into double coverage. I'm not mad at the heave & pray stuff as much. Been sayin it for weeks, but I'm just glad to see them throwing down the field more. Don't care if Duck throws INTs, just want him to keep slinging it. And we just have to hope that he learned a lot from a game like this. But to be fair to him, the offensive line didn't hold up its end of the bargain very well. Hodges was under a lot of pressure throughout the entire game. He was running for his life as soon as the ball hit his hands on multiple occasions when the O-line got fooled by fake blitzes or stunts. AVill & Feiler seemed to be the main problems yet again. C-
Defense... Overall the Bills moved the ball fairly well between the 20's. The run defense & zone coverage schemes were holding up ok. They were opportunistic and scrappy when it mattered most. Great heads up play by Watt to force that fumble, and also the Nelson INT off the tip. Edmunds' failure to cover the TE after the pass-off from Barron was tough to watch. Edmunds wasn't even in position to accept that pass-off from the snap, which tells me he had no idea what his assignment was until it was too late. That play alone proved to be the biggest kink in the armor last night. If Edmunds stopped that play from happening, the Steelers likely would have been able to put that game into overtime. B-
ST... Berry was absolutely unacceptable last night. Punting 22yds from your own 18yd line? For fucks sake Berry. That short field led to the first touchdown surrendered in the game. He had another terrible punt but not as putrid as that one. Awful night for him. Boz had a good night though. Coverage teams were flakey. C-
Hats off to Buffalo for getting the job done on the road in a big playoff matchup. Luckily for the Steelers the Titans lost so they keep the 6th seed for now. Onto New York... And a MUST-WIN game.
You were fair.