Wk 6 @ LAC

[thedddd]

It's official...

Good. I thought no way in h**l Rudolph should be out there.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Makes perfect sense. Seriously if he shows any promise they finally get a sell high on him.
Especially with the ST play he could add value to a team.

Yep. But I'm thinkin they will have to package him to get anything higher than a 5th.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Good. I thought no way in h**l Rudolph should be out there.

Me too. Best case I was hoping for was he cleared the protocol and they let him hold the clipboard as the backup.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

This makes my ears bleed

 

[thedddd]

Yep. But I'm thinkin they will have to package him to get anything higher than a 5th.

Oh without a doubt he might be able to get a 6th but honestly that is better than nothing when he walks at the end of the season.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

A thought just occurred to me...

Starting Artie this week may be a last-ditch attempt at promoting value and trying to move him.

NFL trade deadline is Oct 29th.

Thoughts? I know he doesn’t have much value, but getting anything in return would be good.

@Superbelt @ATL96Steeler @thedddd

Very true...especially if he plays well and they lose. Any additional draft capital would be fine by me.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Gross... 5 of these guys are starters

Inactives:

No. 2 QB Mason Rudolph
No. 13 WR James Washington
No. 22 CB Steven Nelson
No. 26 LB Mark Barron
No. 38 RB Jaylen Samuels
No. 45 FB Roosevelt Nix
No. 96 DE Isaiah Buggs

 

[thedddd]

Gross... 5 of these guys are starters

Inactives:

No. 2 QB Mason Rudolph
No. 13 WR James Washington
No. 22 CB Steven Nelson
No. 26 LB Mark Barron
No. 38 RB Jaylen Samuels
No. 45 FB Roosevelt Nix
No. 96 DE Isaiah Buggs

Now Tuitt is questionable to return.

 

[steelparrot]

Both backups look similar to me, the dink and dunk brothers. I know thats the gameplan, non dink and dunk, Rudolph has been better imo.

I guess we see which one plays better, I dont think Duck is the favorite.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Both backups look similar to me, the dink and dunk brothers. I know thats the gameplan, non dink and dunk, Rudolph has been better imo.

I guess we see which one plays better, I dont think Duck is the favorite.

Definitely appeared the same. What I hope is that Devlin's similar showing will motivate Mason to rip the lid off his conservative approach. It's been proven that these guys aren't dink & dunk by design. They just opt to shy away from the deep throws. Neither has looked all too confident throwing downfield. Hodges looked better without any prep, but after a full week of 1st team reps he sure looked the same as Mason.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

So what's the injury toll up to now?

• Tuitt (pec)
• Haden (groin)
• Watt (?)
• Hilton (foot - played through)
• Bush (ankle - played through)
• Davis (ankle)

• Conner (leg/knee)
• Smith-Schuster (toe)
• McDonald (shoulder)
• Rudolph (concussion)
• Samuels (knee)
• Washington (shoulder)
• Nix (knee)

My god... They needed a bye week in the worst way.

 

[Superbelt]

Steelers Defense for the first 3 quarters

Steelers 4th quarter prevent defense

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Gotta start off by saying that it was refreshing to finally see a clean-called game from the zebras. Typically we see a handful of game-altering calls on both sides of the ball that leave us speechless as to the stupidity that is the NFL officiating. Head official last night was JOHN HUSSEY... Everyone take a mental note of that name so that we can beg for him in the future.

Coaching... Well, when the cards are down this team showed yet again how resilient it can be. But we have already grown accustomed to it. Tomlin can be commended for winning with a relatively rag tag group that has been riddled with injuries. But lets keep it in perspective by looking at how bad teams like Cincy & LAC were. Both are bad for different reasons, and have a ton of injuries of their own. Nor am I ready to sing any praises for Fichtner. He implemented a run heavy approach which worked well, but the defense taking the pressure off them early was key to dictate their scheme. Still, the offense was able to control the ball through 4 quarters using that rushing attack. That's commendable. 9 first downs were rushes! Its not flashy, but its dominant. 8 - 3rd down conversion total. 8/13 total. Love seeing that. That sort of success leads to long drives that consume the clock & keep their defense fresh. They won the TOP battle by over 8minutes more than LAC. That 2nd/3rd drive in the 1st quarter was a thing of beauty. 9mins they ate up and capped it with a TD. That iced the Chargers and made a huge statement. Defense was suffocating and took advantage of a flawed Chargers group. I still firmly believe that the talent is just too good and is making Butler's job easy. That prevent defense late in the game was embarrassing though. But everyone deserves some credit for last night. A-

Offense... Hodges showed early that he wasn't afraid of throwing the ball downfield on the opening 3&out drive, but he sort of got timid after that. Speaking of timid, that dude looks shell-shocked every time he had to scramble. Almost as if someone was tellin him not to take hits lol. He looked poised again, but didn't make much of a mark. He made a big league throw in the 3rd in the face of a CB blitz, albeit a short route. He never really went deep outside of maybe 1-2 throws, but thankfully he never really had to. He was 0/4 (1 INT) on passes that traveled more than 10yds downfield lol. Scary stat. The ground game got going early though which took the pressure off Hodges. Great blocking up front to win the battles in the trenches. Looked like road graders out there. Conner looked strong & explosive again. Glad to see Snell have a decent showing. He's a strong runner, just needs to get more comfortable out there. He showed us that he's capable of being the grinder that he was in college. He fights for every yard, and that's great to see. Saw Crief & Switz get in on the action, but maybe just 1 catch per guy lol. At least Crief caught a difficult pass early, which was an encouraging sight. Diontae Johnson is quietly making a name for himself. B+

Defense... What a night for Devin Bush. He already had some footing on the DROY candidacy, but last night he put a fat stamp on it. I think it will boil down to him & Nick Bosa. Loved the heads up play & patience of picking up that fumble and then accelerating like a cannon shot out of a barrel into the endzone. That was very exciting to watch. Shout out to (dare I say it) Bud Dupree as well. I don't want to talk about it too much for fear of him going back into hiding, but Bud is starting to look good folks. That's 2-3 weeks of solid play from him. He, Watt & Tuitt made their presence felt early and often against a suspect O-line. Exactly what they needed to do. Watt was his dominant self. Also loved the contributions from Alualu. Felt really good to have VWill back out there. He was solid and thankfully there were no longer any glaring holes in the coverage like we saw when Barron was out there. He's a difference maker. Really tired of Chickillo. I know Ola hasn't done much of note to keep the backup job, but he hasn't looked like the liability that Chick has. I've been commending him for weeks, but gotta give a heap of credit to Cam Sutton's game-saving heroics. Dude is lockdown in the 4th quarter. Burns, overall, still looked bad. He had a couple of gaffs that made my blood boil but otherwise was fairly quiet thanks in large part to an inept passing attack from the Chargers. Rivers was under duress most the game and that was key to shutting down their passing attack. Outside of 1 or 2 plays where Minkah was out of position (and thankfully that 1 big drop from LAC), he looked awesome yet again. Missed a couple INTs, but he'll get plenty more chances moving forward. He's a smart & instinctive football player. So are Joe Haden & Mike Hilton. 7 passes defensed were credited last night to this secondary. 3 from front 7 batting balls at the LOS put the final PD/PBU total to 10. That's impressive. They still have a problem with defending the TE position, and give up points late in the game. B+

ST... Don't know how they've done it, but both Boz & Berry are kicking very well. Boz continues his perfect season, and Berry is suddenly a competent punter. He averaged over 46yds, and had a beauty pinned on the 1 to seal the game. Take away that final beauty of a punt, and he would have averaged 50yds last night. Now let's never talk about either again lol. Coverage teams still scare the crap out of me, but luckily weren't a liability last night. A-


Starting fast was an important factor, but it was ultimately the grinding rushing attack that controlled this game. And finally generating TDs off of takeaways. That formula for success should bode well for them moving forward. Now if they can just get healthy they could make a big push in their next 6 games (5 against AFC, 3 AFCN).

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

So what's the injury toll up to now?

• Tuitt (pec)
• Haden (groin)
• Watt (?)
• Hilton (foot - played through)
• Bush (ankle - played through)
• Davis (ankle)

• Conner (leg/knee)
• Smith-Schuster (toe)
• McDonald (shoulder)
• Rudolph (concussion)
• Samuels (knee)
• Washington (shoulder)
• Nix (knee)

My god... They needed a bye week in the worst way.

Forgot about Barron (hammy). But he should be a non-factor anymore. He's a liability out there.

Very concerned about Tuitt's pec injury. That's the same injury that took Cam Heyward out in 2016. We'll have to wait & see to what degree the injury is, but I fear his season is in jeopardy.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

So what's the injury toll up to now?

• Tuitt (pec)
• Haden (groin)
• Watt (?)
• Hilton (foot - played through)
• Bush (ankle - played through)
• Davis (ankle)

• Conner (leg/knee)
• Smith-Schuster (toe)
• McDonald (shoulder)
• Rudolph (concussion)
• Samuels (knee)
• Washington (shoulder)
• Nix (knee)

My god... They needed a bye week in the worst way.

Yes sir...the pec scares me the most...could be season ending...knock on wood it's not.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Yes sir...the pec scares me the most...could be season ending...knock on wood it's not.

Yep. As I said in #54 above, its the same injury that ended Heyward's 2016 injury. If it ruptured then he's done.

 

[Superbelt]

Yes sir...the pec scares me the most...could be season ending...knock on wood it's not.

Tuitt might be the best defensive player on this team right now.

Massive loss. but I do like Alualu.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Game 6 Review.

Butler/Tomlin....B+

The second week in a row the DL, handled the opposing OL. Nearly every player on the front 7 was stellar last night. Alualu was very effective in Tuitt's absence...Hargrave, and Heyward were caving the pocket as well. Both edge rushers were creating havoc in the back field most of the night. Obviously Bush with a scoop and score, plus a INT...on the negatives...the tackling got sloppy late in the game, including a few by the rookie LB. Even when it hit one but I never got the sense that the Chargers were going to come back and thanks to the 3rd takeaway of the night by Cam Sutton ensured they did not.

Fichtner/OFC...C+

Another fairly conservative game plan, but the OL was dominant allowing the run game to flourish. IMO they got too conservative on the 4th trip to the RZ resulting in the FG. Going for the jugular there would have crushed their will I think. The check down game was much like it was with Rudolph, but again effective with Conner looking every bit as good as Bell did catching the ball.

Snell was the main ball carrier late in this one with Connor nursing an injury and showed he some effective power running. The last drive, they clearly were just trying to eat up clock and force the Chargers to use up their time outs...they were successful in doing that.

ST...A

Holton downing that ball at the 2 pretty much took any chance of a comeback away. Punting was solid most of the night, and Bos delivered on his only FGA making it a 4 possession game.

Summary

While I thought the Chargers would take a dip from their 12-4 season from a year ago, I thought they would still be a 10 win type team. Now I'm not so sure about that, but it was good to see the Steelers D, come on the road and dictate like they did for 3+ quarters.

We saw a little bit of old school Steeler football in this game. Hodges didn't quite have the game I thought he might...short on his 1st deep ball, and the other kind of a force into coverage that got picked, but efficient with most of his other passes. Hopefully none of the many injuries in this game will linger beyond the bye week.

2-4...hopefully more good to come.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Gotta start off by saying that it was refreshing to finally see a clean-called game from the zebras. Typically we see a handful of game-altering calls on both sides of the ball that leave us speechless as to the stupidity that is the NFL officiating. Head official last night was JOHN HUSSEY... Everyone take a mental note of that name so that we can beg for him in the future.

Coaching... Well, when the cards are down this team showed yet again how resilient it can be. But we have already grown accustomed to it. Tomlin can be commended for winning with a relatively rag tag group that has been riddled with injuries. But lets keep it in perspective by looking at how bad teams like Cincy & LAC were. Both are bad for different reasons, and have a ton of injuries of their own. Nor am I ready to sing any praises for Fichtner. He implemented a run heavy approach which worked well, but the defense taking the pressure off them early was key to dictate their scheme. Still, the offense was able to control the ball through 4 quarters using that rushing attack. That's commendable. 9 first downs were rushes! Its not flashy, but its dominant. 8 - 3rd down conversion total. 8/13 total. Love seeing that. That sort of success leads to long drives that consume the clock & keep their defense fresh. They won the TOP battle by over 8minutes more than LAC. That 2nd/3rd drive in the 1st quarter was a thing of beauty. 9mins they ate up and capped it with a TD. That iced the Chargers and made a huge statement. Defense was suffocating and took advantage of a flawed Chargers group. I still firmly believe that the talent is just too good and is making Butler's job easy. That prevent defense late in the game was embarrassing though. But everyone deserves some credit for last night. A-

Offense... Hodges showed early that he wasn't afraid of throwing the ball downfield on the opening 3&out drive, but he sort of got timid after that. Speaking of timid, that dude looks shell-shocked every time he had to scramble. Almost as if someone was tellin him not to take hits lol. He looked poised again, but didn't make much of a mark. He made a big league throw in the 3rd in the face of a CB blitz, albeit a short route. He never really went deep outside of maybe 1-2 throws, but thankfully he never really had to. He was 0/4 (1 INT) on passes that traveled more than 10yds downfield lol. Scary stat. The ground game got going early though which took the pressure off Hodges. Great blocking up front to win the battles in the trenches. Looked like road graders out there. Conner looked strong & explosive again. Glad to see Snell have a decent showing. He's a strong runner, just needs to get more comfortable out there. He showed us that he's capable of being the grinder that he was in college. He fights for every yard, and that's great to see. Saw Crief & Switz get in on the action, but maybe just 1 catch per guy lol. At least Crief caught a difficult pass early, which was an encouraging sight. Diontae Johnson is quietly making a name for himself. B+

Defense... What a night for Devin Bush. He already had some footing on the DROY candidacy, but last night he put a fat stamp on it. I think it will boil down to him & Nick Bosa. Loved the heads up play & patience of picking up that fumble and then accelerating like a cannon shot out of a barrel into the endzone. That was very exciting to watch. Shout out to (dare I say it) Bud Dupree as well. I don't want to talk about it too much for fear of him going back into hiding, but Bud is starting to look good folks. That's 2-3 weeks of solid play from him. He, Watt & Tuitt made their presence felt early and often against a suspect O-line. Exactly what they needed to do. Watt was his dominant self. Also loved the contributions from Alualu. Felt really good to have VWill back out there. He was solid and thankfully there were no longer any glaring holes in the coverage like we saw when Barron was out there. He's a difference maker. Really tired of Chickillo. I know Ola hasn't done much of note to keep the backup job, but he hasn't looked like the liability that Chick has. I've been commending him for weeks, but gotta give a heap of credit to Cam Sutton's game-saving heroics. Dude is lockdown in the 4th quarter. Burns, overall, still looked bad. He had a couple of gaffs that made my blood boil but otherwise was fairly quiet thanks in large part to an inept passing attack from the Chargers. Rivers was under duress most the game and that was key to shutting down their passing attack. Outside of 1 or 2 plays where Minkah was out of position (and thankfully that 1 big drop from LAC), he looked awesome yet again. Missed a couple INTs, but he'll get plenty more chances moving forward. He's a smart & instinctive football player. So are Joe Haden & Mike Hilton. 7 passes defensed were credited last night to this secondary. 3 from front 7 batting balls at the LOS put the final PD/PBU total to 10. That's impressive. They still have a problem with defending the TE position, and give up points late in the game. B+

ST... Don't know how they've done it, but both Boz & Berry are kicking very well. Boz continues his perfect season, and Berry is suddenly a competent punter. He averaged over 46yds, and had a beauty pinned on the 1 to seal the game. Take away that final beauty of a punt, and he would have averaged 50yds last night. Now let's never talk about either again lol. Coverage teams still scare the crap out of me, but luckily weren't a liability last night. A-


Starting fast was an important factor, but it was ultimately the grinding rushing attack that controlled this game. And finally generating TDs off of takeaways. That formula for success should bode well for them moving forward. Now if they can just get healthy they could make a big push in their next 6 games (5 against AFC, 3 AFCN).

Good write up per norm Face.

DEF...I didn't know how much difference VWill would really make in this game, but he was a difference maker. Burns gave up some plays...iirc they went at him on the 1st play of the game, but he tackled well...not great in coverage, but I still don't think he's really suited for zone. The DL owned the Charger OL....all 4 of the bigs including Alualu and even McCullers just banged on that OL and made all kinds of dents in it...just an okay game by Minkah, dropped a pick. Sutton was the star of the back end last night. until they called the dawgs off. Hopefully the injured are all able to come back vs MIA....else, Buggs, get ready buddy!

OFC...I think I MAY have heard Joey Bosa's name once all night. The 136 yds rushing doesn't sound like a ton, but 36 attempts kept the ball in the Steelers hands and Hodges did just enough to keep the sticks moving and cashed in with 2 TDs.

Pleased obviously after what we've seen for most of this season...we'll have to see on Tuitt, hopefully none of the injuries are long term and this guys can continue to build on what this DEF is doing the rest of the way.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Yep. As I said in #54 above, its the same injury that ended Heyward's 2016 injury. If it ruptured then he's done.

Yep...hope for the best there.