Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers dropped their second game in a row in primetime, as Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers spoiled Aaron Rodgers’ revenge game. It was smooth sailing through the first 30 minutes, with the home team winning the war in the trenches while also having a predictable special teams advantage. After intermission, everything completely fell apart. There are plenty of concerns to go around, but the performance of the league’s highest-paid defense continues to be extremely disturbing.
Mike Tomlin’s club will need to find answers quickly, with the scorching hot Indianapolis Colts coming to town next weekend.
First, let’s talk through some winners and losers from tonight’s game:
At this point in the season, it’s become increasingly obvious that No. 30 is this team’s best player on the offensive side of the ball. With the assistance of his offensive line (who also quietly seemed to meet the bar in pass protection) and the jumbo personnel groupings, the Steelers controlled the line of scrimmage. Pittsburgh went into halftime with an impressive 59% rushing success rate but abandoned the run for whatever particular reason. There were dozens of reasons that this game got away from them, but for an offense without many playmakers, the coaching staff can’t afford to forget about Warren. This isn’t the first time it’s happened this season either.
Aside from Jalen Ramsey, who flashed in a positive manner on live viewing, basically everyone else played a massive part in tonight’s meltdown. Every week, the Steelers continue to blitz and play man coverage at a high rate despite not having the personnel to play that brand of ball. Jordan Love went supernova tonight, going 13-17 for 232 yards and 3 touchdowns versus man coverage, including the dagger to Tucker Kraft, who was inexplicably matched up with Chuck Clark on an island. This group looks their age, and not in a good way, but the lack of effort is by far the most disturbing thing. We’ll see if they finally make some changes next week.
The Michigan man got the party started tonight with a big-time 45-yard reception, in what would be the Steelers’ longest play from scrimmage in this one. At first, he was running a glorified clear-out as the No. 1 on a stick concept, but he made a nice adjustment to make himself available to the quarterback on the scramble drill. The toe tap on the sideline was smooth as well. He didn’t see much action until garbage time, aside from one target in which he failed to come back to the ball. That’s a learning moment for the youngster. He hauled in his first career touchdown on the final drive, so we’ll see what that does for his confidence moving forward.
It’s not often that these two guys find themselves on the wrong side of this list, but alas. I...
