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Ferocious Steeler Defense Reenacts Scene from Movie "Aliens" Article by McMillen & Wife One of the cable channels was broadcasting the movie "Aliens" late Sunday night, and as I watched the doomed group of nameless, faceless, space-suit wearing schmucks traipse unwittingly into the aliens' lair, I couldn't help but think of what happened to Tampa Bay quarterback Brad Johnson at the hands of the Steelers. In the movie, the next thing our merry band of space explorers knew, scores of salivating aliens converged on them from all sides like sharks in a feeding frenzy, their multiple sets of razor-sharp teeth ripping into human flesh as screams filled the air. On the field... well, it was pretty much the same scene. Monster movie rule #1: if you're a "small-time" actor, you NEVER wanna be the first one to stumble upon the monsters. I don't know about you, but I suspect Brad Johnson (a decidedly "small-time" QB) might've been praying for Sigourney Weaver (a.k.a, Ripley in Aliens) to show up and save his ass this past Sunday, because he got up close and personal with the black and gold "aliens" a whopping 10 times. Don't let the seemingly close 17-10 score fool you, either. The "underdog" Steelers (how we were underdogs in this game is beyond me) went into Raymond James Stadium and uttlerly DOMINATED the Bucs from start to finish in every single phase of the game. Ten sacks? To tell you the truth, I'm not all that surprised. I mean, if we'd only had 6 or 7, I wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow. I mean, let's face it... the Bucs defense came in with all the hype, but it's the Steelers defense' who's been the NFL's best over the last month, in spite of what Warren Sapp thinks. Heck, every Steeler who tallied a sack Sunday equalled ultra-mouth Sapp's sack output for the year. But I'll save my Sapp insults for a bit later. Again I'll say it... TEN sacks. Unreal. Joey Porter had four sacks and Kimo Von Oelhoffen added three. Rookie left tackle Kenyatta Walker never knew what hit him. But to get too preoccupied with those ten sacks is to overlook the Steelers' marvelous job of controlling the run. The Bucs' ground attack was, well, ground beef. Warrick Dunn and Mike Alstott were virtual non-factors, combining for a grand total of 46 yards (Tampa's team total was 64 including Brad Johnson's scrambles). Keyshawn Johnson had a career day with 10 catches for 159 yards... but ZERO TDs. And with all due respect, Keyshawn was under control in spite of his impressive stats. The scheme was to let him get his catches but contain him, which the Steelers did to perfection. And it was a pass that Chad Scott tipped away from Johnson early in the fourth quarter (intercepted by Mike Logan in the end zone) that epitomized what the Steeler actually did against Keyshawn. He had very few big plays, and frankly, his 159 yards are diminished greatly when you factor in those *gasp* TEN sacks. And let's not overlook Jason Gildon in all this, who played an outstanding (althoug sack-less) game, batting three passes on Johnson's short drops. Aliens, I tell you... the Steeler defense is playing like aliens. What all this shows me the incredible versatility of Tim Lewis' defensive scheme. When the key is to stop the run (as it was against the Bills, Bungles, and Bucs), they stop the run. When the key is to stop the pass (as it was against the Chiefs), they stop the pass. They're forcing turnovers at key times, and even better, they're using those turnovers to put points on the board. They're intimidating their opponents. They're overpowering their opponents. They're running circles around their opponents. And most importantly, they're winning. Now, let's talk a little Steeler offense and a little Warren Sapp. If my dog had a face like Sapp's, I'd shave his ass and walk him backwards. I mean, when this guy was born, the doctor slapped his mother. All I heard all week was how Warren Sapp was giggling that the Steelers, who have been averaging a staggering 200 yards on the ground per game this season, could NEVER pull that off against the vaunted Tampa Bay Defense. Well, Warren, there's an old saying I'd like to clue you into: "Nothing is as embarrasing as watching someone do something that you said couldn't be done." The Steelers piled up 220 yards on the ground, and Bettis absolutely ate the Bucs alive. To Tampa's credit, Bettis had only 25 yards rushing in first half. But the Bucs' preoccupation with him led to Jerome's 32-yard halfback option TD pass before halftime. And that stunning pass set up his 46-yard breakaway TD run to open the second half and essentially put the game on ice. A few other tidbits worth noting before I wrap this up. The Steelers were -3 on turnovers and still won. Yeah, it's bad that we turned the ball over, but it's outstanding that we overcame it. Stewart, in spite of his two picks (one of which was a "huh" pass, the other which perhaps should've been caught by Burress), wasn't half bad. He did some nice running on third down, and hit 8 of 11 in the first half, perhaps opening things up just a bit for Bettis. And let me say this... Mike Mularkey, you are the man! The Steelers are still a run, run, run team... but they are NOT predictable anymore. Next up... the Tennessee Tuxedos on Monday night. which will be a real proving ground for the Steelers. We'll post our pre-game predictions soon. Until then, bruthas & sistas! Tim McMillen Webmaster, McMillen & Wife
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Sack of Ten. Can we get some Cheese on that? I knew in my heart that the Steelers would beat Tampa Bay and that the Bus would break over 100 yards on them. We have the best Defense in all areas of the NFL and I hope others start taking notice of the Steelers dominance. As far as Kordell goes, I think he has been playing pretty good ball. Not pretty stat's, but fairly mistake free football. As long as the O-line keeps Stewart protected and helps open holes for the Bus, the Steelers can show the NFL that they mean business. HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!!!! Ken, UnSuk, Sara & Samuel Hoffmaster I see what you're saying, and I'm fully aware of Kordell's passing deficencies. You are right that this team unfortunately cannot win if it is forced to pass the ball to do so. This team will have difficulty coming back from large deficits. I was not really trying to rationalize the low passing totals as a whole, even though there are some reasons for it. But this all only puts the Steelers in the same category as virtually every team in the NFL - they have weaknesses. But right now, their strengths very much outnumber their weaknesses. The Ravens didn't have a passing attack that could bring them back from large deficits last year, nor did the Titans. You could pretty much load up on the run with both of those teams and, by and large, you wouldn't stop them anyway. Basically, there is a two reasons the Steelers are doing what they are doing right now: better schemes and better players. At a certain point, you can take two approaches to football. You can either take the Kevin Gilbride approach of "I'm going to beat you by confusing you on every play so that you don't know what's coming," or the Chan Gailey/Mike Mularkey approach of "I'm going to beat you because I want to get yardage more than you want to stop me from getting yardage and I'm bigger and stronger than you." Certainly that's an overgeneralization on both sides, but you get my point. Both philosophies can work, depending on the personnel. The Rams use the former approach, and it works for them because they have that type of quick, dashing talent. The Ravens used the latter approach last year because they had a less-than-awe-inspiring QB and not a ton of team speed, but a bruising RB, a bruising offensive line, and importantly, a defense that did not allow them to get behind by a lot. The Steelers are getting by right now because their offensive line is kicking ass, the WRs are blocking downfield, and Bettis is healthy and running strong. Plus, Mularkey is putting enough wrinkles in the running game to make the offense just a little slow in figuring where the run is coming from. That can be enough to break long. Personally, I love it. I love this down your throat, tell the other team what's coming and dare them to stop it approach. Tons of teams would love to be able to play this way, and the Steelers are fortunate enough to have the guns to do it. You gotta admit that, the weaknesses aside, this is fun. I find it amazing that Bettis can continue to have such success when there is almost no threat of a long pass. Bradshaw had some legendary receivers to toss to, Kordell has guys that drop every other pass and can't remember their routes. I think it is a testament to Bus and our O-line that we can still steamroll over teams and I am certainly not saying that I would give up our ground game to have a passing threat. All I'm saying is that we need to put the fear of the deep ball into our opponenets or at least the fear of being able to quickly move the chains if we need to play catchup. Look what happened in Jacksonville, we are a better team than they are, but we got burned in the air in the 2nd quarter and the rest of the game we had to try moving the ball quickly to get back in, and we OBVIOUSLY can't do that. I'm not amazed that we are winning, I'm amazed that we can still move the ball so well on the ground when our opponents know that all we are going to do is run the ball and dump little 5 yard passes every once in while. I concerned because we don't have the ability to score touchdowns and sooner or later, when we need points, we are going to have problems. At some point, our opponenets are going to make some good plays and score some points on us, if we get behind by a couple TD's, I don't think we have the ability to get back into a game like that. Thats what I'm worried about. I'm not lobbying for them to start putting up big passing numbers, I'm worried because I know that when the time comes for us to move the ball quickly down the field for 6 points, we are gonna have a really hard time doing it because our opponents have no respect for our passing game. We need improvement (we don't need to be the Rams) in the air and I just don't see Kordell as being able to provide a long-term answer for us. I do love the guy for what he can do (my wife and I named one of our cats Kordell), but he just doesn't seem to be able to make many plays in the air. Why do you find it so amazing that this team is successful without Kordell putting up big passing numbers? This is not intended as anything approaching a rip, but when you look at the running game and the defense, it is actually quite obvious why they are so successful. I would be willing to bet you that most coaches would trade their passing game for the Steelers running game at the drop of a hat. See, a successful passing game is great, and a successful running game is great. But the difference is that, if you don't have a successful running game, you can't effectively control the clock, which is one of the most crucial aspects of winning a football game. You have to remember, there are only so many plays on offense. If you can run the ball 60% of the time and get 6+ yards per play doing so, you simply won't have lofty passing numbers. You're not passing that much. Kordell only had 18 pass attempts on Sunday. Would you prefer we be in the Buccaneers position? They threw 50 times, and Brad Johnson had well over 200 yards. Do you think that Buccaneers coaches and fans were happy with their offensive production on Sunday? Right now the Steelers' running game is brutally effective, which allows them to shorten the game, and also gives their defense tons of rest, which in turn makes them more effective. Dr. Z wrote an article a few weeks ago, I'll try to find it for you, that basically posited the notion that it is incongruous to have a great passing game and a great defense at the same time. The reason is that a great passing game allows for quick scores, or at least quick possessions, which means that your defense is right back on the field before they know it. That wears on a team over time, as the Buccaneers defense showed on Sunday. Lastly, as a historical note, I would implore you to check out the "Bradshaw's Bullet" section of this website, and look at the number of 200+ yard passing game Bradshaw had in the Steelers first two Super Bowl seasons. (The answer is 4, and the main reason is because their running game was legendary). You may say that the game has changed, etc., but if it's changed so much, how are the Steelers running for almost 200 yards a game in 2001? Take at least to few days to appreciate what this team does have. Believe me, you may not know how many teams would trade for it right now. Right now teams only have to things to worry about, the Bus running the ball and Kordell running the ball. Amazingly, it's been enough to get the job done and will probably get us in the playoffs. Kordell is all heart and he is winning games like he is supposed to, but I still think we need to have a plan to get a real passer in there sometime in the near future!!! I love the team and the way they are playing, but I'm worried about some of our up and coming games, especially Minnesota. I don't think we're going to able to hold them to under 15-20 points and if we can't put much on the board we are lost. But, as always, GO STEELERS!!! (I still think the division and the AFC is ours for the taking). For those of us that have seen them all season, and the end of last season for that matter, we could see something like this coming. Could we see 220 yards rushing and 10 sacks? Well, maybe not that much, but if you didn't see the potential for a consistently dominating team, then you haven't paying attention. This is a team that finished last season in very strong form, that easily could have made the playoffs had they been able to finish a few games and gotten even competent officiating in some others, and that, most importantly, improved during the offseason. They addressed two glaring needs, bulk and strength on the defensive line and speed at linebacker, in the draft. They locked up their entire secondary. They got younger at offensive line, and they got rid of an ill-fitting offensive coordinator and signed on two terrific coaches, Mike Mularkey and Russ Grimm. Their defensive coordinator, Tim Lewis, got another year of experience under his belt (more on this later). Kordell began to move the team, become a leader, and eliminate costly mistakes. If he wasn't racking up huge numbers, he was at least moving this team when it counted. Almost all the players on the team were at a point in their career where a year older meant a year better, not a year worse. This team was clearly improved. The only problem? Nobody noticed. Nobody that gets paid to notice, anyway. "Experts" raved on and on about the Ravens defense, or the Bucs defense, or Miami's defense. Forgotten was a team that went five straight games without allowing a touchdown, that was the last team to beat the Super Bowl champion Ravens (in Baltimore), that stymied what was thought to be the best offense in the AFC, the Raiders, that drove Donovan McNabb insane for 59 minutes, and that, as noted, IMPROVED over the offseason. No, the media was happy to stick by their blanket, superficial, lazy assessment of the Steelers: "Kordell stinks, Bettis won't be enough." It would have taken work to realize that there was more to the team than this. So it persisted during victories over teams that don't matter to the experts, the Bills and Bengals and Chiefs. It took the total pounding of one the NFL's darlings, the Buccaneers, for the media to realize that the Steelers are still here, they're still the angry bastards they've always been, and this year they have the weapons to do something about it. So now people have stood up and taken notice. Now the Steelers are getting three weeks worth of media attention that they were deprived of this past month all in one week. The bandwagon has started and the overkill is upon us. The truth is somewhere in between, I imagine. The Steelers were never as irrelevant as the media made them earlier this season, and MAY not be as strong as some members make them now. But what is assured is that, whether you can beat the Steelers or not, you will have to give everything on every play to do it. This is the most physical Steelers team I have seen since at least 1997, when they went to the AFC championship. Maybe a more appropriate comparison would be the 1994 that lost to the Chargers in the AFC championship game (hate to rehash that one). That team, unlike the 1997, did not have a great receiver, and was even more of a ground-oriented team than the 1997 team. They shortened every game with running and defense, which gave them a chance to win every game (and gave their opponents that chance as well, as the San Diego game showed). That team would run at you when you knew they were going to, would run in the direction you knew they'd run at you, and you still wouldn't be able to stop it. This team yesterday took on one of the vaunted run defenses in the NFL, one that was keyed up for the run, and trashed them. The Steelers defense took away any notions the Bucs had of running the ball early on, then set upon the quarterback. That game gave me visions of Blitzburgh in the mid 1990s - the front three or four getting great push, linebackers coming from all directions on direct bull rushes, on stunts, corners coming in on third down. There was really no telling where the rushers would come from. And, more importantly, it continued the entire game. This, to my mind, signals the maturation of Tim Lewis as defensive coordinator. The Steelers lost at least two games last year because Lewis played too conservatively when it counted. In both the Eagles game and the second Titans game last year, the Steelers defense had taken control of the line of scrimmage, and in both cases, he pulled them off at the end and got burned for doing so. In the Eagles game, after terrorizing McNabb the entire game, he only rushed three at the end and let McNabb pick them apart. In the Titans game, on 4th and 8, he decided to stop rushing McNair and gave him enough time to sit in the pocket and convert the down, which led to the game-winning field goal. In both cases, he took a defense that had attained a rabid state of mind, and killed all their aggression, such that they couldn't get it back when they needed it. In this game, I think he saw a defense that was going wild, and he let them do it the ENTIRE game. He let the defense finish the game with the same style of play that had worked the entire game, and dared the Bucs to beat them on a big play. Predictably, the Bucs couldn't do it. This is a defensive coordinator that has learned from the past, and it shows. Obviously, the next few weeks are crucial. The Steelers have their divisional foes coming up, with a chance to either put the AFC Central race away or to let some other team back into it. They have the talent to put it away. They will be playing at home, and they have no significant injuries whatsoever (knock on wood). Their immediate rivals (the Titans then the Ravens) are struggling mightily, so the Steelers have caught them at a good time. In other words, the Steelers, after yesterday, have put themselves in excellent position to take the division and break a three year playoff absence. It is up to them at this point, but I, for one, am excited as hell for what thse next few weeks have to offer. These are our Steelers, and now everyone knows. <<< Back to Mac & Wife's
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