*WARNING* The following has been written as an editorial from a Steeler Fan! *WARNING*

On to the breakdowns…

Breaking down the Steeler Offense:

QBs – Big Ben definitely needed the week off but still isn’t the QB we saw over the past two years. Lack of confidence in his ability to read and trust his receivers is coming back at far too slow a pace. Two interceptions proved costly to the team as well as his stats (58.5 passer rating) and the 5 sacks he took were not all because of the line.

Offensive line – Not sure what to think of this group. I thought the pass blocking was decent and the run blocking was adequate, but they didn’t have an answer for the Chargers NT Williams. Not Hartings, Not Faneca and Not Simmons could block him. Smith had help most of the night as did Starks. I’m going to reserve judgment on these guys because I didn’t think the play calling helped them.

Running Backs – Davenport was a bit of fresh air that sparked the Steelers only TD with a nice run on a screen pass. More will come from this guy as the season progresses. FWP, I thought, looked very good. 5 carries were for 9 yards or more and he only had 14 carries for 57 yards. His carry load is becoming a bad pattern (29, 11, 31, 14) and needs to be corrected in some way. I think the ability to run was there last night but never pushed upon the Bolts.

Wide Receivers – Nate Washington rebounded from a few drops in the last game and made some nice catches. Ward dropping balls is getting way too common for me. This is a guy that never dropped a ball until last year. Holmes looked like he was settling into his role quite nice and was close to breaking one for a long way.

Tight Ends – This is still a position that isn’t getting utilized anywhere near it’s full potential. Miller and Tuman can both catch and they get 2-4 balls thrown to them a game. We know they can block, lets see them with the ball now.

Breaking down the Defense:

Defensive Line – Casey Hampton was the difference maker for these guys, Smith and Keisel both played well too. When LT only gets 36 yards and nearly most of them came from a 12 yard run means they did some good work up front.

Linebackers – Haggans and Foote continue to be disruptive forces, but I can’t say I was completely satisfied with the amount of swing passes that were completed.Porter played better garnering 7 tackles and a hurry.

Defensive Backs – Troy is a bit better but the real story is becoming Ryan Clark. That man is laying the lumber and making me feel a lot better about picking him up. Ike had his moments, but Deshea had a rough night being responsible for two TD’s, although the first one he couldn’t have covered any better. A lot of underneath completions caused trouble for these guys.

Breaking down the Special Teams:

Jeff Reed – The kid is still money.

Coverage Teams – Losing J. Harrison is huge, but other than the long kor this unit did well. Problem is, they gave up a 51 yard kor.

Chris Gardocki – 47.3 yard average, awesome.

Returners –Willie Ried and Santonio did a fine job. Ried with an 11 yard return on a pr and Holmes averaging 23.7 yards on kor. Hey! How about Davenport returning kicks? Not what I expected but he did well with a 26 yard kor.

Last Thoughts:

A tail of two halves. The first half was awesome the second half sucked! The play and play-calling were not in sync at all with the game, with themselves, or with each other. You can’t keep wanting to pass and then wanting to run. There is not rhythm no set-up, no gain.

I give Rivers a ton of credit, he with stood a storm and came out on top with a nice game.

I’m really not too happy with the coaching staff over this game. They had a game plan and they couldn’t adjust to overcome obstacles along the way. They were still giving help to the tackles from the running backs instead of Hartings up the middle on J. Williams. I’m not usually into the blame game but Big Ben and the coaching staff can shoulder this one.

Sense of urgency? I don’t think so, urgency is just about all over us. Fortunately we only have played on divisional game. We better win the division because we won’t get in with a wildcard losing all these games to conference foes.

KC is up next and our head better be out of our a$$es by then!

Remember winning is what we expect to do not what we hope to do.

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