Steelers-Browns post-game discussion

Wallace108 wrote:

Buddha Bus wrote:

Nor am I. I have confidence that Haley will do better. He's proven that he can call damn good games this year. I think he's just bad at using his backups, but when they both can't throw the ball and your RBs are playing for the other team, what can you do? Haley didn't do a great job, but how can you plan around 8 turnovers?

You can understand a running back having a bad game. But when you have four running backs who ALL have a bad game, and all four fumble the ball, there's a reason for that ... the defense knows what you're doing ... they're pinning their ears back and coming after your running backs. They had 10 players in the box at times, and we still ran it up the middle. Then when Batch HAD to throw, they were dropping everyone back and making it difficult for him to find open receivers. Haley didn't even try to confuse them any. The play calling today was more predictable than at any time under Arians. It's painful for me to say that.

Pinned back or not you still have to protect the football which they didn't do. It wasn't like they were getting immediately hit after the handoff by 3 guys. There is no excuse for not wrapping the ball up with 2 arms in a crowd. I give somewhat of a pass to Rainey as he was tackled awkwardly and obviously injured on the play, but the other fumbles were inexcusable. A lack of fundamentals.

Wallace108 wrote:

Speaking of poor coaching decisions ... what about the decision to run Rainey up the middle on the 1 yard line before the half??? Yeah, he bounced off and scored, but he should have been wrapped up and taken down for a loss. Seriously ... you run Rainey up the middle instead of Redman or even Dwyer??

EDIT: Buddha, I see you beat me to it.

I saw Rainey in the game and was like "WTF?" I'm glad he scored, but Dwyer or Redman was the choice for a gut goalline run, not Rainey. Just head scratchingly stupid.

Buddha Bus wrote:

Pinned back or not you still have to protect the football which they didn't do. It wasn't like they were getting immediately hit after the handoff by 3 guys. There is no excuse for not wrapping the ball up with 2 arms in a crowd. I give somewhat of a pass to Rainey as he was tackled awkwardly and obviously injured on the play, but the other fumbles were inexcusable. A lack of fundamentals.

Actually, that was Rainey's second fumble of the day. His first went out of bounds. Counting that first fumble which kind of went unnoticed because it wasn't a turnover and Sanders' muff on the punt, we put the ball on the carpet 6 times today. Throw in 3 interceptions, and it's a damn good thing we weren't doing shots for every F-up.


Yoi!! Maybe I'll just jump off a bridge after all.

There were a few players who I was impressed with during the game. Lawrence, Ryan, and Heath all had a good game. I'm going to blame this one on player execution, you can't turn the ball over eight times, have nine penalties, and still expect to win. Player execution on offense was horrible, but was good on defense. Throw in bad field position for us and good for them majority of the time, games end up like they did today.

One thing I want to point out before everyone has a chance to go into their daily Wallace rant ...

Plaxico didn't have a catch, put his presence was definitely felt. The PI call on the pass to him in the end zone set up our TD before the half. Sanders had 2 big catches in the game. Plax was in on both catches, and him and Wallace both ran deep routes. Sanders was uncovered underneath both times. So although the ball didn't go to either Plax or Wallace, they completely cleared out everything underneath for Sanders on those two receptions. When Brown comes back, just imagine having Sanders, Wallace, Plax, and Brown on the field at the same time.

steelerdude15 wrote:

There were a few players who I was impressed with during the game. Lawrence, Ryan, and Heath all had a good game. I'm going to blame this one on player execution, you can't turn the ball over eight times, have nine penalties, and still expect to win. Player execution on offense was horrible, but was good on defense. Throw in bad field position for us and good for them majority of the time, games end up like they did today.

I've been hammering the coaching today, and there's another opportunity for me to hammer it some more. In both this game and the Ravens game, our special teams have sucked. Unlike last week, we didn't give up any big plays today, but once again, our return game didn't help out our offense. Two weeks in a row our offense couldn't get a short field just one time after a punt or kick. We need to bring in a ST coach.

One more knock on the coaching staff ... we're the second most penalized team in the league. It continued today. That falls on the coaching staff to get that worked out.

Wallace108 wrote:

There's no point in getting upset over a loss like this. Just shake your head, chuckle at the absurdity, and move on.

Absurdity is right. Here's my take. I thought last week Batch should have started. He's smarter and as unmobile as Lefty but at least he could have skaken off the rust for this game allowing us to THROW THE DAMN BALL!!! For that reason Tomlin and Haley are my picks for goat.

solardave wrote:

Wallace108 wrote:

There's no point in getting upset over a loss like this. Just shake your head, chuckle at the absurdity, and move on.

Absurdity is right. Here's my take. I thought last week Batch should have started. He's smarter and as unmobile as Lefty but at least he could have skaken off the rust for this game allowing us to THROW THE DAMN BALL!!! For that reason Tomlin and Haley are my picks for goat.

Tomlin and Haley are definitely the goats. Time to close the thread and go to bed.

I lied, one more knock on the coaching staff ...

Mendy fumbled, so they pulled him and put in Dwyer. Then Dwyer fumbled, so they pulled him and put in Redman. Then Redman fumbled, so they pulled him and put in Rainey. Then Rainey fumbled and they .... ran out of running backs so they left Rainey in. For the love of Myron Cope ... Dwyer is our best running back right now. Almost everyone can see that. Start him and let him be the man.

I just watched some of Tomlin's post-game press conference. Of course, he put everything on the players for the turnovers and penalties. I'm sorry, but the coaching staff needs to be held accountable. If a player or two make mistakes, you blame the players. But when you've got 9 or 10 guys killing you with turnovers and penalties, that falls on the coaching staff. We had 6 fumbles and 3 interceptions, plus however many penalties. All of that can't be pinned on Ben not playing. And all of that can't be pinned on the players. When you have that many players effing up, that's on the coaches.

Game Ball once again to the defensive unit

Goats
offensive unit

What in the name of good sense happened today?!? It was a sham, a disgrace, an
embarassment, humiliating and everything else that is bad!!!

I am so ashamed of my team right now I can't see straight. Losing to the Clowns yet!! Makes it one thousand times worse.

Man oh man oh man. The pain, the pain of it all.

Wallace108 wrote:

Well, there's lots to talk about. I'll go into more detail later, but right now I'll just say this ... it's too easy to blame Batch and the running backs for this loss. I'm putting this loss on Haley. The reason our running backs were getting killed is because the Browns knew we were running and were teeing off on our running backs. The play calling was beyond conservative. It was pathetic.

And Tomlin. I'm pretty much done with his act.

Gingerchip wrote:

Ok - does anyone else besides me believe that we NEED to draft a QB in April?

Which April? I'm thinking like April of 2010.

The penalties can go on the coaches, but they certainly can't be held responsible for players not holding the ball well, or not putting forth a better effort on protecting the ball or the QB.

That falls on the players in those roles. PERIOD.

How can you blame a coach for TOs? In reality, how can you blame them for penalties? You can coach the game, but they eventually have to turnover the gameplan to the players on the field.

Our offense put forth another lackluster effort and it showed. There is no passion or fire on the offensive side of the ball. If not for our defense, these last two games certainly could have been blowouts.

When Cowher was our coach I think we used to be one of the least penalized teams in the league
So I would put some blame on Tomlin. Sometimes I think Tomlin is like an actor playing a coach He's a quote making machine

fer69 wrote:

Sometimes I think Tomlin is like an actor playing a coach

He is.

I am still miserable over today's (I mean yesterday's loss -- it's 1:00 am here in dark CA).

I don't even want to watch, hear, or know about the upcoming Raven's game unless Ben, Troy, Woodley, and Brown are all on the field -- then we might have a chance.

I am going to hear crap for days around here. Anyone else ever notice that there are teams that lose all of the time and have mediocre seasons, but when the Steelers lose it's like front page news!

For the first time (and I can't believe I'm saying this) I'm glad Hines isn't here to endure this embarrassment.

Ok.....thank you all for allowing me to vent. I will sleep peacefully now.

Gingerchip wrote:

I am still miserable over today's (I mean yesterday's loss -- it's 1:00 am here in dark CA).

I don't even want to watch, hear, or know about the upcoming Raven's game unless Ben, Troy, Woodley, and Brown are all on the field -- then we might have a chance.

I am going to hear crap for days around here. Anyone else ever notice that there are teams that lose all of the time and have mediocre seasons, but when the Steelers lose it's like front page news!

For the first time (and I can't believe I'm saying this) I'm glad Hines isn't here to endure this embarrassment.

Ok.....thank you all for allowing me to vent. I will sleep peacefully now.

Goodnight, Ginger. I hope you sleep better than I did after that monumental clusterfuck in Cleveland.


I'll just sum up that game right here.






I could hear it in my head after every turnover, so it was a few more times than in this video, but you get the picture.

Two games without Ben, two losses. Enough said.

Buddha Bus wrote:

Wallace108 wrote:

Buddha Bus wrote:

If you saw some of Batch's downfield throws I think you'll understand why they don't have the confidence in him you want. His arm is spaghetti and he made some terrible decisions on two of his three picks. That last one was as stupid as they come right after getting a gift wrapped 1st down from Cleveland. Why would you throw that ball unless Wallace is wide open by 15 yards? He was never open at any time during that route and he chucked it anyway. Stupid.

I don't know how much of that is Batch's fault. In the first half, they had him handing the ball off and throwing screens. Then in the second half, they had him throwing 25 yards downfield. A quarterback has to get into a rhythm (yes, even Ben). They didn't allow Batch to get into a rhythm. There was absolutely no rhyme nor reason to our play calling. They just kept running the ball up the middle. Then when they were losing, they tried passing the ball downfield. The play calling didn't make a bit of sense. I would have liked to have seen a reverse, a halfback pass, more slants. SOMETHING! ANYTHING!!

That has been pissing me off lately too, especially with Rainey. Bounce some plays outside. Rainey has speed and elusiveness and they treat him like a 250 lb. hammer running him constantly up the middle. Unreal. He scored a damn touchdown after bouncing off the middle and to the outside. What is hard to get about that?

Batch deserves the blame for pulling the trigger downfield to a well covered receiver, period, regardless of the play call. He's veteran enough to know he shouldn't force that ball and should either look to check down or throw it away. If he was a rookie I might think differently, but he's a seasoned vet. No excuse.

i watch Batch miss a couple wide open recievers in the first half and it looks like 30 yards is as far as Batch can thow it down field. :angrychimp:

bayz101 wrote:

Two games without Ben, two EMBARRASSING losses. Enough said.

There, I fixed it for ya.