Skins vs. Steelers Positives and Negatives

Positives were

Hopkins
Trent and Brandon.
Djax, Reed, crowded and garcon for that recovery.
Josh Norman who didn't allow a catch while on AB. That's damn impressive.
Kerrigan for the strip but u gotta lay on it man.

That's all I got.

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Well he didn't accomplish any of that. Letting Aflmo walk is starting to look dumb.

I would seriously consider bringing in Rice for a look.

Good idea! At least he's proven that he can beat somebody.

(I feel a little shame for saying that.)

I think it had alot to do with big Ben. Any other qb is on his ass a couple more times last night. What about that long throw he made under serious pressure to keep one of their scoring drives alive. Yes their oline played well but Big Ben is like a 6th lineman playing quarterback. I wouldn't rush to judgement about our dline quite yet.
Ben is a HOF QB for a reason, he's a baller and always has been. I agree I think everyone is way overreacting to a loss especially when it's a top 3 team in the NFL.

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I don't think we need to bring Rice in...maybe bring in Stork again if he can pass physical and show a willingness to want to play again. Or maybe just game plan to run the ball.

Ben is a HOF QB for a reason, he's a baller and always has been. I agree I think everyone is way overreacting to a loss especially when it's a top 3 team in the NFL.

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We gotta vent a little today after that shit show. We can move on in a day or two.

It was the poor coaching and self-inflicted wounds that pissed me off the most. Big Ben didn't make us false start repeatedly on offense, for example.

We gotta vent a little today after that shit show. We can move on in a day or two.
Fair

Also, Pittsburg didn't have to blitz much last night...no run game, a 4 man pass rush allows them to sit back in Zone and chill.

When we saw this, we should have put Cousins under center, 2 TE sets...run the ball and work play action out of them.

Let's start it off with sdskinsfan2001's post from the gameday thread:

Positives:

We still have 15 more games.

Negatives:

No running game
No stopping the run
No stopping the pass
No pass rush
Bad QB play
Tons of penalties
Bad coaching on offense and defense

My comments:

Well said, sdskinsfan. That sums things up perfectly while sparing us the gory details. OK, that should do it for the positives and negatives for this week. On to Dallas week!

No, no I'm just kidding. First, I want for all of us to have an opportunity to vent our anger and wallow in our self-pity. But just for today, OK? It's a short week (Thank Goodness!). Personally, I want to be very specific and no doubt unfair in my comments.

Positives

1. Positives? Positives?!!! That was one stink'in super turd of a game!
2. No serious injuries.

Negatives

1. Poor coaching.

- The Steelers had one, just one, WR who could beat us and yet Joe Barry couldn't find some way to put our zillion dollar All-Pro CB on him to try to shut him down? Horrible coaching!

- I was licking my chops in anticipation of all the ways Joe Barry was going to use our Secret Weapon, S'ua Cravens, to disrupt the Steelers offense. But, NO! Fail!

- There was much more poor coaching in this game, but I don't want to have an aneurism, so you folks can take over from here.

2. Poor play.

- Where was the safety help for poor Beshaud Breeland? Our safeties suck! S'ua Cravens needs to start at SS.

- How could our O-Line have so many procedure penalties in our own damn stadium? The numerous off-sides and holding penalties hurt our offense throughout the game.

- Our D-Line is pathetic. Shame on you, Scot, for not doing something about our crappy DL personnel in the off-season!

- RB pass protection. Are you kidding me? That little, tiny 3rd Down back of ours couldn't block my hunch-backed granny! Hey, Scot! Yes, you again. Please get off your ass and bring in a real, actual NFL veteran RB to help us out.

- I've got to get back on Kory L.'s case. As far as I know, there is no pass play designed for the C to be pushed back into the QB's lap. I'll say it once more, we need to start either Long or Reiter at C.

- I have to stop now, for health reasons. You can take over.

no kidding . . . regardless of who you have covering Antonio Brown how do you not give him help? . . . Especially when the other team has multiple WR's out for the game? . . . geesh

Also, Pittsburg didn't have to blitz much last night...no run game, a 4 man pass rush allows them to sit back in Zone and chill.



When we saw this, we should have put Cousins under center, 2 TE sets...run the ball and work play action out of them.



They bought in a three TE set at one point which worked briefly. But YES Cousins should have extended plays earlier when they were rushing 3. There was more than one play where he could have jogged for ten yards with Pitt dropping 8 in coverage. He was playing as if they were blitzing when they weren't. Not much thinking on his feet last night, more like he was just going through the motions of what they practiced and trying not to make a mistake. He did not even sniff what they were giving him. But its ok. It is week one and he did not play alot of preseason at all. Remember game two he did not even play a snap. He will come around.

Venting is needed and natural but I'm going to focus on the things that make for go-forward concerns as opposed to situational things:

- I'm concerned about the coaching capabilities of our defensive coaching staff. I keep hearing it's "easier said than done" to match your best CB up with the best WR, and it causes communication issues, etc. Well other teams can do it, why can't we? We can't figure that out?

- 'Steiger is physically overmatched. That's not news, but it's also not going to get better.

- I'm actually not concerned with Breeland. On the first TD to Brown he was in position to not only cover, but make the pick. He just missed it. The fact that he hung with Brown there was a good thing because he'll at least knock that ball away 9 times out of 10. That was just the 1 out of 10 last night.

- I am actually quite concerned that DeAngelo Hall couldn't get over the top for the help on Brown on that same play. He was in the deep middle but reacted a step late to the deep ball to Brown. He didn't get there in time. He looks pretty good in run support but we are still limited at free safety from the center-fielder perspective.

- Cousins was nervous as shit in the beginning of the game. That's the one intangible piece about him that gives me pause. Everything else is good, the preparation, the intelligence, the toughness. But he exhibited a lot of jumpiness and anxiety in the first quarter, and he missed several throws because of it. He settled in, and he needs to settle in faster going forward.

- We don't appear to have gotten better at running the ball or defending the run. Our personnel is the same pretty much, which makes you scratch your head at McCloughan. But it also makes me concerned about our coaching staff on both sides of the ball. If they can't coach up any improvement then WTF?

- Weapons are great. DJax had a game. Reed was reliable. Garcon was reliable. Crowder was reliable. No news there.

- But I'm very concerned that the Steelers respected our running game so little that they chose to drop 7 or 8 into zone. Our coaches need to get the running game figured out. They have Trent and Scherff, two extremely high picks there. And it's not like Moses and Lauvao are devoid of capability. I put the poor running performance on coaching more than I do on personnel and it needs to get better.