Remember
that commercial than ran a few years ago featuring the groundskeeper who screwed up the Chiefs' end zone, leading to his dejected, "Great googly moogly" line? That was a completely valid reaction to the Steelers' play in a 27-24 loss to the lowly, bumbling Chefs on Sunday. Great googly moogly indeed.
I have no answer as to why this team can lose to an opponent like Kansas City, but let me try and at least offer some thoughts on what transpired on Sunday and this season in general:
1. What's bothered me the most about this year's Steelers is that they've lost to some clearly inferior teams. Last year's Super Bowl edition of the Steelers lost four games, and they were all to eventual playoff teams: the Eagles (9-6-1), Giants (12-4), Colts (12-4), and Titans (13-3).
This year's team has already lost four games, including Sunday's loss to the 2-7 (now 3-7) Chiefs and the 4-5 Bears, who look worse and worse as the season goes on. In addition, both losses to the Bengals sting a little more due to the fact that they were completely winnable games; the first meeting featured 14 unanswered Bengal points in the fourth quarter to erase an 11-point deficit; the more recent game was 9-6 Steelers into the third quarter. It's been very frustrating to witness from a fan's point of view, so I can only imagine the feeling among those who are actually part of the organization.
The problem with this team appears to be somewhat of a lack of identity. There are days when it appears that they can run over anybody (San Diego - Mendenhall 165 yards rushing), and there are days when it looks like there are no running plays in the playbook (Cincinnati II, Tennessee). They have days when the defense looks dominant (Cincinnati II, Cleveland) and days when the defense blows leads (Chicago, Cincinnati I). And as for their special teams, it's never really had any up to go with its perennial down.
As a team, they are very inconsistent; you never know which version of the Steelers is going to show up on a given day. After the back-to-back takedowns of Minnesota and Denver, they were the darlings of the league, finally playing up to their champion label. After back-to-back losses that probably handed the division crown to Cincinnati, they should be happy to make the playoffs.
Individual criticism and praise has fluctuated wildly based on the weekly outcomes, from Mike Tomlin to Ben Roethlisberger, James Harrison to Santonio Holmes, Hines Ward to Bruce Arians. One week they're up, another week they're down. This week's hero could very well be tomorrow's goat. Consistency has not been an ally of this specific team.
To an outsider, it looks like the Steelers have still not found their rhythm. It looked like they were headed in that direction with five straight wins, but then came crashing back down to Earth in the last two weeks. It's not that the Steelers can't re-capture their mojo, it's just that time is rapidly becoming their enemy if they want to make a playoff push in earnest.
In the end, all of this hot air I'm spewing basically comes down to your expectations for the rest of the season, and what's realistic. Do you expect the Steelers to win the Super Bowl? Then they're not going to be living up to your expectations, at least not at this point. Not by losing to Chicago and Kansas City, blowing leads, and allowing kick returns to go to the house on a regular basis. Do you expect the Steelers to make the playoffs? Now we're getting warmer. But does anyone expect the Steelers to lose to a train wreck of a team like Kansas City? For some reason, I doubt it.
Expectations are what dictate our mood about sports. If the Pirates go .500, a lot of people would be happy. If the Steelers would go .500, a lot of people would be disappointed. Why? Because expectations for the Pirates are much, much lower. But what should your expectations be for the remainder of the Steelers' 2009 campaign? Sadly, that is a question I cannot answer. At least not after watching them lose to the Chiefs.
2. (Yes, there's a #2) - I've said it before and I'll say it again - the longer you let an underdog hang around, the more they believe they can win. In fact, it's not just an opinion, it's a fact. When Kansas City is taking you into the fourth quarter at 17-17, they're only 15 minutes away from an upset (or in this case, 15 minutes plus overtime).
As has been the case many times in 2009, the Steelers could not step on the throat of their opponent and finish them off. Pittsburgh had a 17-7 into the third quarter, and another touchdown would've seriously limited any chance KC had at a victory. But all of a sudden, a ball bounces off of Heath Miller and into the hands of Andy Studebaker, the Chiefs take over at their own 38 yard line, and close the lead to 17-14 just a few plays later.
That turn of events would cripple the Steelers in the short-term. Their next drive was a three-and-out capped off by Rashard Mendenhall getting stuffed for no gain on third-and-one. The drive after that was moving along fine until a Roethlisberger end-zone pass was again intercepted by Studebaker and taken back to the Steeler five yard line, setting up a Chiefs field goal that would tie the game going into the final quarter. And because of that comedy of errors, the Chiefs were very much in it and their crowd had life with just 15 minutes on the clock. Momentum can be a dangerous opponent when it's not on your side, and at that point, it was not on the Steelers' side.
3. I've become so accustomed to Ben Roethlisberger magically rallying the Steelers at a moment's notice that I'm dumbfounded when it doesn't happen. And the last two weeks, with chances to alter the game's outcome in the closing minutes, it hasn't happened. The legend of
Get Me My Hat seems like a lifetime ago. If only I had lower expectations, I wouldn't be acting like a spoiled Steeler fan. As you can see, I'm sticking with this expectations thing.
4. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one person outside of Kansas City who should feel good about the Chiefs' special-teams TD is former Steeler Arnold Harrison, who was thrown to the wolves last week in hopes of ending the unit's ongoing woes. But it was evident from Sunday's opening kickoff that this is a problem that's deeper than one man. The only question is whether or not the cuts will go deeper after a ridiculous fourth consecutive week with a kick return touchdown.
Despite the epic fail on that opening kickoff, I don't know how much good it would do to let special teams coach Bob Ligasheshky go right now. It might make some people happy to see another head roll, but that's not going to improve the 11 men on kick coverage. The more likely scenario is to utilize more starters on special teams, risking injury. It's not a desirable option, but how desirable are games decided by big plays on your special teams every week?
5. Roethlisberger had 42 pass attempts on Sunday, and again I'll say that is waaaay too many. Sunday ranked third on Roethlisberger's list of all-time bests for yardage, and the Steelers have now lost two of those games. If the Steelers were using the pass to build insurmountable leads that were then protected by gratuitous second-half rushing, that would balance things out. But that's
not the way things are playing out.
I'm never one to champion an ultra-conservative game-plan, but the more you throw the ball, the greater a chance exists that bad things will happen. It's simply the law of averages. It's hard to have passes bounce off of guys' chests when you're running the ball.
I've been on record of saying that the team should not have a ball-and-chain to "The Steeler Way" of pounding the ball with a Bettis/Harris/Foster-style running back, and that the strength of the team is the passing game. But the job of Bruce Arians is to use the team's strengths to their advantage, and I don't think that includes putting up 40+ passes, no matter who is throwing or catching the ball. The passing game can still be a strength even if it doesn't account for 400 yards on any given Sunday.
6. Other than heaping blame on the offense's numerous turnovers, Bruce Arians' play-calling, and the special teams, allow a moment to squeeze the defense on that list of goats. Not only did Dick LeBeau's feared unit give up the crucial 61-yard pass play to Chris Chambers in OT, but it also gave up a crippling eight-play, 91-yard drive in the middle of the fourth quarter.
If the opponent were, say, the Indianapolis Colts, I'd probably be a little more forgiving. But the problem was that it wasn't. This was a mediocre quarterback who
the Steelers destroyed last year when he was surrounded by a much more talented New England team. This was a receiver (Chris Chambers) who was just bid adieu by the division-leading Chargers three weeks ago; the Chiefs didn't even have their leading receiver (Dwayne Bowe) for this game, as he was serving the first game of his league-mandated drug suspension. This was a running game that was in disarray after waving goodbye to one of their leading rushers in team history. This was a Chiefs team that hadn't won at home this season, hadn't won back-to-back games since 2007, and scored its first victory over a team with a winning record since beating Denver in week four of 2008. This was a Chiefs offense that ranked 30th in the league with a pitiful 266 yards per game, only outdone by the miserly Raiders and Browns. And this was a Steelers defense that ranked 2nd in the league, giving up 277 yards per game. I realize the greatness of Troy Polamalu, but does this team really miss him this much?
7. So far, I've spent way too much negative energy talking about this game. There were some positives - most notably Hines Ward, who had a tremendous 10-catch, 128-yard, one-TD effort. Heath Miller (interception snafus aside) was just six yards off of his career high for receiving yards (101 in the 2006 opener against Miami, highlighted by an 87-yard TD). And Rashard Mendenhall had 116 yards of offense, with his first career rushing TD. But games are not won on stats alone, and that's why it's hard to generate some optimism from these impressive numbers.
8. Another positive from Sunday was the showing of Steeler Nation on the road. After Roethlisberger's incredible Houdini-like touchdown pass, Arrowhead sounded louder than Heinz Field on most days. Steeler road crowds draw a different kind of energy - these are fans who don't get to go to every contest and usually bring their A-game.
I know I'm not the only one to believe that the crowds at Heinz Field have been a bit stale at times. Going to a Steeler game just doesn't evoke the same kind of enthusiasm for people who've been there every week since 1975 - and some of them act like it.
9. If things weren't bad enough, Big Ben took a violent shot in overtime that brought an ice-cold Charlie Batch into the game after four quarters on the sidelines, and Chris Kemoeatu left with a knee injury. Hopefully things will turn out OK on that front, but we'll have to wait and see.
10. On a disappointment level, is this the worst Steeler loss since the infamous Oakland game in 2006? If not, it's certainly close.
11. I hate playing the "what if" game, but what if Ike Taylor holds on to that interception in overtime? Unfortunately, we'll never know, as it got chalked up as another on the lengthy list of Dropped Ike Taylor Interceptions. I think this was #721.
12. I've thrown a lot of things out there, as is usually the case after season-altering losses. That's human nature - just listen to the angry callers to talk shows this week. The losses gets dissected more than the wins.
This team clearly has some issues, but there is no reason that they still cannot overcome them and at least qualify for the playoffs. However, at this point, the season must be broken into 60-minute blocks, and the next one (Baltimore, next Sunday night) will be one of the biggest 60-minute-blocks of the remaining schedule.
Email: Mondesishouse@gmail.com Twitter: twitter.com/mondesishouse Facebook: Facebook Group
