Steelers

Lolley: Running the gauntlet and facing the elephant

By Dale Lolley

Dec 12, 2017 • 12:00 am

7.2K

It hasn't always been pretty, but here we are. The Steelers are sitting at 11-2, tied for the best record in the NFL.

And the Patriots are coming to town Sunday.

This is the moment for which everyone, including the Steelers and Mike Tomlin, have been waiting. The players openly talked about playing the Patriots again throughout the offseason after losing to them at Foxborough in last season's AFC Championship. Game

During training camp, I was doing a radio show with Tim Benz when the Patriots-possibly-going-unbeaten hoopla was in full swing. Benz was running with that thought, saying the Patriots would be favored in every game they played this season. I begged to differ, offering that, if New England came to Pittsburgh Dec. 17 with the Steelers, say 11-2, even an unbeaten Patriots team wouldn't be favored. It would, at least, be a pick-'em game.

Again, here we are.

Everything to this point has been a warmup, perhaps for both teams. And, as Tomlin told Tony Dungy a few weeks ago, if both teams do what's expected of them, this will be the first of two meetings again this season, with this game deciding where that game will be played.

Regardless of how close some of the games have been -- and both teams have squeaked by at times -- these two teams have proven to be the best in the AFC this season. The Steelers have won 20 of their past 23 games, dating back to a loss to Dallas in Week 10 last season that dropped them to 4-5. Coincidentally, the Patriots also lost that week, 31-24 at home to Seattle.

Since then, even with their 27-20 loss last night in Miami, the Patriots are 21-3. Their one extra win came in last season's Super Bowl.

"Elephant in the room," indeed.

Neither team is perfect. The Steelers are obviously missing Joe Haden and Ryan Shazier on defense. They might get Haden back this week. And the Patriots are without receiver Julian Edelman and linebacker Donta Hightower, two of their better players, among others.

But both teams will have plenty of offensive firepower on the field next Sunday. And that's why it was important for the Steelers to show in the past few weeks that they can still run and gun with the best of them, as they did Sunday night in the 39-38 win over Baltimore.

Baltimore's defense is way better than that of New England, though so, too, is the Patriots' offense better than that of the Ravens.

This Pittsburgh team continues to find ways to win, regardless of circumstance, which has been impressive. The Steelers have won low-scoring games. They have won shootouts. They have won running the ball and they've won with Ben Roethlisberger throwing for 506 yards, as he did against Baltimore.

And, of course, the Patriots are coming off a loss at Miami Monday night in a game in which they were favored by 11 1/2 points. Wait, I thought Tomlin was the only one whose teams lost games to double-digit underdogs on the road.

This week is going to be fun.

Ben Roethlisberger celebrates a touchdown Sunday night. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

LOLLEY'S 10 THOUGHTS

• Remember when Roethlisberger was, in his words, "washed up?"

That statement was obviously a dig by the quarterback at what he thought his critics would say after he was intercepted five times in a loss to Jacksonville -- Pittsburgh's last loss, some eight games ago.

In the eight games since, Roethlisberger has completed 198 of 307 passes (64.5 percent) for 2,475 yards, 18 touchdowns and six interceptions. That's a passer rating of 100.8. Roethlisberger has bettered that passer rating just twice in his career, in 2007 and again in 2014.

He's playing at a really high level. And that's what gives the Steelers a good chance against the Patriots, even without Shazier and possibly Haden.

The Steelers are healthy on offense. They have the league's best receiver in Antonio Brown. They have the league's best running back in Le'Veon Bell. And they have a red-hot quarterback playing behind a solid offensive line.

• All of that said, the defense is going to have to be better than it was against the Ravens. The biggest issue was, as it has been in losses to Chicago and Jacksonville this season, the run fits.

Baltimore ran the ball effectively because the Steelers' linebackers weren't where they were supposed to be in the run fits against the outside zone runs. Arthur Moats hadn't played inside linebacker since his final season in Buffalo in 2013. And Sean Spence looked like a guy who hadn't played since early October, which is what he was.

It does make it curious that the Steelers didn't use L.J. Fort there more than the eight snaps he got playing in the dime. Fort, at least, has been here all season and has played the position the past few years for the Steelers. But Spence got 34 snaps and Moats 19. They split time in the first half, but Spence got the majority of the snaps in the second half.

That tells me the coaching staff wanted to take a good, long look at him while getting him up to speed.

Tyler Matakevich could be back this week after sitting out against Baltimore with a shoulder injury. But the combination of both him and Vince Williams on the field together isn't anything close to having Matakevich on the field with Shazier.

Williams and Matakevich are both very smart players. But neither is going to remind anyone of Shazier in coverage. Spence, at least, has that potential -- if he can get back up to speed quickly.

I've said since training camp Fort is the team's second-best coverage linebacker behind Shazier.

But the Steelers need to shore up their run defense first. That will allow them to rush the passer better than they did against Baltimore, when they didn't record a sack until the game's final play.

• I thought the Steelers had solved their kick return issue until Martavis Bryant decided to put out his own "Football Follies" video Sunday night.

Bryant muffed kickoffs. Then he chased them like he was trying to catch a rabbit. Then he either fell on the ball inside the Pittsburgh 20 or, worse yet, ran backward into the end zone.

It was ugly.

Expect JuJu Smith-Schuster back there again this week against the Patriots, even though he's averaged just 13.8 yards per return this season. The Patriots like to kick the ball short and force returns. And after watching Bryant struggle, looking like Gregory Polanco trying to catch a ball hit right at him, the Patriots will kick it to him short all day next week if given the chance.

• Chris Boswell has ice in his veins like nobody I've seen. But the kicking dynamics at Heinz Field have changed, in my opinion, as well.

Once a graveyard for kickers, Heinz Field's wind currents have changed since the Steelers added extra seating to the south end zone before last season. That end used to be more open, allowing the wind to whip into the stadium and cause kickers fits. But it seems to be much easier to kick there now.

It's still not as easy as kicking in a dome or in a southern city, but it's not what it once was.

• The most impressive thing about the Steelers' victory over the Ravens was their 12-for-18 mark on third downs. The Ravens entered allowing just a 34-percent conversion rate.

The most impressive thing was that the Steelers had four third downs that were 10 or more yards and converted three. Eli Rogers caught a 16-yard pass on third-and-15, Brown had a 57-yard catch-and-run on third-and-10 and Jesse James had a critical 16-yard catch on third-and-13 on the winning drive.

You're not going to make a living on those long conversions. But when they do come, you wind up scoring 39 points.

• The one thing the Steelers' defense did reasonably well was get off the field on third downs. While the Steelers were completing 67 percent, the Ravens were 4 of 10.

And while the Ravens scored 38 points, 31 came in the second and third quarters. Baltimore scored one touchdown and gained just 34 yards on 17 plays in the fourth quarter. The one touchdown they did score was helped along by 35 yards of a 56-yard drive coming on two penalties.

The Ravens also had a 74-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter helped along by 46 yards in penalties.

All told, Baltimore had 168 yards of offense in the second half. That's still too many. But 168 yards shouldn't add up to 24 points, as it did in this game.

• That is not a gripe against the officiating in the game. It was bad for both sides at times.

Sean Davis drew a pair of silly 15-yard penalties and probably should have gotten another on a pass to Jeremy Maclin just before the two-minute warning when he launched himself at Maclin. And the Ravens dodged one when Eric Weddle got away with a helmet-to-helmet launch into James.

• The NFL must change the penalty for players jumping offside on field goals and PATs before somebody gets seriously hurt. That's especially true for kicks late in games.

As it stands now, you're seeing more teams jump ridiculously offside because they know the worst thing that will happen is a 5-yard penalty.

The Ravens did it with Anthony Levine Sr. late in the first half. Artie Burns did it -- though not so egregiously -- in the second half. In both cases, the kicks were made and the teams decided not to take the points off the board. But placekickers are awfully exposed when kicking. Richard Sherman injured Buffalo's Dan Carpenter doing just that last season.

• Tomlin won't get much mention, but he should be in the running for NFL Coach of the Year.

While other guys have done good jobs, Tomlin's team has survived a number of distractions, some of their own creation, some not, to continue winning. The award typically goes to a coach who gets the biggest turnaround from his team. But sometimes it's more difficult to win when you're expected to win.

• In his past four games, Bell has 35 receptions for 328 yards and two touchdowns. He now has 75 catches for 579 yards this season. That's more receptions than all but eight players in the NFL.

And people wonder why he wanted to be paid as a No. 1 running back and a No. 2 receiver.

WHAT'S BREWING

• Our Christmas gift subscriptions are here!

• Our staff will have a live Miller Lite Q&A session tomorrow in Market Square, from 5-7 p.m., inside Diamond Market. RSVP right here to our Facebook page to let Taylor Haase know you're going.

• Lance Lysowski is in Orlando for Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings, and his three pieces from Day 1 can be found on our Pirates team page.

• Matt Gajtka and Matt Sunday have the coverage from the Penguins' loss last night to the Avalanche at PPG Paints Arena. Chris Bradford will be flying solo to cover the trip to Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver.

• There will be a subscriber meetup in Vegas, Wednesday at 5 p.m. Chris will pick a place once he gets there.

OUR ON-AIR APPEARANCES

• DK will host a full three-hour radio show today, 3-6 p.m., on 105.9 the X in place of Mark Madden. Gajtka will visit the studio at 3:30, and Lysowski will call from Orlando at 5:30.

VIDEO

Christopher Carter and I did Java: