"Thing is, you can't do this," Patrick Queen was telling me, even as I stood behind him and his eyes stared straight ahead into his stall. "You can't let opportunities slip. You can't just keep counting on the next game to pick you back up. You just can't."
He’s right. This was bad.
It's not just that the Steelers' 34-17 thrashing by the Ravens on this Saturday evening at M&T Bank Stadium cost them an pre-Christmas clinching of the AFC North. Nor that it came against their archrival. Nor that it occurred in this setting, where no celebration could've been sweeter.
Really, it's more that it was just ... you know, bad.
Consider, please, the following 10-point analysis that I researched as long as it took me to type:
• Rushing offense: Bad • Passing offense: Bad • Rushing defense: Bad-* • Passing defense: Bad • Blocking: Bad • Tackling: Bad • Giveaway/takeaways: Bad • Schematics: Bad • Personnel usage: Bad • My God, even special teams: Bad
*-Excrementally bad
Not coincidentally, the aforementioned scene in the visitors' locker room was as bad as any I'd seen in several years. No lie. Stuck within the most cramped, creaky such space in all of professional sports, equipment bags all over, the players could barely budge, the silence all around us somehow seemed louder than if someone had put out a primal scream, and the result was a sickly 'Walking Dead' epilogue, missing only the stakes through the eyes.
And most of that emanated from the defensive side, this after Derrick Henry, their near-singular focus in practice all week, gutted and gashed them for 162 yards on the ground.
• Mood: Bad.
“We’re all grown men, top to bottom,” Queen would say of the defense he oversees as the green-dotted leader. “If you ain’t doing this for your brother and you ain’t trying to see your brother succeed, then you're doing a disservice to this team, to the organization and to the fans. Everybody has to be accountable, starting with me. It can't be 10 people doing the right thing out there. Can't be nine. Gotta be all 11. Guys gotta take a long look in the mirror and get better. If you’re supposed to be in a certain position, you gotta be in that f---in’ position. It’s that simple."
Don't think for a split-second, by the way, that he was fuming because he was on the other side a year ago. I can attest that he's been past all that stuff for a while now.
“It's not Baltimore. It's just sloppy football,” he'd add. “I love the game too much for the sh-- that happened today to just fly by and pass.”
GETTY
Russell Wilson scrambles for a lost fumble in the second quarter Saturday in Baltimore.
He had company.
“I think they were controlling the line of scrimmage," Alex Highsmith would say of the Ravens. "We didn’t do a good job controlling the line of scrimmage. It's embarrassing, to say the least, how they ran the ball against us."
The collective culprit, all concerned seemed to suggest, was a failure to correctly communicate. And although they could've cited missing four starters on defense -- Joey Porter Jr. was hurt in the first half, joining DeShon Elliott, Donte Jackson and Larry Ogunjobi -- not one of them did.
When those absences were broached with T.J. Watt, who insisted to me his wonky left ankle's fine after not registering a sack or tackle for loss, he shrugged and replied, "We have to get better. We have to get guys who are playing up to speed as quickly as possible. We have four days until our next game, so there's no time to sit around and pout.”
Nope. Here come Patrick Mahomes and the 14-and-freaking-1 Chiefs on Christmas Day.
• Outlook: Bad.
Or is it?
See, I'm recognizing, repeatedly and right out in the open, that this game was bad. And I'll add that it makes the previous loss in Philadelphia, one from which I took a few real positives, look more like the beginning of a bad trend rather than some hey-let's-just-learn-from-this experience.
No doubt, that's a worry, both in the broadest context and if carving up some common specifics, such as, say, the offensive line being overwhelmed. Because if even that one shortcoming keeps being exactly that ... man, this whole thing's kaput even if they eventually wind up printing those T-shirts that were delayed here.
I said it before this kickoff, and I'll state it again: If these Steelers, the way they're constructed systematically, can't run the ball, they're going nowhere. And if these Steelers, the way their roster's skewed so dramatically toward defense -- the biggest plus within the quirk of not having to pay a quarterback -- can't stop the run, then they're going nowhere.
Put those two together, and it comes out to Jaylen Warren at 48 yards, Najee Harris at 42, and their counterpart getting away with all this:
That's as excremental as it was emblematic of the day. And, once more, it just might be the realest version of the Steelers' reality.
But who's to say definitively that it is?
Sure, a 10-5 record reflects cracks that weren't as visible at 10-3. And no, I'm not about to bellow from a Mount Washington pod about how they're about take both the Chiefs and the Bengals, the only route they still control -- that's control -- toward taking the North. That's two hills to climb now, not one. That's both Mahomes and Joe Burrow, and it'd be twice in the same season against Burrow.
And yet, I also feel it's worthwhile to recall that 10-3 was all of two weeks ago. And that a lot of what these Steelers have done wrong here and in Philadelphia are either, one, things they'd been doing pretty well beforehand and, two, things that are hardly beyond repair.
The line, I don't know. That's why I always stick with the line being my top worry.
But the tackling, the run-stopping, the secondary and especially outright oddities like the game-changing fumbles by Harris and now Wilson these past two weeks ... come on, let's not pretend we haven't already witnessed far better versions. And let's also not pretend, while the players are right not to use it as an excuse, that a defense doesn't suffer without four starters. Or that this particular offense isn't over-the-top hobbled without George Pickens, its only deep threat.
The Steelers clinched a playoff spot last week amid a whole bunch of B.S. bubbling up. They still command their own AFC North fate amid a whole bunch of fresh B.S. bubbling up here. Neither of which occurs without facing the caliber of opponents capable of such B.S.
So let's cut any B.S. right now about this season being buried.
• Overall feel: Yeah, Pat Freiermuth's open. Still. Address that, and let's talk.
THE ASYLUM
DK: Maybe this one leaves all the right bruises
"Thing is, you can't do this," Patrick Queen was telling me, even as I stood behind him and his eyes stared straight ahead into his stall. "You can't let opportunities slip. You can't just keep counting on the next game to pick you back up. You just can't."
He’s right. This was bad.
It's not just that the Steelers' 34-17 thrashing by the Ravens on this Saturday evening at M&T Bank Stadium cost them an pre-Christmas clinching of the AFC North. Nor that it came against their archrival. Nor that it occurred in this setting, where no celebration could've been sweeter.
Really, it's more that it was just ... you know, bad.
Consider, please, the following 10-point analysis that I researched as long as it took me to type:
• Rushing offense: Bad
• Passing offense: Bad
• Rushing defense: Bad-*
• Passing defense: Bad
• Blocking: Bad
• Tackling: Bad
• Giveaway/takeaways: Bad
• Schematics: Bad
• Personnel usage: Bad
• My God, even special teams: Bad
*-Excrementally bad
Not coincidentally, the aforementioned scene in the visitors' locker room was as bad as any I'd seen in several years. No lie. Stuck within the most cramped, creaky such space in all of professional sports, equipment bags all over, the players could barely budge, the silence all around us somehow seemed louder than if someone had put out a primal scream, and the result was a sickly 'Walking Dead' epilogue, missing only the stakes through the eyes.
And most of that emanated from the defensive side, this after Derrick Henry, their near-singular focus in practice all week, gutted and gashed them for 162 yards on the ground.
• Mood: Bad.
“We’re all grown men, top to bottom,” Queen would say of the defense he oversees as the green-dotted leader. “If you ain’t doing this for your brother and you ain’t trying to see your brother succeed, then you're doing a disservice to this team, to the organization and to the fans. Everybody has to be accountable, starting with me. It can't be 10 people doing the right thing out there. Can't be nine. Gotta be all 11. Guys gotta take a long look in the mirror and get better. If you’re supposed to be in a certain position, you gotta be in that f---in’ position. It’s that simple."
Don't think for a split-second, by the way, that he was fuming because he was on the other side a year ago. I can attest that he's been past all that stuff for a while now.
“It's not Baltimore. It's just sloppy football,” he'd add. “I love the game too much for the sh-- that happened today to just fly by and pass.”
GETTY
Russell Wilson scrambles for a lost fumble in the second quarter Saturday in Baltimore.
He had company.
“I think they were controlling the line of scrimmage," Alex Highsmith would say of the Ravens. "We didn’t do a good job controlling the line of scrimmage. It's embarrassing, to say the least, how they ran the ball against us."
The collective culprit, all concerned seemed to suggest, was a failure to correctly communicate. And although they could've cited missing four starters on defense -- Joey Porter Jr. was hurt in the first half, joining DeShon Elliott, Donte Jackson and Larry Ogunjobi -- not one of them did.
When those absences were broached with T.J. Watt, who insisted to me his wonky left ankle's fine after not registering a sack or tackle for loss, he shrugged and replied, "We have to get better. We have to get guys who are playing up to speed as quickly as possible. We have four days until our next game, so there's no time to sit around and pout.”
Nope. Here come Patrick Mahomes and the 14-and-freaking-1 Chiefs on Christmas Day.
• Outlook: Bad.
Or is it?
See, I'm recognizing, repeatedly and right out in the open, that this game was bad. And I'll add that it makes the previous loss in Philadelphia, one from which I took a few real positives, look more like the beginning of a bad trend rather than some hey-let's-just-learn-from-this experience.
No doubt, that's a worry, both in the broadest context and if carving up some common specifics, such as, say, the offensive line being overwhelmed. Because if even that one shortcoming keeps being exactly that ... man, this whole thing's kaput even if they eventually wind up printing those T-shirts that were delayed here.
I said it before this kickoff, and I'll state it again: If these Steelers, the way they're constructed systematically, can't run the ball, they're going nowhere. And if these Steelers, the way their roster's skewed so dramatically toward defense -- the biggest plus within the quirk of not having to pay a quarterback -- can't stop the run, then they're going nowhere.
Put those two together, and it comes out to Jaylen Warren at 48 yards, Najee Harris at 42, and their counterpart getting away with all this:
That's as excremental as it was emblematic of the day. And, once more, it just might be the realest version of the Steelers' reality.
But who's to say definitively that it is?
Sure, a 10-5 record reflects cracks that weren't as visible at 10-3. And no, I'm not about to bellow from a Mount Washington pod about how they're about take both the Chiefs and the Bengals, the only route they still control -- that's control -- toward taking the North. That's two hills to climb now, not one. That's both Mahomes and Joe Burrow, and it'd be twice in the same season against Burrow.
And yet, I also feel it's worthwhile to recall that 10-3 was all of two weeks ago. And that a lot of what these Steelers have done wrong here and in Philadelphia are either, one, things they'd been doing pretty well beforehand and, two, things that are hardly beyond repair.
The line, I don't know. That's why I always stick with the line being my top worry.
But the tackling, the run-stopping, the secondary and especially outright oddities like the game-changing fumbles by Harris and now Wilson these past two weeks ... come on, let's not pretend we haven't already witnessed far better versions. And let's also not pretend, while the players are right not to use it as an excuse, that a defense doesn't suffer without four starters. Or that this particular offense isn't over-the-top hobbled without George Pickens, its only deep threat.
The Steelers clinched a playoff spot last week amid a whole bunch of B.S. bubbling up. They still command their own AFC North fate amid a whole bunch of fresh B.S. bubbling up here. Neither of which occurs without facing the caliber of opponents capable of such B.S.
So let's cut any B.S. right now about this season being buried.
• Overall feel: Yeah, Pat Freiermuth's open. Still. Address that, and let's talk.
Want to participate in our comments?
Want an ad-free experience?
Become a member, and enjoy premium benefits!
We’d love to have you!