The regular season is here, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are taking their practices at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, formerly known and still referred to as the ‘South Side’ facility of Heinz Field. While the real work is now upon us, there is plenty left to be done.
And there are plenty of questions left unanswered as well. The offseason is just really the beginning phase of the answer-seeking process, which is lasts all the way through the Super Bowl for teams fortunate enough to reach that far.
You can rest assured that we have the questions, and we will be monitoring the developments in the regular season and beyond looking for the answers as we look to evaluate the makeup of the Steelers as they wade through a regular season in which they are, at least supposed to be, among the favorites to win the Super Bowl.
Question: Should the Steelers just forget about what happened yesterday and move on?
Sometimes in sports, there are certain days in which simply nothing goes right, and there is no explanation for it, nor is there any analysis that could turn what happened into a coherent plan for improvement. Some days are just off days.
Yesterday certainly felt like an off day, and the scoreboard certainly looked like it. The Steelers, coming into the game averaging 31 points scored on offense per game, managed just one field goal throughout the course of the day, while the defense, giving up 16 points per game, surrendered 34.
I’m not even sure just how much can be gleaned from reviewing this game other than to simply take away the fact that very nearly everybody underperformed and failed to fully carry out their assignments. The issues are more or less already known, and they include but are not limited to missed tackles, dropped passes, and a young offense at the skill positions that is not yet fully on the same page.
We have already seen both this offense and this defense play much better than they did yesterday, even through some of the same sort of problems, especially with the lack of a pass rush. More than anything, yesterday was about just a lack of execution—and, of course, a couple dozen dashes of the injury bug played its role as well.
I don’t think that anybody came out of this game without blemishes, short of, perhaps, punter Jordan Berry, though even he was the holder on a blocked field goal attempt. I have no doubt that there will be a strong desire within segments of the locker room to just turn the page and move forward to the next game.
Of course, the coaching staff will probably have something else in mind. I have read that there is a suggestion that the defense will review tape as a group, rather than as individual positions, to address unit-wide issues. Maybe some review is in order after all. But either way, this is a game from which the entire team has to move on.
