Comes down to Coaching

[steelhurt]

This is a talented team that suffers from mediocre coaching to put it best. From Tomlin to Haley and Butler that is what’s keeping this team from reaching its full potential.

Let’s start with the decision to keep Davis one on one with Gronkowski. If that is on Butler then that was a stupid decision. He should have been bracketed and never been allowed to run free. There were exactly no adjustments made to help Davis.

Next we have the offense that went into turtle mode in the 2nd half. Why? Why not keep your foot on their throats. They have no one that could have stopped Ben and his receivers. They should have come out and been aggressive and not play scared. That has to be on Haley.
Then the last series which had more mood swings than woman on her period. There should not have been any confusion after the overturned TD. Make sure Ben calls two plays and both fades with Bryant. You always can kick if you miss. Inexcusable!

Tomlin is running this mess and must be held accountable. He’s been given the talent but I’ll keep saying it, he continues to be out-coached. This season with the comebacks have been do to Ben’s heroics and nothing this piss poor coaching has done.

I just do not have confidence in this staff to make the proper adjustments entering the playoffs. I fear they will be overmatched once again.

For those who want to throw the blame on Ben then you have no clue. He took this team on his back after losing AB and came within an overturned TD of winning this game. The confusion on the int was started on the Steeler sideline and not with Ben.



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[mdk2]

This is a talented team that suffers from mediocre coaching to put it best. From Tomlin to Haley and Butler that is what’s keeping this team from reaching its full potential.

Let’s start with the decision to keep Davis one on one with Gronkowski. If that is on Butler then that was a stupid decision. He should have been bracketed and never been allowed to run free. There were exactly no adjustments made to help Davis.

Next we have the offense that went into turtle mode in the 2nd half. Why? Why not keep your foot on their throats. They have no one that could have stopped Ben and his receivers. They should have come out and been aggressive and not play scared. That has to be on Haley.
Then the last series which had more mood swings than woman on her period. There should not have been any confusion after the overturned TD. Make sure Ben calls two plays and both fades with Bryant. You always can kick if you miss. Inexcusable!

Tomlin is running this mess and must be held accountable. He’s been given the talent but I’ll keep saying it, he continues to be out-coached. This season with the comebacks have been do to Ben’s heroics and nothing this piss poor coaching has done.

I just do not have confidence in this staff to make the proper adjustments entering the playoffs. I fear they will be overmatched once again.

For those who want to throw the blame on Ben then you have no clue. He took this team on his back after losing AB and came within an overturned TD of winning this game. The confusion on the int was started on the Steeler sideline and not with Ben.



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I love Ben, I think he deserves MVP talk especially if we won. To say he deserves no blame, you sound clueless.
Did the coaches throw that ball into triple coverage? Sure, Tomlin/Haley called the fake spike.. all Ben had to do was look, see no one is open and throw it into the stands and we goto OT.
There is a lot of blame to go around, coaches, officials, and yes Ben deserves some.

 

[GILBERT]

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

 

[wig]

It's true.

While on paper it seems like a good call to run a play there - you have to have a play. Or you get what happened. A total clusterfuck. Ben had three opportunities to "fix it". He could have ignored Haley and clocked the ball anyway. He could have decided he didn't have a shot at a pass and thrown it away, or he could have tried to make a play.

It's Ben. He made a great throw. The receiver was held and pushed to the ground. I agree. It would have been nice if Ben had thrown it earlier or thrown it away, but his pass wasn't bad except for the fact that his receiver was being used as a stepladder.

Plenty of blame to go around. Now is the time Tomlin needs to coach and motivate those guys. How they come out against Houston and then Cleveland is going to be HUGE.

Keep in mind, the league WILL want Cleveland to win at least one game. That's not conspiracy, that's good business.

 

[bigben]

Bradshaw is right, Tomlin is a **** coach, but a strong cheerleader. If we win anything its DESPITE coaching. If you want to try to fake spike to pass atleast have a decent play? They had forever to come up with a higher percentage play than to the worst hands and shortest receiver.
This coaching lost that game.

 

[Skott]

Rogers isn't gonna out body anyone and his hands stink.....why him?

 

[LeXX75]

Its not like they didn't have plenty of time to plan plays when they were sitting around waiting for the refs/NY to decide it really wasnt a catch...I mean be proactive not reactive ..clusterfuck for sure

 

[steelhurt]

I love Ben, I think he deserves MVP talk especially if we won. To say he deserves no blame, you sound clueless.
Did the coaches throw that ball into triple coverage? Sure, Tomlin/Haley called the fake spike.. all Ben had to do was look, see no one is open and throw it into the stands and we goto OT.
There is a lot of blame to go around, coaches, officials, and yes Ben deserves some.

Who is the OC and HC of this football team? It ain’t Ben! Ben has said he wanted to clock it and first yelled “clock it, clock it”. That froze everyone but Eli Rogers who ran the slant into three defenders. The confusion came from ******* Tomlin.
Now you have Ben trying to make a split second decision so he rifled the ball to Rogers with the idiot draped on his back. That there should have been PI.

You want to blame anyone then point to frick and frack on the sideline and not Ben.

And Tomlin, why is Bryant not on the field for these last couple plays. No he went with DHB! Totally ******* clueless!







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[antdrewjosh]

So the call from the sideline was throw at all costs???

 

[Steeler Pride]

So the call from the sideline was throw at all costs???

What call from the sideline? That is the whole problem, nobody on the sideline had a plan in place for what to do after the TD was nullified. None, Nada, Zilch. You had Ben on the field wanting to clock the ball and kick the FG and you had Tomlin and Co. on the sideline telling him not to. Nobody had a plan for what to do and nobody relayed any information. That clusterfuck is squarely on Tomlin and Haley

 

[BAS]

Who is the OC and HC of this football team? It ain’t Ben! Ben has said he wanted to clock it and first yelled “clock it, clock it”. That froze everyone but Eli Rogers who ran the slant into three defenders. The confusion came from ******* Tomlin.
Now you have Ben trying to make a split second decision so he rifled the ball to Rogers with the idiot draped on his back. That there should have been PI.

You want to blame anyone then point to frick and frack on the sideline and not Ben.

And Tomlin, why is Bryant not on the field for these last couple plays. No he went with DHB! Totally ******* clueless!







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Ben is smart enough to recognize that there was no chance with that pass. There was only Rogers who ran a route INTO the heart of the defense.
Seems to me he has the leverage and power to make a wise decision there and he didn't.

 

[Steelr4evr]

He should have never had to throw that pass in the first place. He won the game on the play before it. In hindsight I guess he should have chunked it in the stands,we kick a field goal and go to OT.

 

[antdrewjosh]

What call from the sideline? That is the whole problem, nobody on the sideline had a plan in place for what to do after the TD was nullified. None, Nada, Zilch. You had Ben on the field wanting to clock the ball and kick the FG and you had Tomlin and Co. on the sideline telling him not to. Nobody had a plan for what to do and nobody relayed any information. That clusterfuck is squarely on Tomlin and Haley

I get what you are saying Pride i truly do..but if we didnt have a QB who routinely lets it be known he calls his own plays in the no huddle how is he uncapable once he was told to run a play all of a sudden being unable to do so in this instance. If we had a QB who didnt have this abilty and didnt make it a point to let you know i could and would side with your view wholeheartedly

 

[Drink IRON City]

Why did we have so much time during the review of the TD play???? I though they only had 90seconds to review......................******* nfl.



Salute the nation

 

[steelermania]

If Ben clocks it with 11 seconds left on the clock, and Brady/Gronk carves us up in OT, the same complainers would be screaming that we played "turtle ball" instead of going for the win with plenty of time left. There were 22 seconds on the clock when H-B was tackled. That is plenty of time to run a play. I think what happened was that the coaches expected Ben to know the time, and down, and call a play to try to get the score. I think they were stunned when they heard him call for a clock, and that's when the chaos ensued. When you have a veteran qb, you have to expect him to handle that situation, and Ben panicked. Brady would have gotten his team lined up, called a basic play, and if it failed, they would have had 4-5 seconds left.

What's ironic, is that Romo was spot on in his analysis during this sequence, despite the fact that he was consistently a disaster in these types of situations as a player.

 

[wig]

Booksmarts is one thing...

Execution. Well that's another.

 

[SteelerSask2]

I thought the game was well coached. They should have been more aggressive with the play calling on their second to last drive no doubt. The only other thing was that when they looked at the play closely you had to get the guys together and come up with your very best two plays. There just no way you throw short their has to be stack one side, one on one to the other. No pass short of the goal line. Two endzone shots and a field goal if needed. What happened couldnt happen.

 

[steelermania]

I get what you are saying Pride i truly do..but if we didnt have a QB who routinely lets it be known he calls his own plays in the no huddle how is he uncapable once he was told to run a play all of a sudden being unable to do so in this instance. If we had a QB who didnt have this abilty and didnt make it a point to let you know i could and would side with your view wholeheartedly

They called and ran a play after the call was overturned. I doubt the call was to throw to 88 at the 5 yard line. Ben got pressure and threw to an open man. That's a good decision in many circumstances, but not in this one. The only player I want to see catching a pass short of the endzone there is Bell. Even after that, there were 22 seconds left. You have to trust Ben to line them up, and call a quick pass play into the endzone. If he gets pressure, throw it away. I don't think anyone thought he would call for a spike with that much time left on the clock.

 

[steelermania]

I thought the game was well coached. They should have been more aggressive with the play calling on their second to last drive no doubt. The only other thing was that when they looked at the play closely you had to get the guys together and come up with your very best two plays. There just no way you throw short their has to be stack one side, one on one to the other. No pass short of the goal line. Two endzone shots and a field goal if needed. What happened couldnt happen.

The problem on the next to the last drive is that Ben threw to the wrong guy on third down. Rogers was wide open for the first down, and Ben threw it to a guy who well short of the sticks, with 2 men on him. I can't blame Haley for that.

They were looking like they were going to salt the game away before the holding call. Conner gashed them for 8 yards on a first down play. People always talk about Cowher. This is what he always did with a lead. Runs, and short passes to shorten the game. The 2 penalties there just killed us. People want Ben to have slung it all over the field, but that's not what they did to get the lead. Without Brown, you have to be more cautious. In fact, I feel that losing Brown forced them into a more conservative game plan, and that it was very effective.

 

[CharlesDavenport]

Rogers isn't gonna out body anyone and his hands stink.....why him?

He's the only guy who ran a route. Everyone else just stood around. I think it was completely improvised. Apparently the Steeler coaches just hung out with their thumbs up their ***** during the play review instead of coming up with some plays.

 

[antdrewjosh]

They called and ran a play after the call was overturned. I doubt the call was to throw to 88 at the 5 yard line. Ben got pressure and threw to an open man. That's a good decision in many circumstances, but not in this one. The only player I want to see catching a pass short of the endzone there is Bell. Even after that, there were 22 seconds left. You have to trust Ben to line them up, and call a quick pass play into the endzone. If he gets pressure, throw it away. I don't think anyone thought he would call for a spike with that much time left on the clock.

Exactly my point you mean to tell me a experienced QB in calling his own plays couldnt communicate a better play with 22 seconds to do so. And knowing we only need a FG once he couldnt and saw the only route was Rogers to not take a chance and just throw it away.

 

[antdrewjosh]

He's the only guy who ran a route. Everyone else just stood around. I think it was completely improvised. Apparently the Steeler coaches just hung out with their thumbs up their ***** during the play review instead of coming up with some plays.

So throw it away and you get what you said you wanted to do after the game anyway which was kick the FG. Cause if he wanted to spike it he was obviously good with kicking a FG

 

[steelermania]

He's the only guy who ran a route. Everyone else just stood around. I think it was completely improvised. Apparently the Steeler coaches just hung out with their thumbs up their ***** during the play review instead of coming up with some plays.

My guess is that he had a play to run, but he panicked when DHB got tackled in bounds, and either didn't think he had enough time left, or forgot that it was third down.

 

[steelermania]

Exactly my point you mean to tell me a experienced QB in calling his own plays couldnt communicate a better play with 22 seconds to do so. And knowing we only need a FG once he couldnt and saw the only route was Rogers to not take a chance and just throw it away.

Agree 100%. Everyone is assuming that Ben wasn't given a second play. We don't know that. The coaches aren't going to throw him under the bus and tell us that he screwed up.

 

[antdrewjosh]

The MMQB
MMQB
Breaking Down the Final Plays of the Crazy Patriots-Steelers Ending

JIM DAVIS/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES
QUICKLY
JuJu Smith-Schuster’s 69-yard reception. A touchdown overturned (was it a catch?). It was arguably the most chaotic final seconds of any game this NFL season, and we break it down, play by play.
By CONOR ORR December 17, 2017
PITTSBURGH — Chaos.

The four plays that concluded the greatest game of the 2017 regular season distilled the NFL down to its modern day essence—frantic, beautiful throws from an aging Hall of Fame quarterback, mass confusion caused by a nitpicking team of officials, and, in the end, chaos. A disorganized, wild face plant just shy of perfection. There were fake spikes, diving catches and—of course—a deep dive into the NFL’s Encyclopedia Britannica rulebook to decide what a catch might be.

Join us, as we look at the most fascinating 52 seconds of the NFL season—a length of time that may very well have decided which of the AFC’s best teams gets a first-round bye and clinches home-field advantage throughout the playoffs:


(0:52 left on the clock): First-and-10 from the Pittsburgh 20-yard line: While the team’s most important offensive playmaker lay in the hospital, JuJu Smith-Schuster makes a push for Steeler history on a crossing route just a few yards past the line of scrimmage.

The Steelers were trailing by three. Schuster nabbed a short pass with five yards of space on Patriots defensive back Eric Rowe. It was a similar “pick” type play that foiled Tom Brady and New England earlier in the game, though this time a fresh-legged rookie was in possession—without a defender in sight.

The smart play was to gun it for the sidelines and set up another last-second Steelers field goal, another Chris Boswell miracle. But as Smith-Schuster was approaching the chalk, two Patriots defenders forcing him there—Jordan Richards and Devin McCourty—collide with one another. Smith-Schuster breaks back toward midfield, kicking off a shoelace grab by Rowe. He’s finally stopped while bulling into a trio of Patriots defensive backs at the 10-yard line.


(0:33): First-and-goal from the New England 10-yard line: The Steelers are in a shotgun formation, toying with the Patriots defenders by splitting Le’Veon Bell out wide as a receiver and bringing Darrius Heyward-Bey in as a running back next to Roethlisberger. Tight end Jesse James flashes open just two yards shy of the end zone and Roethlisberger fires a pass to James’s left, allowing the tight end to grab the ball mid-jump and lunge into the end zone untouched by defenders. Roethlisberger, Mike Pouncey, Ramon Foster and Alejandro Villanueva pack themselves into a tight circle and embrace. Heinz Field, once marred in anxious silence, breaks out into a full-blown cacophony.

Pittsburgh TE Jesse James looks for a call from the ref after his reception.
Pittsburgh TE Jesse James looks for a call from the ref after his reception.JIM DAVIS/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES
(0:28): The Previous Play Is Under Review: An audible groan lifts from the stands. On television, broadcaster Jim Nantz says “there’s no doubt it’s going to hold up.” Roethlisberger kneels on the sideline in what looks like a modified runner’s stretch, wobbling back and forth. James, back on the field for a theoretical extra point, fingers the top of his facemask. The longer this theoretically simple review takes, the more ominous it becomes.

“After reviewing the play, the receiver, in the end zone, did not survive the ground. It’s an incomplete pass. It’ll be Pittsburgh’s ball, second down and 10, at the 10-yard line, the game clock is correct and will start on the next snap.”

Roethlisberger, seeming to almost expect the league’s equivalent to a banana in the tailpipe, jogs back onto the field emotionless. James bends over and puts his helmet in his hands.

“I’m not going to cry over spilled milk and and all of that crap and talk about replay. I ain’t going to do it,” Tomlin would later say when asked about the moment.

(0:28): Second-and-goal from the New England 10-yard line: Back in a traditional 11 personnel shotgun set with Le’Veon Bell next to Roethlisberger, the quarterback snaps the ball, drops two steps and has to sidestep the charge by defensive lineman Eric Lee. Heyward-Bey runs a crossing route with enough open space and momentum toward the sidelines to force a Roethlisberger pass. He gets tackled after three yards, just short of the sideline. The Steelers have no timeouts.

(0:21): Third-and-goal from the New England seven-yard line: Roethlisberger immediately starts signaling for a spike. Quickly but calmly, Pittsburgh assembles in formation. Then, Roethlisberger looks to his outside receivers and starts tapping his helmet, clearly signaling a pass play. He snaps the ball and opts for the fake spike anyway, though only one Steelers wideout—Eli Rodgers—runs an actual route. Smith-Schuster and Heyward-Bey stand near the line of scrimmage while Rodgers runs a slant into the end zone. He calls for the ball just as he breaks the plane and Roethlisberger fires into a horde of Patriots. The ball is tipped by Rowe and bearhugged midair by Duron Harmon.

(0:05): Game over: The Patriots prepare victory formation ahead by three and clinch the division with the inside track for home field advantage. Roethlisberger plops onto the grass like a tired child, legs outstretched as he unbuckles his wristband, gloves and helmet. Patriots defensive backs make airplane motions with their hands as they coast around the field while James, hands on hips, walks slowly toward the sideline.

“It wasn’t a fake spike,” Roethlisberger would tell reporters afterward. “I was yelling ‘clock it’ because I felt that was the thing to do, to clock it and get yourself one play. And it came from the sideline: ‘Don’t clock it, don’t clock it.’”