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What could have been...

MeanJim said:
Can't like this post enough!

Also, though, what if we didn't get a gift TD on a fairly obvious incomplete pass, and what if they called that PI on Edmunds in the end zone and they got 1st and goal on the one...
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We have had more than our share of bad calls/no calls go against us. Not sure about the incomplete pass but if it was the Goff one where Minkah scooped it up and scored, you have to go with what was called on the field. The replay seemed to show the ball lodged loose when his arm started forward - i.e.. the empty hand rule. So, I'm good there. PI on Edmunds at the end of the game? No way. Hardly any contact, if any, at all. It would have been more than a ticky tacky call if called on the field and if reviewed, they would not have changed it. Even the official on the announcing crew said he would not have called PI there. So, we had a couple go our way for once. We are still in the hole for the number of calls that went against us.
 
SteelerFan448 said:
You mean the Ravens and Seahawks. The 49ers beat us pretty good. Turnovers were the only reason that game was close.
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I'd add the 9ers to the list though---all three games could be W's; but we're in the race again now!!!
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topseed said:
I'd say that they never won anything significant together because the defense stank at the time. You can't contest the numbers these three put up at their apex. Not winning a championship when they clearly had a great opportunity probably led to those "pieces of ****" developing bad attitudes. Not saying it's right, but it's reality. Once upon a time, none of us had a problem with either of those guys.
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That cancer grew quickly, if you are making a fantasy team sure by all means bow down. But they never bought into the team concept. Hard to play a what if game when the main goal of star players aren't championships.

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slashsteel said:
That cancer grew quickly, if you are making a fantasy team sure by all means bow down. But they never bought into the team concept. Hard to play a what if game when the main goal of star players aren't championships.

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Bow down? What are you talking about?

You blaming Bell and Brown for losing to the Jags in the first round 45-42, after the 13-3 2017 season?

Bell only had 155 total yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns. Brown only had 7 catches for 132 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Piece of **** asshats should have done more, right? I guess their "locker room cancer" must have spread directly into the defense, which allowed nearly 400 yards to a Blake Bortles-led offense in Pittsburgh on an 18-degree day in January, failing to sack him even once.

Non-team conception mother *******. Yeah, that's what cost the Steelers the 2017 season. That's the ticket.
 
TDX27 said:
We have had more than our share of bad calls/no calls go against us. Not sure about the incomplete pass but if it was the Goff one where Minkah scooped it up and scored, you have to go with what was called on the field. The replay seemed to show the ball lodged loose when his arm started forward - i.e.. the empty hand rule. So, I'm good there. PI on Edmunds at the end of the game? No way. Hardly any contact, if any, at all. It would have been more than a ticky tacky call if called on the field and if reviewed, they would not have changed it. Even the official on the announcing crew said he would not have called PI there. So, we had a couple go our way for once. We are still in the hole for the number of calls that went against us.
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CoolieMan said:
there was nothing obvious about that pass being incomplete and it wasn't clearly PI on Edmunds in the end zone....
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If the same thing happened against us (a fumble call stands when it left a QBs hand going forward, and an uncalled bump in the end zone by a defender not looking for the ball), I would feel like we got ****** over by the refs. Especially in a game we lose by 5.

I agree, there were some **** calls that went against us as well, the phantom Villanueva hold on the best run of the game, essentially a 30 yard penalty that cost us points, and the many non-calls for holding while Gurley was gashing our D. (Another inexplicable aspect of the game... Gurley only got 12 carries! He was killing us!)
 
topseed said:
Great points.

Minkah is the playmaker they so desperately needed back there in the secondary, and he wouldn't even be a Steeler if not for Ben's injury.


BTW, I agree that the OP's timing is a bit off, but Jesus, no need to rip the guy a new *******. I'm sure that the vast majority of us have pondered (at some point) what the Steelers fortunes might have been had Ben, Bell, and Brown been able to continue to produce offense together the way they once did.
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I'll take a healthy Ben any day. If Ben is healthy we have 1 loss right now and are tied for the #1 seed in the AFC. Minkah has been great, but the defense would be still be very good, several of Minkah's big plays have come from big plays by other defensive players, Hargrave knocking the ball from Goff, Haden deflecting the pass to Minkah.
 
It's fun to ponder but not something to pine over, but barring cuts, injuries, and suspensions, 2017 could've seen something along the lines of Ben, Bell, DeAngelo Williams, Conner, AB, Juju, Bryant, Rogers, and Ladarius Green. All those guys on top of their games for a 16+ playoffs? I realize the D hadn't gotten there yet, but it makes you realize how rare and difficult it is for all those pieces to fall together and run as a total unit.
 
topseed said:
Bow down? What are you talking about?

You blaming Bell and Brown for losing to the Jags in the first round 45-42, after the 13-3 2017 season?

Bell only had 155 total yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns. Brown only had 7 catches for 132 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Piece of **** asshats should have done more, right? I guess their "locker room cancer" must have spread directly into the defense, which allowed nearly 400 yards to a Blake Bortles-led offense in Pittsburgh on an 18-degree day in January, failing to sack him even once.

Non-team conception mother *******. Yeah, that's what cost the Steelers the 2017 season. That's the ticket.
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I didn't pinpoint a date or a game. Nor am I saying the D didn't have its issues. It was a basic idea which holds true more often than not. Meme type players can have good stats but that won't mirror team unity. It is a simplistic concept. If one or two players are causing distractions so they can pad their stats you don't get over that hump. If you spread the ball around it can make life for a defense more difficult in comparison. I am not going to go back to every game outcome but there was enough of them that dumb and dumber influenced negatively. Actions that progressively became cancerous to our team in some form or fashion.

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Coryea said:
I'll take a healthy Ben any day. If Ben is healthy we have 1 loss right now and are tied for the #1 seed in the AFC. Minkah has been great, but the defense would be still be very good, several of Minkah's big plays have come from big plays by other defensive players, Hargrave knocking the ball from Goff, Haden deflecting the pass to Minkah.
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Minkah made this defense significantly better. No reason to knock his accomplishments because other guys helped create them. Do you think Kelly or a healthy Davis make those plays? Heck, if Davis was 100 percent all season playing the same position as Fitzpatrick, he probably has zero interceptions and the Steelers defense is probably still getting torched for big plays.
 
slashsteel said:
I didn't pinpoint a date or a game. Nor am I saying the D didn't have its issues. It was a basic idea which holds true more often than not. Meme type players can have good stats but that won't mirror team unity. It is a simplistic concept. If one or two players are causing distractions so they can pad their stats you don't get over that hump. If you spread the ball around it can make life for a defense more difficult in comparison. I am not going to go back to every game outcome but there was enough of them that dumb and dumber influenced negatively. Actions that progressively became cancerous to our team in some form or fashion.
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Steven Nelson tweeted this is the best team he's played for. Half of the defense tweeted out that the fans were amazing. You weren't seeing as much of this type of stuff last season. This seems like a tight group and a very good locker room. There's still a long season to go, but you have to love the direction they're moving for now and the future.
 
SteelerFan448 said:
Minkah made this defense significantly better. No reason to knock his accomplishments because other guys helped create them. Do you think Kelly or a healthy Davis make those plays? Heck, if Davis was 100 percent all season playing the same position as Fitzpatrick, he probably has zero interceptions and the Steelers defense is probably still getting torched for big plays.
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And you notice (not only the guys having fun in the locker room and looking energized and excited even after a grueling game like yesterday) that our bookends are pinning their ears back and going after the QB on a majority of the plays? They were in coverage a lot for OLBs prior to Fitzpatrick getting here. And when the Rams were running hurry up (which they did a lot), you saw a much more ready, communicative and disciplined defense on the field. We have not seen that in a while, I don't care who's responsible for calling the plays etc.

It's night and day and it's not coincidence.
 
SteelerFan448 said:
Minkah made this defense significantly better. No reason to knock his accomplishments because other guys helped create them. Do you think Kelly or a healthy Davis make those plays? Heck, if Davis was 100 percent all season playing the same position as Fitzpatrick, he probably has zero interceptions and the Steelers defense is probably still getting torched for big plays.
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No one is knocking his accomplishments, just stating a fact. He's way better than Davis or Kelly, but several of his big plays(not all) have come from other players making plays too.


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Coryea said:
No one is knocking his accomplishments, just stating a fact. He's way better than Davis or Kelly, but several of his big plays(not all) have come from other players making plays too.
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It was a backhanded compliment. Again, without Minkah there to make the plays they don't happen and it's quite possible the Steelers have one or two more losses.
 
You don't have Bush or Minkah in your what if scenario.....so yeah
 
SteelerFan448 said:
It was a backhanded compliment. Again, without Minkah there to make the plays they don't happen and it's quite possible the Steelers have one or two more losses.
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Possible, but it's possible we still win, especially if Ben is healthy, the good news hopefully is we may get to see that next season.
 
Coryea said:
I'll take a healthy Ben any day. If Ben is healthy we have 1 loss right now and are tied for the #1 seed in the AFC. Minkah has been great, but the defense would be still be very good, several of Minkah's big plays have come from big plays by other defensive players, Hargrave knocking the ball from Goff, Haden deflecting the pass to Minkah.
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I'll take a healthy, recharged Ben next year, with Minkah leading a rejuvenated defense. You have to see the difference Fitzpatrick makes back there in the secondary. He's picked up a few fortunate deflections, yes, but there's something to be said about his positioning and being in the right place at the right time.
 
topseed said:
I'll take a healthy, recharged Ben next year, with Minkah leading a rejuvenated defense. You have to see the difference Fitzpatrick makes back there in the secondary. He's picked up a few fortunate deflections, yes, but there's something to be said about his positioning and being in the right place at the right time.
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and actually catching the ball when it is deflected his way
 
slashsteel said:
I didn't pinpoint a date or a game. Nor am I saying the D didn't have its issues. It was a basic idea which holds true more often than not. Meme type players can have good stats but that won't mirror team unity. It is a simplistic concept. If one or two players are causing distractions so they can pad their stats you don't get over that hump. If you spread the ball around it can make life for a defense more difficult in comparison. I am not going to go back to every game outcome but there was enough of them that dumb and dumber influenced negatively. Actions that progressively became cancerous to our team in some form or fashion.

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Well, of course you wouldn't want to pinpoint that particular game, because it defeats your argument. If the Steelers had had a better defense at the time, they win that game, move on and eventually win the Super Bowl that year...who knows how this all would have turned out? These two guys would be probably be heroes bordering on legend status, not pariahs.

I'm just saying that I don't remember a whole lot of complaints from fans about Bell and Brown's cancerous nature before that loss to the Jags, and Bell's subsequent holdout. For good reason.
 
Watt is a big reason the defense is playing so well. He's taken his game to another lever this year too, leads the NFL in QB pressures I believe, 9.5 sacks. I think he might have almost the same number of QB pressures in 9 games than Harrison did the entire year when he was DPOY

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topseed said:
I'm just saying that I don't remember a whole lot of complaints from fans about Bell and Brown's cancerous nature before that loss to the Jags, and Bell's subsequent holdout. For good reason.
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I have thought many times that loss was a back breaker to the team and it does seem to mark when fortunes took a pretty ugly turn. It doesn't mean there weren't problems and warts - all teams have them. But winning covers those things up and a bad loss can stir them up. That bad loss was a season ender and allowed festering fuel to catch fire.

But this can work in the other direction as well. This year's defense seemed to have some good parts and some good feelings in the locker room but could not quite put it together. Fitz comes in and makes a couple of plays and suddenly everyone is playing with passion and ballin' out. Fitz is a baller for sure, but he was also like a match to a fuel soaked grill. I just hope they can keep that fire hot because if MR keeps improving, the offense may well also catch some fire of its own.
 
Coryea said:
I'll take a healthy Ben any day. If Ben is healthy we have 1 loss right now and are tied for the #1 seed in the AFC. Minkah has been great, but the defense would be still be very good, several of Minkah's big plays have come from big plays by other defensive players, Hargrave knocking the ball from Goff, Haden deflecting the pass to Minkah.
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Without Minkah Fitzpatrick, and I am going to include Steve Nelson in there as well to a lesser extent, this defense is last year's defense. I am not sure that Sean Davis or Edmonds would even be in position to make the plays you mentioned. They weren't last year. Ever. So I can't imagine what would lead you to believe that this defense would still be very good. I don't think you can over state the difference Fitzpatrick has made.
 
Sarge said:
Without Minkah Fitzpatrick, and I am going to include Steve Nelson in there as well to a lesser extent, this defense is last year's defense. I am not sure that Sean Davis or Edmonds would even be in position to make the plays you mentioned. They weren't last year. Ever. So I can't imagine what would lead you to believe that this defense would still be very good. I don't think you can over state the difference Fitzpatrick has made.
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Steve Nelson has made a big impact, teams hardly throw at him. Haden has been very good. Watt is on another level, and people are starting to contemplate signing Dupree to big money, Bush has added speed in the middle. All of those happen without Minkah, now Minkah as made a huge impact no arguement there at all, but that defense would still be better than last year.
So you're taking Minkah over a healthy Ben?
 
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