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The Steelers are 7-4 heading into their bye week and currently occupy the sixth seed in the AFC playoffs if the season were to end right now. It is this point in the season that I personally find so exciting because I simply love the math and computations and all of it behind seeing who makes it into the elite 6 and makes the playoffs. There are just so many scenarios so for a math guy who is also a football guy this is bliss. One of my favorite sports websites is the NFL Yahoo Playoff Generator, whose time is nearly upon me to use it but not quite because you can only predict Week 13-17 and it is still Week 12, so while I can pick who I think the Steelers will win and lose to, I cannot accurately pick seedings and who will make it and who won’t because there is no surefire way to pick winners in Week 12. Check out the Playoff Generator for yourself! (You lucky Eagles fans, it actually has you guys in the 2 seed when you first go onto it).

I would say that I like where the team is right now even though it has the hardest remaining schedule in the AFC North, which is already tightly packed. The Steelers need to beat the Bengals both times they play them to basically secure a playoff spot with a AFC North Crown, and it would most likely be the third or fourth seed courtesy of thr New England Patriots and Denver Broncos. I would guess third seed because I do not think that the Indianapolis Colts, the future winners of the AFC South, will have a better record than us if we win the AFC North, and we own the tiebreaker against the Colts by virtue of the Steelers’ 51-34 win over them in Week 8.

The team recently released backup running back LeGarrette Blount in a very contradictory move that has left the depth chart for running backs behind Le’Veon Bell very small.Dri Archer, the speedy rookie drafted in the third round of the draft, is the only true running back who I would want to see out on the field if Bell were to have to sit out or (God forbid) got hurt.

Dri Archer, the Steelers’ backup

Le’Veon Bell, the Steelers’ hopes and dreams with regard to the ground game.

Archer was injured earlier on in the season and is still a rookie with minimal experience so even he is not a very good option for tailback if Bell cannot perform. If Archer were to become our main source of running, then that would put a lot of offensive pressure back on Ben Roethlisberger who has, unfortunately, reached human level again and is no longer a TD-producing god. I think we have a solid chance of going to the playoffs and maybe even making it to the later rounds of the playoffs if we play like a complete team. Go ‘Lers.

PIT: 13
NYJ: 20
FINAL

Riding a three-game winning streak against the very good teams of the Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, and Houston Texans (well, at least J.J. Watt on the Texans is good), the Steelers went into East Rutherford to play a clearly inferior team in the New York Jets. Should be an easy win for a 6-3 team with momentum right? WRONG. The Jets beat the Steelers at home Sunday by the score of 20-13, and the Steelers looked straight embarrassing. The only touchdown scored by the offense I heralded as one of the best in the league last week was basically scored in garbage time by standout rookie Martavis Bryant (another story) with less than 2 minutes left in the game. Big Ben Roethlisberger, who had 12 TDs in the last 2 games, followed up with 1 TD and 2 INTs and a relatively poor overall performance. Needless to say, all good things come to an end, and they certainly did. The loss knocked the Steelers out of first in the AFC North and dropped them to third. You can see the standings for the NFL here, where you will mysteriously see Cleveland (yes, Cleveland) at 6-3 and in first place in the AFC North. What world is this? The Browns in first? Insanity.

The problem with the Steelers is seems is that they went on the road and lost to an inferior team once again. This has been a theme all throughout Mike Tomlin’s tenure as Pittsburgh’s head coach. We went into New York, lost to the one-win Jets, and soon have to head to Nashville to face the 2-win Titans. I am most certainly nervous about this upcoming game because it would fit the Steelers very well, losing to an inferior team two weeks after dismantling 3 very good ones. The Steelers are, if you look at the standings table posted above, actually 4-1 at Heinz Field, with the fans supporting them (their only loss came to the lowly Bucs, of course), and 2-3 on the road with the fans rooting against them. I feel that a .400 on the road is simply not an acceptable winning percentage for a team that can truly dismantle many good teams for three weeks in a row. What’s really sad is that I would say that we should actually be 8-2 right now and in first place in the AFC because we had potential to beat both the garbage Bucs and the garbage Jets. Head coach Ken Whisenhunt of the garbage Tennessee Titans, used to be our offensive coordinator in Ben’s formative years and will most likely know how our offense runs in principle as well as know what Ben likes, what he doesn’t, and how to stop him. I really try to be optimistic sometimes but right now I just cannot be because of how I feel we will lose this game and the next because I think at heart this season, the ‘Lers are a .500, 6-6 team.

Optimistic: Steelers 24, Titans 14

Pessimistic: Steelers 10, Titans 17

Don’t blame my pessimism if they lose 🙂

Talk to anyone who knows any history about the Pittsburgh Steelers and you will hear them mention all the clichés: the Steel Curtain, Mean Joe Green, Blitzburgh, the Immaculate Reception, the Immaculate Interception…the list goes on and on.

Sick, but a piece of history

All throughout history (well, since 1933, that is), the Steelers have been known for their extreme defensive prowess, tricky blitzes, and outright duping of opposing offensive coordinators. Whether the mind behind the team be Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, or Dick LeBeau, the Steelers always stymied opposition and beat them into submission in a low-scoring struggle. Notice how I said any history when I was referring to the Steelers’ defensive legend. Hard-hitting, violent games controlled by superior defense are a thing of the past for the Steelers, as I have hit on several times throughout the course of this blog. I would not call the Steelers a defensive powerhouse: in the modern NFL, no one really is, save maybe the Seattle Seahawks. The Steelers are now what I would like to call (and many of my Philly friends disagree) an offensive juggernaut. Watching NFL Network today before Thursday Night Football, I noticed the bar on the bottom of the screen highlighting the leaders in offensive yard production. (Of course, there was no defensive stats, because defense isn’t exciting, so doesn’t attract fans, so doesn’t make money, so doesn’t register that much into fantasy football, so loses more money…sorry its just that there has been so much offense this year its making me insane. Can you tell?) Anyhoo, I noticed that the quarterback in second place for passing yards, behind Andrew Luck, was not Brady, or P. Manning, or Rodgers, but Ben Roethlisberger. Third place in rushing yards? None other than Le’Veon Bell. And number one in receiving? You guessed it: Antonio Brown. Now, all these should be taken with a grain of salt since most teams have had their bye week and we have not, but still that is a lot of offense for one team. I think that the Steelers were actually the only team that made it up there for all three positions (again, no bye).

Now let’s talk about what offense really does for us. Well you see, we have scored 94 points in the past two games. “That’s a lot” would be an understatement; thats 47 points per game if it were to improbably keep going. However…

…there’s this little problem

^I actually have not a clue how to make that white space go away. Offense never wins championships, even in this offense-happy league we call the NFL today. The Denver Broncos last season set records in all offensive categories, and got demolished by a good, but not record-setting Seattle Seahawks defense and team in the Super Bowl by a score of 43-8. So while I feel great currently about the Steelers scoring loads of points, and Big Ben putting up 12 TDs in two games, I feel pessimistic about the team’s chances of achieveing its overall goal, climbing the Stairway to Seven.

And she’s buying a stairway to…seven… (Led Zeppelin, anyone?)

I am finally optimistic about the season (a little bit)

That picture above is really blurry I just realized but that does not eliminate my optimism for the Steelers season at this point in time right now. I don’t exactly know why but I really just have a good feel for them with their offensive domination of a decent Colts defensive unit on Sunday. People always say that you need defense to win championships, and while I still think thats true, and we are probably not Super Bowl contenders, we have the ability to actually win games based on offensive power alone. If our elite quarterback can hit our two good and one elite receivers, while handing off the ball to an elite running back, then I feel our chances of winning games is really actually pretty good. The only problem with this optimism for offensive domination is that the next week is Baltimore Ravens week, a week typically dominated by a defensive, low-scoring struggle for AFC North supremacy. Just based on history alone, I don’t know if the ‘Lers will be able to score a lot of points versus the Ravens, even though they technically have a worse defense than the Colts, and the game is at home, just like last week.

This does not inspire offense from either team, but our defense is sooooo bad, that fact probably hurts us more.

Okay, so that first part of the post was about the Steelers coming off the Colts with a big win and looking forward to Baltimore come November 2.

The second part of this post is dedicated to Ben Roethlisberger, and how awesome he is, at least on last Sunday. He absolutely demolished the Colts and broke the NFL record for most 500-yard-passing games in a career with 2. I know that’s not teeeeechnically a record, but give him some credit: he’s the only one in history who has broke the half-thousand mark twice, and he was so close to beating the all time mark of Norm Van Brocklin, who beat him by a mere 32 yards. This here is the link to Pro Football Reference, which will tell you all about high-passing-yard quarterbacks. It’ll show you how Big Ben is the only one up above 500 twice, too. BOOM! Big Ben also was just shy of tying the wonderful record for TDs too, he had 6, tying Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees, but he fell short of Peyton Manning’s personal record of 7. (Nick Foles also has 7 I suppose, but let’s be real, he’s not elite (Eagles fans: rage in the comments)). This proves my earlier statement in the blog that Big Ben is ann elite quarterback. He is! Truly! People go out and say Manning, Brady, Brees, Rodgers, (insert random 5-9 here), and then Ben. NO! He is at least fifth-best in the NFL when he is getting adequate protection (here’s looking at you, Peyton) and has good receivers (kudos to Brady though, his receiving core usually sucks when Gronk is hurt). Ben is elite. Say what you want in the comments, but nothing will change my mind ever.

A simple Google search of “Andrew Luck” will yield, as its first result, an article in the “news” section of Google called “QB Index: Andrew Luck, Tony Romo the new No. 1s.” If you decide to delve into this article, you will see that the name of the article is actually a bit of a misnomer: the best quarterback in the writers opinion is not both Indianapolis Colts QB Andrew Luck and Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo. It is just Andrew Luck. Searching the Internet for QB Power Rankings like this will yield similar results for Luck; he is very good. Now guess who the Steelers play at home this Sunday… That’s right, the Indianapolis Colts. I like to call myself an optimist when it comes to sports, but I just have this weird feeling that this game might get ugly with Luck behind the controls of the Steelers’ opponent. (As an aside, I also had a weird feeling with regards to last year’s Ohio State game, if that 63-14 blowout means anything)

He’s one of the best NFL players. Oh, and he also graduated from Stanford with an architecture degree. How does that even work genetically? Too perfect. *espn.com*

To do their part on what I think will be a pretty bad blowout, the Steelers are having a horrendous year on pass defense with the back 4 on defense being old and slow, for lack of better words. I feel that the Colts offense versus the Steelers defense will really define the game, seeing as the Steelers offense and Colts D seem, in my mind at least (well, actually on the stats sheets too), to be evenly matched and will produce normal numbers as a result. Although, now that I think about it a little more, I have to realize that this is Week 8. 8 is an even number. All even weeks this season, the Steelers offense has been horrendous and unable to produce many points against any good teams (I refuse to accept our 24 point versus the Buccaneers as legit proof we’re any good on the even weeks because the Bucs are so bad). I normally see myself as a logical person who listens to facts and statistics to make decisions, but when it comes to the unpredictable Steelers, I have to go on things like gut feelings and strange trends like winning and losing every other week. It’s the NFL and we’re the Steelers, logic just isn’t actually existing here. Anyhoo, some actually things that I see happening are that T.Y. Hilton and Reggie Wayne completely dismantle the Steelers defense by regularly outmaneuvering Cortez Allen and Ike Taylor all day long. They will also be unaffected by Troy Polamalu’s attempts to play close coverage on them because Luck can simply hit the other receiver for big yardage. Despite my negativity, I do see Le’Veon Bell having a big game that is wasted by the Steelers D.

Sorry boys (or should I say men because they’re so old), this ones probably on you *Associated Press*

Seeing as I very unwisely used the Browns game in last week’s passion post,I will be discussing the website Bleacher Report’s views on the current Steelers campaign. Here is the link to the website, if you are interested in actually reading the articles I will be discussing and more: http://bleacherreport.com/pittsburgh-steelers.

First, I will be discussing an article in a category of articles that I have been reading for at least 5 years: NFL Power Rankings. This is not specifically on the Steelers page so here this is too: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2233511-nfl-power-rankings-week-7-updated-2014-analysis-before-thursday-night-football. Right now Bleacher Report has the Steelers ranked as 24 out of 32, meaning that if they were to play roughly 75% of the teams in the NFL right now, they would lose to them, in theory. What’s nice about power rankings is that they totally do not take the actual standings of the NFL or the records of teams. This system is more like the coaches poll used in NCAA Football, with some people deciding who is best. I am glad that this is NOT how the NFL really works, but it is fun to put some perspective on teams in a more subjective light and agree/disagree with the writers of the posts. This particular writer says little about the Steelers in this ranking, leaving it to Twitter, ESPN, and Ben Roethlisberger. He uses an ESPN reporter’s Twitter to quote Roethlisberger saying that the Steelers are not ready, but then puts in his own input: that the Steelers are not convincing and are in an extremely competitive division. I would have to agree more with the author than with Roethlisberger: the Steelers DID just lose to the Browns by a significant margin. Overall I would agree with the rank of 24. Say what you think in the comments (if you want, I mean, I guess).

The other article that REALLY caught my eye on Bleacher Report was the one discussing how former Steelers Hines Ward and Bill Cowher called the offense finesse and the defense soft.

Remember when the defense was this hard?

I unfortunately would have to agree with them yet again. The ground game, while making a solid improvement over the previous years’, is still not what it used to be (pound-and-ground) and the defense gives up so many yards and never really shows the opposing offense who’s boss. The (mostly) functioning part of the offense is the pass game, and it leaves the offense very finesse and Patriot-like, not hard-nosed and Steeler-like. Ward, the epitome of a Steelers receiver, says that he doesn’t even know who these guys are. Cowher, who led the Steelers to several winning seasons and finally a Super Bowl in 2005, said he never thought he’d say it but that the Steelers are finally a soft team. It really is quite amazing what the critics are getting at I think: Mike Tomlin is not doing a god job managing the team, and the team cannot handle its lack of defensive talent. Dark days await the Steelers defense is the overall theme of Cowher and Ward’s comments. 🙁