Well yinz, last weekend our greatest fear came true as the Steeler’s season came to an abrupt end in a heartbreaking 42-45 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Steelers seemed unprepared for the matchup as they were simply outplayed by the Jags. Maybe they got too ahead of themselves by thinking about their Patriot rivals rather than focusing on the matchup in front.

Much of the fault lies in the weakness of the Steeler’s defense, a rare problem for this season as they were consistently ranked a top defense in the league. Throughout the game they continually let the Jaguars take the momentum away and the offense was playing catchup all afternoon. Although Ben topped Blake Bortles in the air game with 469 passing yards, the defense let star rookie Leonard Fournette run for 109 yards and 3 touchdowns, leading to their demise.

However, the offense is still responsible for some of the damage. As with the first matchup against Jacksonville, the Steelers shot themselves in the foot with turnovers. An interception and a fumble both led to Jacksonville touchdowns. Also, our star running back Le’Veon Bell stayed rather silent with only 67 rushing yards and a last-minute touchdown.

With all the bad stuff out of the way, let’s look on the bright side. We didn’t get the Super Bowl ending that we were hoping for, but a lot of good things came out of the season. Our rookie draft picks turned into standout players, the young defense proved to be extremely capable, and the offense continues to be a growing threat to multiple pro-bowl players on the roster.

Looking into next season there is more good news as Ben Roethlisberger announced that he plans to continue playing in 2018. We can now breathe a sigh of relief as most feared that this was his last season due to expressed interest in retirement after last season. This also buys the Steeler’s coaching staff some extra time in developing Laundry Jones or finding a more suitable replacement for the aging, hall of fame worthy quarterback.

One offseason issue remains with Le’Veon Bell, as it looks like they are going to have more contract complications. Last offseason, Bell did not reunite with the team until week one because he was not happy with his contract and being franchised tagged. Now this time around the Steelers announced they plan on tagging him again, and Bell has already expressed much distaste for this idea.

I’ll end this rather somber post with a glimmer of good news: The Penguins finally seem to be heating up. They have won 5 of their last 6 games, giving them a record of 24-19-3 and placing them 4^th in the metropolitan. They still have a lot of work to do to climb back to Cup-winning caliber, but always seem to have a knack for turning it up in the second half of the season. Let’s hope that’s the case and we will see a three-peat!

LET’S GO PENS!!!