Curran:Mix of fear, hubris and disorganization led to Steelers' downfall

[SVN]

Mix of fear, hubris and disorganization led to Steelers' downfall

Fun read. Exactly how i felt after the interception.

 

[Ross12]

This is a great article. My favorite part:

Roethlisberger said he got to the line with the intention of clocking it. The Steelers would kick the field goal and take their chances in overtime against a reeling defense.

“I felt like that was the thing to do,” Roethlisberger said. “But it came from the sideline, ‘Don’t clock it! Run a play!’ At that point, everyone thinks I’m going to clock it and we didn’t have time to get everyone lined up.”

Terrific. Play of the year and you’re disorganized. And you’re trying to get the most well-prepared and anal team in NFL history for fall for the banana in the tailpipe.Like the Seahawks figuring the Patriots would never expect a pass and opting to throw into the teeth of coverage rather than taking a calculated risk with a fade.

And here’s where the hubris comes in. Asked about the end-zone slant to Eli Rogers that was ricochet-picked, Tomlin said, “We play and play to win. That’s what we do.”

The words are “we play to win.” What he meant was, “we played to win on our terms..” With Roethlisberger and offensive coordinator Todd Haley lobbying to clock it and send the game to overtime, Tomlin -- who built this game up for a month -- injected himself and led with his chin.

This isn’t the NHL. You don’t get downgraded for the win if it comes in extra time. The Steelers are most likely traveling to Foxboro in January because Jesse James wasn’t tight on the rules -- blame him or the coaches for that -- and because Tomlin didn’t want to win the game, he wanted to win the game a certain way.

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Back in 2009, Bill Belichick, iin a game at Indianapolis, went for it on fourth-and-2. That, obviously, was a diceroll that -- like Tomlin's on Sunday -- didn't work out. But here's the difference. The Patriots gambled because they didn't like their odds playing straight up. Take the chance to end the game, but don't give it back to Peyton Manning. It was understanding game situation and defensive shortcomings. Appreciating your weakness.

I like the look back to 2009 (failed action by BB), but I think even more important would be looking to the current game.

With a 4th and 2, early in the game, and within a chip shot of a FG, the Pattriots decided to go for the first down.

BB realized that this game was going to be about offense and scoring and decided to not trade Touchdowns for FGs. They had a plan and the confidence to stick with it. The confusion on the play calling near the end (while not expected) certainly should have had a plan.

I'm sure BB/McD and Brady would have had one.

 

[ALP]

to this day I still maintain...Faulk converted that 4th and 2, and aint no one gonna convince me otherwise, the proof is there

 

[fourhour]

to this day I still maintain...Faulk converted that 4th and 2, and aint no one gonna convince me otherwise, the proof is there

The officials didn't have any index cards available that day!

 

[Jackson 2]

In my opinion, Curran is unparalleled as an analyst and just an outstanding writer, as well.

 

[RobertWeathers]

to this day I still maintain...Faulk converted that 4th and 2, and aint no one gonna convince me otherwise, the proof is there

Is there actually confusion it isn't?

youtubes prove it.

 

[RobertWeathers]

I like the look back to 2009 (failed action by BB), but I think even more important would be looking to the current game.

With a 4th and 2, early in the game, and within a chip shot of a FG, the Pattriots decided to go for the first down.

BB realized that this game was going to be about offense and scoring and decided to not trade Touchdowns for FGs. They had a plan and the confidence to stick with it. The confusion on the play calling near the end (while not expected) certainly should have had a plan.

I'm sure BB/McD and Brady would have had one.

Exactly. Forget about the %s and probabilities etc that Ernie Adams throws out there.

It all came down to BB having zero confidence in his defense stopping Manning. Period.

 

[SVN]

to this day I still maintain...Faulk converted that 4th and 2, and aint no one gonna convince me otherwise, the proof is there

All these bobbling replays yesterday reminded me of the same thing. They spotted the ball where he had full control.not where he caught it. Same kinda thing yesterday I suspect.

 

[Jackson 2]

Exactly. Forget about the %s and probabilities etc that Ernie Adams throws out there.

It all came down to BB having zero confidence in his defense stopping Manning. Period.

Yup.

 

[TB_Helmet]

Thanks for posting that, really good.

It's another great reminder about how the Pats win because they limit mistakes and do the little things right. Everyone talks about how much talent the Steelers have, and wonders why the Patriots win without that talent (talent being the thing a casual fan can easily recognize, especially in a fantasy football context) -- and so the haters attribute it to cheating, because no way can you win with the Duron Harmon's of the world.

But in the NFL, where every player has an enormous amount of talent, and even really bad players are in the top 0.1% of the human race at being football players, you win by being able to make good decisions in a short amount of time under huge pressure. The Steelers never seem to be able to do that when they play us. And then they yell at each other or blame external factors on their loss, because they can't accept that their edge on talent is meaningless against us.

 

[The Scrizz]

I will stick by my analysis that the problem was not going for it on 3rd down (because they had plenty of time). The problem was not having everyone prepared for going for it. That is the real difference between the Pats and the Steelers. If you're prepared you don't need to make last second decisions and screw everything up.

Given all of the time they had during that review they could have easily come up with 2 plays to run in case they didn't score or get out of bounds on 2nd down. Instead they no doubt were planning their celebration dances for when the TD was made official.

So I don't think that Pitt lost because Tomlin was stubborn about wanting to win in regulation. They lost because apparently Tomlin forgot to tell anybody else that. Preparation.

 

[zoostation]

Pats played to win. Squeelers played not to lose.

 

[zoostation]

The Steelers lost the game on their second to last possession

 

[TomPatriot]

Exactly. Forget about the %s and probabilities etc that Ernie Adams throws out there.

It all came down to BB having zero confidence in his defense stopping Manning. Period.

EA had an algorithm for that.

 

[Oswlek]

All these bobbling replays yesterday reminded me of the same thing. They spotted the ball where he had full control.not where he caught it. Same kinda thing yesterday I suspect.

Interestingly, the ref had no view of the bobble. He just screwed up.

And even if we imagine that he did have a view, the ref still screwed up because, despite corraling the ball before the defender starting pushing back, Faulk was given exactly zero of his forward progress. If anything, he was given a bizarro backward progress.

Either way, it was a travashamockery.

 

[Deus Irae]

Back in 2009, Bill Belichick, iin a game at Indianapolis, went for it on fourth-and-2. That, obviously, was a diceroll that -- like Tomlin's on Sunday -- didn't work out. But here's the difference. The Patriots gambled because they didn't like their odds playing straight up. Take the chance to end the game, but don't give it back to Peyton Manning. It was understanding game situation and defensive shortcomings. Appreciating your weakness.

That was a bad decision. Citing to a stupid call by BB doesn't really make Curran's argument better, no matter how he tries to couch it as an example of significant difference, and despite the fact that the refs were wrong about Faulk getting stopped short.

Calling for the fake spike was fine. Roethlisberger should either have gotten everyone on board in a hurry or just spiked it and explained why to the coaches.

The bigger problem was the play to DHB. That play was the trigger to the rest.

 

[Nikolai]

That was a bad decision. Citing to a stupid call by BB doesn't really make Curran's argument better, no matter how he tries to couch it as an example of significant difference, and despite the fact that the refs were wrong about Faulk getting stopped short.

Calling for the fake spike was fine. Roethlisberger should either have gotten everyone on board in a hurry or just spiked it and explained why to the coaches.

The bigger problem was the play to DHB. That play was the trigger to the rest.

And they could have given themselves a better chance to overcome that by preparing for the possibility that the DHB play would fall short. As alluded to above, they had plenty of time during the TD review.

 

[IcyPatriot]

Brady said you need 22 seconds to run a play and kick a field goal though they have done it in 14 seconds in practice.

8 seconds less than what is needed is amazing - he said this this morning on the WEEI interview.

they had enough time to run a decent pass play and kick a field goal.

 

[Deus Irae]

And they could have given themselves a better chance to overcome that by preparing for the possibility that the DHB play would fall short. As alluded to above, they had plenty of time during the TD review.

And Belichick had seen his team have problems on the first 3 downs, yet went for it anyway.

If you want to critique the Steelers, fine. The last two drives offer plenty of fodder for discussion of both teams, in terms of good and bad. If you want to set up 4th and Manning as a comparison in a manner that excuses it for comparison, your argument becomes worthless, because you're then setting things up against a false premise.