Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin met the media for his post game press conference following the Steelers 35-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals at Heinz Field. Tomlin said it was great to get the win at our place and that is was a very necessary AFC North performance by the team. He went on to say that they fell short in some areas, but he is not going to complain about that one. Tomlin thought special teams really provided a shot in the arm, especially early on. Splash plays in all three phases is what you need to have said Tomlin. Tomlin says they will rest quickly because of the short week Read more [...]

Below is the Steelers offensive line breakdown from the win against the Kansas City Chiefs this past Sunday night and it shows numerous pressures allowed even though there was just one sack allowed by the line on the night. There were also several holding calls in this game. Not a banner night by the offensive line and especially one that Max Starks would like to forget. TOTAL POSPLAYER PLAYSGOOD BADGOOD % SP H TTrai Essex 110 100%00 0 CMaurkice Pouncey 20182 90%01 0 G/CDoug Legursky 63567 89%02 0 RGRamon Foster 63567 89%11 Read more [...]

Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey will be back at practice Thursday for the Steelers on a limited basis according to Scott Brown. Pouncey sat out Wednesday as he continues to recover from a stomach virus that knocked him out of the Sunday night game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Brown reports that Pouncey has lost 12 pounds since getting the bug and will need to try to put some of it back on over the course of the next few days. Thus far he has gained back 2 of those 12 pounds lost and told reporters today that he is currently under 290 pounds. Pouncey did say he will definitely play Sunday Read more [...]

The Steelers beat the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday night 13-9 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City and I have now had a chance to back through the game a second time and jot down my observations from the game not found in the game recap. Away we go! Before leaving the game with a concussion, Troy Polamalu had not got into the groove just yet as he failed to wrap up on a couple of early tackles. When he finally did on the tackle eligible pass, it resulted in his injury. He was all over the field early mostly down in the box. After not playing a defensive snap against the Bengals two weeks ago, Read more [...]

The hot topic today will be the reversal of the Jermaine Gresham touchdown in the Bengals Ravens game. Here is the video of the play. The Bengals of course ended up losing and the Steelers are now in second in the division behind the Ravens. Regardless of what happens tonight in the Patriots game against the Chiefs, the Steelers would be the 5th seed if the season ended Monday night and they would play the Raiders in one of the Wild Card games. The Bengals would also qualify as the 6th seed and give the AFC North 3 teams in the playoffs. Mark Kaboly takes a close look at the success of the Read more [...]

During the Steelers bye week I have had several request to start looking forward to the Steelers 2012 draft and while I think mock drafts are pretty ludicrous to throw out there right now with 6 weeks left in the 2011 season and the bowl games yet to be played, I will wet your appetite with what I see as the possible needs for the Steelers based on what we have seen through the first 10 weeks to go along with the impending potential 2012 salary cap challenges I wrote about earlier in the season. I take my mock drafts pretty serious, as you have seen over the years, and have quite a bit of scouting Read more [...]

The Steelers offensive line breakdown from the win against the Cincinnati Bengals this past Sunday is up and they performed better as a group than I thought initially coming out of the game. The sacks are always troubling, especially when they happen back-to-back. The line benefited greatly from the several bubble screens and the few end around runs. The running backs rushed for 76 yards on 25 carries against a very good Bengals run front. Not great from a stat perspective, but enough. They also were good enough to help produce two rushing touchdowns. My no means was this a dominant performance Read more [...]

Any AFC North win is a great and it is even better win you get them on the road. I recapped the Steelers 24-17 win over the Cincinnati Bengals last night and now have had time to go back over the game a few more times as I do every week and below are more of my in-depth observations from the game. The Steelers won the toss and decided to defer once again. The Steelers defense answered the bell this time and William Gay clearly had put the Ravens game behind him quickly by defending two passes on the first two Bengals drives. This of course would not be the only impact Gay would make in the game. Right Read more [...]

Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall showed some good balance and hard inside running on his second touchdown of the day that ended up being the game winner against the Cincinnati Bengals. The play in question that I broke down below was on 1st and goal from the Bengals 9 yard-line with just over 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. The play is one of the numerous counter pike runs that the Steelers run. Below is a 10 picture breakdown of the play. You can see the full video replay here. Read more [...]

The offensive line breakdown report from the Sunday night game against the Baltimore Ravens is now complete and I had to even do this twice because of the tremendous grades that I gave the first time through. This was by far the best the offensive line has played as a unit all season and the best against the Ravens in some time. All 5 starters scored in the 90% range and that is just unheard of. The sack allowed on 3rd down however in the redzone can't be ignored though as it was a huge play in the game and the Steelers had to settle for a field goal because of it. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger Read more [...]

As I do every week, here are more of my observations from the Steelers loss to the Baltimore Ravens last night after going back through the game now. I will have much, more content from this game later on today. I mentioned it before and certainly understand the reasoning why Mike Tomlin defers when he wins the toss, but I still do not like it. It is not like the defense needs a boost of confidence. I would rather see the offense get lathered up first to start the game. The game looked like it was going to get off to a similar start as week 1, only worse, as Ray Rice went 76 yards for a touchdown. Read more [...]

The offensive line breakdown from the week 8 game against the New England Patriots is now complete and what a great performance it was overall by the unit. This was the first time this year that the Steelers started the same group from a the previous week as they had been forced to start a different combination every week for the first 7 games of the season due to injuries. Overall, the Steelers had all 5 starting linemen in the 80% or higher range this week and 3 of the 5 starters over 88%. That is always a good sign. They were certainly helped in pass protection by the huge amount of short Read more [...]

Week 8 is here and it is indeed Patriots week as the Steelers come back home to Heinz Field to host the New England Patriots. The Steelers will once again be without James Harrison, Doug Legursky and Chris Hoke this week, while Hines Ward and James Farrior are looking less likely to play by the hour. While not a must win game for the Steelers, it certainly will not hurt things if they were to win this week and settle the score next week against the Ravens. It would give them the inside track at winning the AFC North based on the remainder of the schedule. As I do each and every week, here are my Read more [...]

My offensive line breakdown from the week 7 game against the Arizona Cardinals is complete and I was fooled a bit from my initial views. I stated earlier that I thought it was a roller coaster type performance, but after going through it thoroughly, I found a pretty consistent showing. I think the play of Chris Kemoeatu made it seem like the line was worse than what it actually was. While I thought the run blocking was adequate, there were not huge holes or big creases as the Cardinals did a great job of avoiding second level traffic and did a good job loading the box to outnumber interior blockers. Read more [...]

Steelers left guard Chris Kemoeatu said today that he has been fined $25,000 for two personal foul penalties against the Cardinals this past Sunday. One was an illegal hands to facemask $10,000 fine and the second was $15,000 for a late hit. Both of those incidents came on the Steelers second possession this past week and extremely hurt the drive. Mike Tomlin said on Tuesday that he planned to encourage Kemoeatu that those types of penalties must stop. Four Steelers lineman have now been fined this year dating back to the preseason as Maurkice Pouncey, Doug Legursky and Ramon Foster have Read more [...]