Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II sat down with a few members of the Pittsburgh media on Tuesday for a half hour interview to discuss the Steelers past season and look ahead to 2012. You can read the question and answers here on the Post-Gazette blog. When you read through everything there were not too many surprises if you ask me, but I will go over the main talking points below with my own comments and view points added to a few of the things that Rooney said. Even though we do not usually learn too much from these interviews every offseason, it is just good to hear some of the things Read more [...]

We continue on with our player by player look at the Pittsburgh Steelers 2012 Free Agents and do a complete breakdown of their 2011 season and look ahead to their pending 2012 free agency situation. I am focusing on the restricted free agents first and this is the second player in that series. In this free agent analysis we will have a look at cornerback Keenan Lewis. Player: Keenan Lewis Position: Cornerback Experience: 3 Years Free Agent Status: Restricted 2011 Salary Cap Hit: $685,000.00 2011 Season Breakdown: After playing just 43 lackluster snaps in 2010, Lewis literally Read more [...]

The last episode of of Agree To Disagree with Bob Labriola and Mike Pristua is now up on steelers.com as they argue about the playoff loss against the Denver Broncos and try to predict if Joe Flacco will lead the Baltimore Ravens to the Super Bowl. Speaking of the Ravens, several of their players took great joy in the Steelers loss this past Sunday as you would expect. Who the hell is Arthur Jones and why is he talking? Hines Ward gave a very candid interview to Tunch Ilkin and Craig Wolfley yesterday and tells about his plans for the offseason that includes having some bone spurs removed Read more [...]

The questions are rolling in about the Pittsburgh Steelers 2012 free agents so I threw together a quick rundown of the restricted, unrestricted and exclusive rights free agents as the Steelers head into the offseason. The 6 restricted free agents will all certainly be tendered with only Mike Wallace receiving a first round tender. The other 5 will receive the lowest one year tenders. These amounts have not yet been released and I will post those amounts later in the offseason when they are made known. Both exclusive right free agents have no choice but to accept their tender offers and they can't Read more [...]

Below are the Pittsburgh Steelers coverage stats for their week 17 win against the Cleveland Browns on the road in Cleveland. These stats are broken down by play and include down and distance, line of scrimmage, direction, yards gained, yards after catch, personnel the offense used, defensive package, number of pass rushers and whether or not the defense blitzed on the play. Browns quarterback Seneca Wallace was 16 of 41 for starters, with two incompletions being spikes. Those are not accounted for below. He also threw for just 177 yards on the day. William Gay was the most targeted in coverage Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cleveland Browns Sunday to close out the regular season at 12-4. As I do every week, here are my deeper post game observations after going through the game tape a few more times. The sack by Lawrence Timmons on the Browns opening saw Timmons come on a delayed blitz and he took on fullback Owen Marecic. Marecic did not hold his block long and Timmons spun away back inside for the sack. Jason Worilds should get a little credit on the play for taking right tackle Artis Hicks up the field to open up the lane. Great tackle on Josh Cribbs by Keenan Lewis on the Read more [...]

The Steelers defense created 35 take-aways in 2010 as opposed to just 14 so far this season. I went back and watched all off the takeaways from last year to refresh myself with how they were created. 8 of them were caused by getting to the quarterback in some shape or form. 6 were results of good hits on either a ball carrier or strip after a catch. 8 of them were results of bad throws by the opposing quarterback, 5 were nice plays where the Steelers defender jumped the route. 4 were balls that originally came off of a receivers hands and 4 more came on special teams. Below is a play-by-play Read more [...]

Below are the Pittsburgh Steelers coverage stats for their week 16 Saturday shutout win against the St. Louis Rams at Heinz Field. These stats are broken down by play and include down and distance, line of scrimmage, direction, yards gained, yards after catch, personnel the offense used, defensive package, number of pass rushers and whether or not the defense blitzed on the play. The pass defense in this game was as close to perfect as it gets and the longest completion of the 9 by Rams quarterback Kellen Clemens was for 17 yards and 12 of those 17 came after the catch on the pass to running Read more [...]

Ike Taylor was in studio yesterday with John Harris talking about the James Harrison hit and suspension and Taylor was as entertaining as ever and on point. Harrison spoke to Jerome Bettis following his suspension and said he won't change the way he plays in light of his one-game suspension. Bettis was on NFL Live yesterday. Do you remember what got Green Bay Packers defensive end Charles Martin suspended 25 years ago? That's Church certainly does and she has the video up of Martin body slamming Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon to the ground. Not really a tackle as most called it in Read more [...]

Below are the Steelers coverage stats for the week 14 Thursday win against the Cleveland Browns. These stats are broken down by play and include down and distance, line of scrimmage, direction, yards gained, yards after catch, personnel the offense used, defensive package, number of pass rushers and whether or not the defense blitzed on the play. Keep in mind that the Steelers played quite a bit of zone coverage in this game so the coverage stats are not really reflective of play. The Steelers defense held both Colt McCoy and Seneca Wallace to a 53% completion rate in the game and picked Read more [...]

Season 2, Episode 54 of The Terrible Podcast is up and David Todd and I get right into the Pittsburgh Steelers 14-3 win last night over the Cleveland Browns and start off with tipping our hat to quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and his ability to come back in the second half despite a nasty looking ankle injury. We recap the other injuries and wonder if center Maurkice Pouncey might be the one we should worry about the most being able to play a week from Monday against the San Francisco 49ers. During the injury talk we talk about the brief appearance of Charlie Batch in the game. Not very good. Next Read more [...]

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cleveland Browns 14-3 Thursday night at Heinz Field and here are some of my post game observations after going through the game again. Lawrence Timmons bit hard on the play action on the early long completion to Evan Moore and never recovered in coverage. On the second big completion to Josh Cribbs, Troy Polamalu guessed wrong and Cribbs was wide open on the seam route. It was James Harrison that prevented Colt McCoy from getting into the endzone for the touchdown that was overturned after McCoy was clearly down. Harrison fought off his block to get a foot. Read more [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger showed why he is the toughest quarterback in the league Thursday night as he returned from a high ankle sprain suffered in the second quarter to lead the team to a 14-3 win over the Cleveland Browns. The gimped up Roethlisberger was 16 of 21 passing on the night for 280 yards with 2 touchdown passes to Jerricho Cotchery and Antonio Brown. He also had one interception in the game. He left the game with just under 6 minutes left in the first half after being sacked by Scott Paxson. On the play Roethlisberger had his ankle twisted severely during Read more [...]

Below are the Steelers coverage stats for the week 13 Sunday win against the Cincinnati Bengals. These stats are broken down by play and include down and distance, line of scrimmage, direction, yards gained, yards after catch, personnel the offense used, defensive package, number of pass rushers and whether or not the defense blitzed on the play. The Steelers defense held both Andy Dalton and Bruce Gradkowski under a 50% completion rate on the day. 5 of the 14 completions were of the screen variety. The secondary also allowed only 2 explosive plays of 20 yards or more on the afternoon, with Read more [...]

The Steelers are coming off of a sluggish win last Sunday night against the Chiefs and can not expect to have the same type of performance this week against a good Cincinnati Bengals team if they expect to complete the season sweep. A solid win will go a long way in ensuring that the Bengals are knocked out of the race for the AFC North crown and will build good momentum for the team heading into a short week. A loss by the Steelers will pretty much mean that they will have to make the playoffs as a wild card team. As I do each and every week, here are 7 things to look for in the game on Sunday Read more [...]