10 Random Things I Learned During Steelers @ Chiefs

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via Steelers.com

It was an odd game, and this is going to be an odder-than-usual post-game article. Here goes:

10. Touchdowns are way nicer than field goals, but 18 points is still more than 16.

9. An opposing player has to essentially decapitate James Harrison before the refs call a hold on him. Luckily the tackle didn’t quite manage to completely remove his head.

8. Le’Veon Bell is amazing, but as we have seen in Landry Jones-led games and/or drives, there has to be some threat of a passing game for him to do his best work.

7. If things aren’t going so well, I need to remove the vintage Steelers button from its spot on the Terrible Towel and pin it to my Terrible Scarf. It’s the road game version of playing Renegade.

6. As Tunch Ilkin says, it’s always the second guy that gets the penalty. Apparently no one told Travis Kelce this.

5. Even James Harrison gets winded on occasion.

4. I’m all in favor of Ryan Shazier continuing to get an interception in every game—this makes four in a row.

3. Apparently an immense amount of crowd noise interferes with the referees’ ability to correctly ascertain where the ball should be spotted.

2. The Killer Bs have added a new member. Soon we’ll have a whole hive.

and finally—

1. Ben may not have had his greatest game, but he came through when it mattered.

 

 

9 comments

  • Now I know where all the stress from the Miami game went. It decided to join us during the KC game. Glad we won and no injuries I can think of….on either team.

    Also, apparently Kelce is upset at the holding call during the 2 point conversion. Boohoo to him. He cost KC the game way more than that holding call did (15 yard personal foul for pushing Cockrell; dropping a well thrown ball at the 5 yard line in the 2nd half). I was very happy to see the call FINALLY made after all the years he has been held like that without a call.

    What can we say about the possible 4th killer B? Dang, what a job he did.

    And our special teams keeping hill in check, which is an understatement btw. Did he get more than 20 yards on any of his returns?

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    • cold_old_steelers_fan

      The call on the hold on Harrison was the most amazing event in that entire game, at least for me. I have been seeing Harrison held like that for years without drawing a flag.

      We saw neither good Ben nor bad Ben last night. I think that was just good enough Ben. Hopefully there will be a little bit more good to his game next game and in the SB.

      The cutest moment of the game happened after the game when Santos and Boz greeted each other.

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  • One more thing. the last games of the Steelers came like this: the higher the level of Bell is, the lower is Ben. This is a fact. Todd Hayley has a lot of work on this.

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    • Interesting point. I suspect Todd Haley won’t be sleeping between now and Sunday…

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    • Actually, the killer call was Ben’s. Haley had dialed up a running play on the tipped pass/interception, but Ben and AB checked off at the line of scrimmage and the quick pass was an audible.

      Still, the red zone is NOT a wall. If you’ve been running the ball all the way down the field and the other team hasn’t been able to stop you, that’s not a great reason to go to the passing game on first down when you hit the red zone.

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  • I thought Ben played pretty well. The interception in the endzone was a terrible decision, but I’ve seen that work way too many time to be furious about it, and it’s going to happen when you have an elite QB-WR combo who are still not quite used to having a dominant running game.

    Outside of that, you’re looking at a couple of poorly thrown passes that were slightly off target. It was clearly a very conservative game plan that was based on avoiding interceptions more than racking up yardage. Ben threw deep only once all night, and that was when he saw AB covered by Justin Houston. Let that sink in for a minute. What we saw last night was a Herculean effort by Ben to not try to win the game. Todd Haley asked Ben to be Alex Smith, and he came about as close as it is possible for him to be.

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  • I actually didn’t worry until the very end. It just seemed to me that the Steelers were so clearly the better team. How did the Chiefs win so many games? Maybe it’s a match-up thing, you know, kind of like the way the Pats seem to overmatch us.

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    • Toronto Steeler Fan

      Without doing all of the research (:-)), my strong suspicion is that KC won a lot of its games by forcing a lot of turnovers and being opportunistic on defense and special teams. Their D and ST would set up their offense in great situations (or even score points) so that Alex Smith and the offense didn’t have to do much to score points and win the game – they just let Alex Smith be Alex Smith and that worked in these situations.

      One example of this that I remember well was the KC-Atlanta game, which KC won 28-27. This was the one where Atlanta scored a touchdown very late to go up by one point and then tried for the 2-point conversion to stretch the lead to three (and therefore be up 29-26). But Matt Ryan went to the pass and was picked off by Eric Berry, who returned it all the way for two points (thereby being the first person in NFL history to have a “pick two”, or at least I think so….). A side note in this game is that KC’s kicker scored 14 points (4 field goals and 2 PATs), Eric Berry scored 8 points (the above mentioned pick 2 and another pick 6), and KC’s offense scored……6 points (i.e., less than their SAFETY). But with all of one TD from their offense, they still ended up scoring 27 points, which is pretty good.

      That’s pretty much how KC rolls. Grab the INTs and either score or set up the offense so close to the goal line that even Alex Smith can take the KC offense there (or a FG is a gimme). What it looks to me happened yesterday is that our game plan was to stop Tyreek Hill (on ST and O), Kelce (on O) and turnovers. The latter part may explain why Ben looked out of sorts – he wasn’t taking any deep shots or borderline throws so as to keep the INTs down. Just a theory…

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  • Ring the Bell. Squash the Brady. Score the TD’s. If we can do these things in NE……..Pittsburgh’s goin to the Superbowl.

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