Steelers: Live by the blitz, die by the blitz

By Darrell Laurant  |   Friday, December 01, 2006  |  Comments( 5 )

Pittsburgh Steelers
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You heard it here first - the Pittsburgh Steelers are not going to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

OK, so you didn't hear it here first. But did anybody check to make sure the Baltimore Ravens didn't have more than 11 men on the field last Sunday?

It must have seemed that way to Ben Roethlisberger, who was sacked nine times by waves of Ravens in a 27-0 loss.

Roethlisberger termed one of those hits, from Baltimore LB Bart Scott, "the hardest I've been hit in my life."

Harder than that automobile that sacked his motorcycle last August? Harder than the helmet-to-helmet collision with Atlanta's Chauncey Davis that gave him a concussion a few weeks ago?

Evidently so.

"He just knocked the wind out of me," Roethlisberger said. "I couldn't really breathe very well."

Charitably, Big Ben failed to mention the obvious fact that someone was supposed to block Bart Scott before that happened. If the Secret Service protected the president as poorly as Roethlisberger's teammates are shielding him, we'd have a new White House occupant every other week.

Sacked 37 times this year, Roethlisberger probably hears "Sorry" a lot. As in: "Oops, sorry, Ben. Geez, I bet that hurt, didn't it?"

In the case of the tackle by Scott, who honed in on him with no interference from anyone, it was running back Willie Parker who was supposed to pick up the blitz. Instead, Roethlisberger was picking himself up off the turf.

The Steelers even tried keeping TE Heath Miller back to block, but Adalius Thomas pounded Roethlisberger anyway.

"Pittsburgh has a very good offensive line," said Ravens D-lineman Trevor Pryce afterward. "They have this thing, 'Our five can handle whatever you throw at us.' Ninety percent of the time, it's true. Ten percent of the time, it's not."

So why didn't the "send everybody" method work last year against the Steelers? And how did an O-line made up of tackles Marvel Smith and Max Starks, guards Alan Faneca and Kendall Simmons and center Jeff Hartings go from being the powerful engine of a Super Bowl champion to a porous imitation?

One ESPN.com writer sneered recently: "Their (Pittsburgh's) offensive linemen practice blocking for a screen pass on almost every play by regularly allowing opposing defenders to run right past them."

Ouch.

One problem is that an NFL line can't have a weak link, and Jeff Hartings is hurting. The 34-year-old Pro Bowl veteran has bad knees; he's been in and out of practice, in and out of the lineup.

Also, the Steelers have been falling behind in nearly every game, forcing them to throw. And except for Hines Ward (who's been hurt more often than not in '06), the Pittsburgh receivers have not been impersonating Lynn Swann and John Stallworth.

Good passing attacks can make teams pay for blitzing them. Pittsburgh hasn't been doing that, because with the current crop of receivers, it really doesn't matter if they get one-on-one coverage.

Like life, the NFL is unforgiving. The balance among league teams is so fragile that a few key injuries can turn a Super Bowl champ into next year's chumps in a heartbeat. The same thing happened to Tampa Bay a few years ago.

"It does me no good or anybody in here any good to rehash it or go over it," Faneca said after the Raven debacle. "It's all about moving forward."

Against Baltimore, that didn't happen very often.

Find out more about the Pittsburgh Steelers at RealFootball365.com
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CommentsComments: 5  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
Ron Tepper		01:54 PM
12/01/2006
mostly die from what I can see. Don't be suprised to see Joey Porter cut as a salary cap victim.He's not worth the money he makes
No.2
Brian		10:15 PM
12/01/2006
I think that the Steelers' problems this year are because of post Super Bowl complacency. They have never been able to muster the...
No.3
Matt		07:41 PM
12/20/2006
Steelers went 15-1 in 2004, and win a Superbowl in 2005,the team has heart unlike 95% of the teams in the NFL and of course Ben...
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