Some notes: Steelers vs. Bears

On the Loss: I'm not going to lynch Jeff Reed for this one. He's been very reliable for us so often in the past that we can't just blame this loss on him, even though he missed two field goals he normally makes. For the most part, the Bears made the opportunistic plays they needed to make. We could have gone up 14-0 on them in the second quarter, but they hit Ben Roethlisbergher on the pass and caused him to throw an INT. He had Wallace wide open for the score, but he under-throws him. We allowed the Bears to hang around and they're not a bad team, so they pulled off the win. This could be a humbling loss. I'm always interested to see how Tomlin has the boys bounce back from these types of games. It may prove to be alright after all. Kudos to the Bears, and kudos to Cry-Baby-Cutler for playing very well against us.

Now here are some notes on things I noticed in the game...


Defense (overall): We allowed a total of 43 rushing yards in this one, but Jay Cutler exposed us as I feared. I expected him to bounce back in this one, and he took advantage fully of Troy Polamalu being gone. He threw for 236 yards, but 123 of them were to tight ends and running backs. If it weren't for half-a-dozen drops in the first half (plus a few more in the second), Cutler would have had more than 300 yards passing easily. Simply put, Cutler exposed us. He released the ball quickly and our linebackers weren't able to get to him quickly enough. Also, we allowed a drive that was 99 yards for a touchdown. This defense is still good, but I'm not buying that it's better than last year's.

Tyrone Carter: He had a terrifying hit on Greg Olsen on that one deep pass down the sideline, but for the most part Carter played very safe and allowed a lot of open field for receivers to find themselves open. He's no Polamalu, and that's obvious. Polamalu might have been able to break up that second touchdown pass to Johnny Knox in the endzone. But we can't play the speculation game.

William Gay: He too played too safe, giving receivers a lot of room to work with. He didn't play agressive enough. Some of that may be the scheme designed by Lebeau, but it seemed Gay was out of place on quite a few plays. He saved face a few times just because his receiver dropped the pass completely once or twice.

Some offensive notes...

Ground Game: For this game, Willie Parker and Rashard Mendenhall each had more rushing yards than our total ground game from week one. That doesn't impress me still considering the Bears defense was out quite a few players for this game.

Parker specifically ran well when he ripped it downhill, but his lateral movement has definitely been affected by this hamstring issue. He was simply slow when moving from side to side. On that one play he got caught from behind by two linebackers who blitzed from the left end. The old Willie we know would have been gone. He had a few long runs to beef up his stats, but I think that's always been the way he gets his yards.

Santonio Holmes: He played with a lot of desire through most of the game. Unfortunately he dropped two passes that slipped through his fingers and he slid on the turf on another pass where he was wide open. Also, he beat his man deep on that one pass that should have been a touchdown if it weren't for the defender yanking his shirt and then face-guarding him. That was bull. I still think he'll have his 1,200 yards by the end of the season.

Mendenhall: If it weren't for his 39-yard run, he might have finished with zero yards for the night. That run was all on the O-line. I'm not bashing Mendenhall. I think he's going to grow and turn into a very good RB, but I would have liked to see him finish off that run in the endzone.

Any thoughts?