The Pittsburgh Steelers season came to an end last week in the AFC championship game. As a Steelers fan, it was the same old story when playing the New England Patriots. While I didn't think the Steelers would win the game, I thought it would be much more competitive. This game showed how far behind the Steelers are, when compared to the Patriots. Once again the defense played a soft zone that Tom Brady picked to pieces all game. On top of that there were at least six blown coverages. The Steelers looked more like the four to five team that had a four game losing streak at one point in the season. Not the team who won nine straight. What was even more evident during the game was the poor coaching. I think Mike Tomlin is a very good coach, but he has some real deficiencies in certain areas. I also think Bill Belichick is light years ahead of every coach in the NFL. But what I found most disturbing about the game was the soft zone defense and how no adjustments were made. Mike Tomlin has a defensive background, he's also a former defensive coordinator, which is why the defensive game plan left most of Steeler Nation confused. Tomlin never switched up the defense and never made a single in game adjustment. He just watched Tom Brady shred the zone coverage all night. Brady now has 22 touchdowns with zero interceptions against Mike Tomlin teams. The way to beat New England is to jam the receivers at the line of scrimmage and break up the timing. This was not tried once the entire game and I just can't understand why. I get that there are two rookies in the secondary which can make man coverage risky. But since the zone was continuously picked apart, I didn't understand why it was not tried at all.
On the offensive side of the ball things didn't go much better. It started with Le'Veon Bell getting inured, which allowed the patriots to completely focus on Antonio Brown. I thought Ben Roethlisberger played his best game of the playoffs. At one point he completed 13 straight passes and it would of been 14 if not for a dropped touchdown pass. Dropped passes happened throughout the night with a total of 119 yards worth of dropped passes. But the Steelers don't have much receiving depth outside of Antonio Brown, who didn't Facebook live post after this game.
I think the Steelers have a good chance at the super bowl next year, but not if they have to play the patriots again. what's even scarier about this loss is that Rob Gronkowski didn't play. I couldn't even tell he was missing because the Steelers made Chris Hogan look like Jerry Rice throughout the game.
My optimism for next season mainly comes from the offensive side of the ball. If Martavis Bryant can get his life together, he will make the offense significantly better. Also, if Ladarius Green can stay healthy, which is a huge if given his concussion issues. This offense could be lethal with all this talent. It would also be nice if Mike Tomlin decides to stop running the wheels off running backs. Le'Veon Bell never seems to get a play off and he got hurt yet again and was unavailable for the most important game of the year. I don't think he needs to take 98% of the snaps during the regular season every year. The defense really improved throughout the year with rookie Artie Burns and Sean Davis becoming really solid NFL players. Also, Bud Dupree looks like a potential star with his speed and strength as an outside linebacker. The main priority going into the draft should be another outside linebacker due to Jarvis Jones inability to perform at this level. I love James Harrison but the man will be 39 soon and father time will be catching up with him at any moment.
I still don't think the Steelers will be able to beat the Patriots next year, so let's just hope another team can knock them out of the playoffs.
