What a terrible weekend it was to be a linebacker in Pittsburgh. James Farrior is likely out a month. LaMarr Woodley is having an MVP-type season, but he left the Patriots game with a left hamstring injury. 

The Steelers did get some good news today, though: James Harrison has been cleared to return to practice. Ed Bouchette speculated last night that Harrison would perhaps be able to play next week against Baltimore, but Harrison tweeted that he is likely out on Sunday. 

Woodley says he'll be able to go and let's hope he can. Woodley has been so dominant lately that the Steelers haven't missed Harrison too much, but playing the biggest game of the year without both of them would be trouble. Chris Carter and Lawrence Timmons did an admirable job in relief against New England, but neither are nearly as good at rushing the passer off the edge as Woodley and Harrison and the Steelers missed that during the Patriots final couple of drives.

The question has been asked for the better part of a decade: How do you beat Tom Brady? How do you keep his offense from scoring on every drive? The Steelers answered that question for us yesterday: Don't let him touch the football. Right as the game started, Ben basically challenged Brady to a shootout. With the offense firing all over the place, the Patriots were the team who had to try and keep up. Dick LeBeau switched up everything and didn't even use the famed zone blitz. The DBs were physical against the Pats all afternoon, and the Patriots don't like to play phyiscal. The Steelers bullied the Patriots on both sides of the ball and they didn't have an answer. Jump.

It came down to the bitter end, but the Pittsburgh Steelers have finally beaten a Tom Brady-led Patriots squad for the first time since 2004. 

The final was 25-17, but the Steelers dominated play much more than the score indicated. Pittsburgh outgained New England 427-213. Brady only threw for 198 yards. The Patriots went 3/10 on 3rd down conversions. The list goes on. 

Roethlisberger's final stat line was much more Brady-esque. Big Ben completed 23 (!!!) passes in the first half alone and finished the game going 36-50 for 356 yards. 

What was most encouraging about this win, though, was that the Steelers were able to hang on on for the win even without many of their key players. James Harrison, James Farrior and Hines Ward didn't play. LaMarr Woodley missed most of the 2nd half. Marcus Gilbert was in and out of the game with injuries. 

Young Steelers like Bruce Carter, Stevenson Sylvester, Weslye Saunders and Keenan Lewis played major roles in this win. It wasn't the old guard of the Steelers figuring out the Patriots as much as it was the fresh-faced, athletic Steelers beating New England at their own game. 

Much, much more from this one later on in the week.

Baltimore visits Heinz Field next weekend.  

Here it is: the Steelers’ biggest test of the year: a date with the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. There’s only one way to preview this, Robin: to the stat-cave! First, here’s a recap of last week’s win over the Cardinals. There are two links below: the Advanced NFL Stats win probability graph/box score and QuantCoach’s coaching stats for the week.

Steelers 32, Cardinals 20
Coaching Stats

Ben Roethlisberger was by far the best player in terms of both Win Probability Added and Expected Points Added, with 0.59 and 23.0, respectively. Antonio Brown, Heath Miller, Lawrence Timmons, and Ryan Clark also had big days. Kevin Kolb (0.08 WPA, 9.6 EPA) and Early Doucet (0.08, 3.4) had the best performances for Arizona.

As far as coaching goes, the difference was a lot closer than the score indicated. The big difference in the game was the 2-0 lead for Pittsburgh in terms of takeaways. That turnover margin is finally moving back in a positive direction. Do I think it will continue that way? Click to read the rest of the preview!

One of the more exciting things to watch in Pittsburgh over the last three seasons has been the growth and development of a young, dynamic receiving corps. The Steelers have hit home runs with Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders in the mid-late rounds of the NFL draft. With Hines Ward aging and Santonio Holmes trade, the team smartly and very cost effectively turned what should have been a weakness into perhaps their greatest positional strength. 

While Wallace had a breakout year in 2010, we didnt' see the true development of Brown until this summer. Brown worked out hard during the offseason and was a completely different receiver when preseason rolled around. Roethlisberger and Brown seemed to have developed great chemistry and it definitely seems like Roethlisberger is looking his way more often. In fact, Big Ben has been distributing the ball with a lot more variance in 2011. 

Thanks to Advanced NFL Stats, I was able to easily pull together the number of targets that each receiver has had in 2010 and 2011. The jump in Brown's targets is staggering! Hit the jump for the graphs and a few more thoughts on Big Ben's spreading of the wealth...

 

Late afternoon games suck. Not only was the general Pittsburgh viewing area subjected to Cleveland's high-flying 6-3 win over Seattle, but by the time it was over you were so disillusioned with football that you almost weren't interested in the Steeler game. But let's be real, it's a Steeler game, and all Steeler games are a good thing.

*Disclaimer: I assume the Cardinals are made up entirely of Kevin Kolb, Larry Fitzgerald, and people who were last relevant in like 2006, like Joey Porter, Clark Haggans, and Todd Heap, because the time zone difference makes them think it's four years ago there.

The Steelers were at home resting last night, but they still came away with a big victory. The lowly Jacksonville Jaguars pulled of a miraclous win at home over the Baltimore Ravens. The Jaguars didn't score a touchdown, completed only 9 passes and fumbled the ball 4 times.....yet the Ravens could only muster 7 points of their own and lost 12-7. 

The Ravens loss puts them in a virtual tie with the Steelers and the upstart Bengals -- all three teams only have two losses. 

Baltimore fans have to be frustrated. The Ravens played one of their best games in years against Pittsburgh in week one, but have played two awful games since against Tennessee and Jacksonville. They also have blown out a couple solid teams -- Houston and New York Jets. Week to week, the Ravens seem to be a completely different team. Both of their losses have been on the road and their only road win is against the Rams. That bodes will for the Steelers/Ravens tilt at Heinz Field in a couple of weeks. 

I tend to nitpick and get frustrated with the Steelers when they play poorly and win. The games against Indianapolis and Jacksonville are two good examples. But watching an AFC heavyweight like Baltimore drop two winnable games definitely makes me rethink the Steelers 'ugly' wins. 

Pittsburgh has their share of problems: injuries galore, lack of a consistent running game and an awful turnover margin. But the Steelers are no more flawed than Baltimore or New England or San Diego or any other AFC team at this point in the season. After one of their worst performances in nearly three decades to start the year, the Steelers really are in great position at this point in 2011. If they can win 2 out of the next 3 games, the Steelers will likely control their own destiny the rest of the way. I'll take that. 

 

Time for a preview of today’s game in Arizona using all the advanced statistics I can find. First, here’s a recap of last week’s win over Jacksonville. There are two links below: the Advanced NFL Stats win probability graph/box score and QuantCoach’s coaching stats for the week.

Steelers 17, Jaguars 13
Coaching Stats

Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers with 0.32 Win Probability Added, Lamaar Woodley was second with 0.22, and Brett Keisel was third with 0.13. Woodley led with 6.0 Expected Points Added, with Mike Wallace (5.3) second and Rashard Mendenhall (4.5) third. Daryl Smith led the Jaguars in WPA with 0.12, and Paul Posluszny led in EPA with 4.7.

The gap in coaching was a lot more than the gap in score. The statistic representing how well the Steelers offense coached vs. the Jaguars defense ranked 8th, but the statistics representing how well the Steelers defense coached vs. the Jaguars offense was by far the best of the week. The Steelers dominated the game, it just didn’t show up in the final score because of the “prevent offense” the Steelers seemed to run.

Follow the jump for all the advanced stats and today’s preview! no comments

I kind of figured this was going to happen shortly, but it is sad nonetheless: the Steelers placed longtime DE Aaron Smith on injured reserve today, ending his 2011 season and mosty likely his career. 

Smith had sat out the last 2 games with a foot injury and has had injury issues the last three seasons, tearing his rotator cuff in 2009 and his triceps in 2010. 

While he never put up lofty sack numbers, Smith was one of the league's best defensive lineman against the run and the Steelers considered him their greatest defensive end in the three-plus decades of running the same defensive system. 

Here's an interesting tidbit on Smith from the Trib's Dejan Kovacevic:

What will resonate most for me – at least for the short term – are two words Smith spoke to me after a rough outing a month ago in Indianapolis. Well after the game’s final snap, as much as a half-hour later, he looked up at me while putting on his shoes and said, “I’m tired.” 

While the Steelers are stocked with two young, solid defensive ends in Ziggy Hood and Cam Heyward, it is hard not to view Smith's injury and likely retirement as the first  of many key components of the Steeler past two championships to ride off into the sunset. 

Here's what SI's Peter King wrote about Smith when he placed him on his all-decade team for the 2000s:

He's the upset pick of the team. But the mostly anonymous body of work over the decade makes the 1999 fourth-round pick a worthy choice. The Steelers were the top-rated defense three times in the last half of the decade, and the 6-5, 298-pound Smith's ability to shed blocks as a 3-4 defensive end and stop the run was a vital part of their success. "He can't be blocked," defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said. Well, almost.

What a player. If this is the end of the road for Smith, he should go down as one of the greatest defensive lineman in Steelers history.

Bizarre yet not totally unexpected news this afternoon: Troy Polamlu was fined by the NFL for using a cell phone during last Sunday's game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Polamalu was seen on CBS talking on a cell phone after he sustained a head injury. Polamalu said he was calling his wife to let her know that he was fine. 

This is Roger Goodell's National Football League. A league where coaches can engage in a pushing match after the game and go unpunished but where a player is fined a large sum of money for letting a loved one know they are safe. I understand that what Polamalu did was against the rules and I wouldn't have a problem with the fine if Goodell & Co. played by the letter of the law with everything else, but they don't.