So, the preview is going to be shorter than usual this week. As luck would have it, I am in Cincinnati, playing in this chess tournament (if I run into any Bengals players, I’ll make sure to direct them to the nearest bar). Therefore, I don’t have as much time to write as I normally would. All I’ll say about last week’s game is: if a graph can be sickening, this would be it, and surprisingly (read: not surprisingly at all), Joe Flacco was the top performer in terms of both Win Probability Added and Expected Points Added, with 1.12 and 20.6, respectively.

Football Outsiders

The Steelers actually went up in DVOA ranking after last week, to 11th from 12th. Their weighted DVOA ranking is ninth, showing just how awful their Week 1 performance was. The Steelers are currently ninth in offense and 13th in defense. The Bengals are 15th overall and in weighted DVOA, 19th in offense, and tenth in defense. The main things to be gleaned from the specific defensive numbers: the Steelers are now 29th in the league against non-#1 or #2 receivers, and are 22nd in rush defense, and the Bengals are 20th and 22nd against #1 and #2 recivers, respectively. Look for steady doses of Cedric Benson, Andre Caldwell, Mike Wallace, and Antonio Brown.

QuantCoach’s Coaching Stats

The Steelers out-coached Baltimore last week, and remain the best-coached team in the NFL. The Bengals are third in the AFC North, and eighth in the AFC.

I’m Still Going to Do a Prediction, I’m Sure You’re Excited

The DVOA numbers pretty much confirm what the conventional wisdom says: that the Bengals are better than last year, but they have faced a poor schedule (26th in the NFL), and this game will go a long way toward determining if they are a true playoff-caliber team. Meanwhile, the Steelers aren’t an elite team, but their only losses have been to the third and fifth-best teams. I think the home-field advantage will swing a call or two the Bengals’ way, and the two teams are close enough in skill that it may determine the outcome of the game. However, if the Steelers’ run defense plays anywhere close to the elite level it has been in recent years, Andy Dalton will be forced to throw more often, which plays right into Troy Polamalu’s literal hands. All right, I’m stalling too much. I think the Steelers will come out focused, but the home-field advantage will mean the game stays close into the fourth quarter, which is never a good sign. Bengals 21, Steelers 17.

Not Steelers related, but we love WPIAL football...

Hopewell senior RB and Pitt commit Rushel Shell broke Jeremiah Young's PIAA rushing record tonight against Franklin Regional. Young (Steelton-Highspire) had 8,435 yards in his career, 3 ahead of the previous state career rushing record of 8,432 yards by East Stroudsburg's James Mungro.

Shell is possibly the most hyped running back recruit to come out of the Pittsburgh area ever. He's drawing all sorts of wild comparisions and he'll be someone for NFL fans to keep an eye on the next four years if he stays healthy. 

The Hopewell-Franklin Regional game is still going on (and it is a great one). It'll be on late tonight on Root Sports in Pittsburgh. 

Congrats to Rushel and his Hopewell teammates for breaking one of the most historic records in PA high school football!



 

In case you were wondering what former Steelers and 49ers kicker Jeff Reed was up to these days, he surfaced tonight at Consol Energy Center taking in the game between the Penguins and Dallas Stars.

How do we know this? Reed and his friends were involved in some freak accident that occurred during the game. City Councilman Bill Peduto was nearby:

Hopefully whoever was with Reed is fine. No word yet on his (or her) condition. The Pensblog is all over this.

The lives of NFL kickers are funny. Reed was one of the best kickers in the league not long ago and a local celebrity. Now, just over a year removed from being the kicker on a team that would later appear int he Super Bowl, Reed is no longer playing football and is spending his Friday nights in the seats of Consol Energy Center just like everybody else. 

Update:

Erica on Twitter says: "I just ran into jeff reed.... said his friend is alert and has a concussion" 

-B- The NFL has issued Ryan Clark a $40,000 fine for his helmet-to-helmet hit against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. Ed Bouchette reports that Clark is angry about the fine. Ben Roethlisberger also was upset, calling for the NFLPA to "do something" about the rash of fines. 

Here's the hit on Ed Dickson that is in question:



Watching it live, I thought it was a good hit, but Clark did lead with the crown of his helmet and made direct helmet-to-helmet contact with the receiver. You can disagree with the current rules, but it was called correctly on the field. What is frustrating is watching Ray Lewis do the same thing to Hines Ward without the penalty being called. 

Helmet-to-helmet hits are a tricky thing to detect at full speed. A high shoulder-to-shoulder hit can often look bad. What if the ball carrier leads with his head and initiates contact? Hopefully the NFL provides some further clarification and the officials get more experienced at picking these out and being consistent with their calls. 

-B- WRs Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown are turning into quite the 1-2 punch. Wallace has 868 yards on 47 catches and Brown has 540 yards on 39 grabs. Both will likely end up having over 1,000 receiving yards for the season, the first Steelers duo to do that since Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes achieved the feat in 2009.

In terms of overall value, though, I think this is the Steelers best combo at receiver since 2002, when a much younger Hines Ward and Plaxico Burress terrorized the league. Each had over 1,300 yards receiving despite a carosuel at quarterback between Tommy Maddox and Kordell Stewart. Ward was 28 and Burress 27 during that season. Wallace and Brown are both only 25 years old this season. Can you imagine what they'll be like in 3 years if they are still playing together? If both continue to improve and Roethlisberger stays healthy, the Steelers could have the best WR duo since Swann and Stallworth.  

-B- Mike Tomlin's decision (or indecision) on the 4th down the Steelers had in their penultimate drive has been much discussed. Advanced NFL Stats has the most logical piece about the decision. Prior to the delay of game, kicking a FG was a slightly better option than punting. However, they argue that the best option of all would have been going for it on 4th down...even after the delay of game penalty. Tomlin has always been fairly aggressive in these types of situations so I was a little surprised watching the confusion from the sidelines last Sunday. 

The Steelers were too passive when they had the ball that drive and too passive on defense once they had punted away. Beating good teams in this NFL requires you to be aggressive at all times. I'm sure the Steelers will play that situation a little differently next time around. 

The Steelers had a chance at redemption last night. As well as they've been playing lately, everyone still felt the sting of that Week 1 blowout. Coming off a dominant win over New England, the Steelers had a chance to really take their place atop the AFC. A win versus Baltimore would have taken care of the team's two biggest rivals in two weeks, and with a less-than-terrifying schedule for the rest of the season, they would have been in good position to play for a first-round bye.

That isn't how it went, though. There's a lot of season left, and the Steelers will have some catching up to do. In the meantime, jump for what happened last night.

Joe Flacco had the ball and 92 yards of Heinz Field's beat-up grass between him and a Ravens victory. Steeler fans were confident. So was Flacco. 

Flacco dinked and dunked his way down the field like he had all night and Torrey Smith atoned for an earlier TD drop by pulling in a 26-yard TD pass from Flacco with 0:08 seconds left to seal the win for Baltimore.

It's a shame because the Steelers played a gutsy performance despite missing many key components of their team. The offensive line -- specifically Max Starks and Ramon Foster -- did an oustandaing job all night long. Larry Foote played an inspiring game in James Farrior's spot. James Harrison looked like his old self.

But, in the end, the Steelers allowed the Ravens to go 14 out of 21 on 3rd downs, including the winning pass to Smith. Flacco worked William Gay and Keenan Lewis all game long and exposed the Steelers defense with underneath routes. The Ravens offensive game plan seemed to be pass to TE, check down to Rice, delay to Rice, throw the ball up for grabs and hope for a pass interference call. Sadly, it worked. Dennis Pitta had a big game, joining a long line of white TEs who have plagued the Steelers in recent years. 

The Steelers secondary was especially awful during the Ravens' last drive. They seemed content to give Flacco free 10-yard completions the whole way down the field. The Ravens wisely moved Anquan Boldin into the slot and he dominated Gay during the drive.

It must be said that the Steelers offense didn't help the defense out much either. Roethlisberger threw a redzone interception to start the 2nd half and the Steelers had to settle for two short Shuan Suisham field goals earlier in the game.

Pittsburgh also committed 6 penalties for 69 yards. Some were certainly questionable. Ryan Clark was correctly flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit that led to a Ravens FG. But Ray Lewis knocked Hines Ward out of the game with a similar hit earlier that went unflagged. Ike Taylor was called for pass interference in the endzone which led to an ensuing Ravens TD. It was not the correct call. 

While it is easy to get frustrated at the inconsistent officiating, the Steelers have plenty of blame to spread around their locker room for this one. The bottom line was that the team had the lead with 2 minutes and change to go and they let Joe Flacco take it away. That drive can never happen if you want to win that game.

There is still a ton of football to be played. The Ravens haven't clinched the division or the Super Bowl yet, contrary to what people may believe. The Steelers have a huge game with the confident Bengals next week and have to learn from this one and move on.  

Looking at the title and seeing that you’re about to read a preview of the Steelers vs. the Ravens, I’m sure you’re thinking “He’ll probably use the phrase ‘physical, hard-nosed football’ about twenty times.” Well, you’re wrong. This will be all about the advanced stats and what they tell us about the matchup. For the curious, here’s a recap of last week’s win over the Patriots. There are two links below: the Advanced NFL Stats win probability graph/box score and QuantCoach’s coaching stats for the week.

Steelers 25, Patriots 17
Coaching Stats

Ben Roethlisberger was the best player on the field in terms of both Win Probability Added and Expected Points Added, with 0.42 and 9.7, respectively. Heath Miller was second in both with 0.26 and 6.5. Overall, though, the offense wasn’t quite as good as you’d expect, especially factoring in the Patriots mediocre pass defense. The fact that Shaun Suisham kicked three FGs means that the Steelers could very well have made this game a blowout. Willie Gay led the defense in WPA with 0.14, a much better performance than last year’s game, and showing that it’s not profitable to throw to Gay Island (Hey, did you know you can buy “Gay Island” shirts? Oh, you did? Cool). Rob Gronkowski had the best WPA performance for New England with 0.22, and Gary Guyton’s second-quarter INT of Ben gave him the best EPA performance, with 4.3.

You probably don’t need coaching stats to tell you that it was a masterful job on both sides of the ball, but especially on defense. Anytime you hold Tom Brady to under six yards per pass attempt, it’s a great game.

Click through for the Steelers-Ravens preview! no comments

I'm out of town doing some traveling this weekend, so I don't have the time (or Internet access) to do a crazy preview post for today's game, but here are 10 quick thoughts heading into the biggest game of the year. 

1. I've got to think the biggest matchup of the game is going to be Max Starks against Terrell Suggs. Suggs has terrorized the Steelers the past several years and completely embarrassed Jonathan Scott in week one. The Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger will be able to throw the ball against Baltimore if Starks can contain Suggs most of the night.

2. The Ravens made the Steelers look "old and slow" in week one, but the Steelers they face this week are a heck of a lot younger. Guys like Ziggy Hood, Cam Heyward, Stevenson Sylvester, Keenan Lewis, Weslye Saunders, Jonathan Dwyer, Antonio Brown and and Steve McLendon have all taken on bigger roles and gotten a lot better since the opening week. The "old and slow" Steelers look a lot more like the "Young Money" Steelers these days. 

3. Since their first matchup,  Ben Roethlisberger has thrown 13 TDs and 4 INTs. Joe Flacco has thrown 5 TDs and 6 INTs. His QB rating for the year is 75.4. Ouch.

4. Night game at Heinz Field against the Steelers' biggest rival. The atmosphere is going to be electric tonight. Flacco has played some miserable games at Heinz Field...this could be one of the toughest environments he has ever played in.

5. Ike Taylor has had a Pro Bowl-type season this year and he'll likely have the task of following Anquan Boldin around the field tonight. Lee Evans is injured and won't play and Boldin has become Flacco's go-to receiver. Tonight is another chance for Ike to stake his claim as one of the best cover corners in the game. 

6. Speaking of coverage, Baltimore's tight ends killed the Steelers during the team's last meeting. The Steelers have to do a better job on Ed Dickson

7. It seems like Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu are always at the center of the Steelers/Ravens games. Polamalu has typically made game-changing plays while Reed is somewhat invisible, but the opposite was true during the week one blowout. Aside from Suggs/Starks, the battle of Hall of Fame safeties might have the most impact on the game. 

8.  Thoughts and prayers for Steelers WR Emmanuel Sanders, whose mother passed away this week. He's out tonight and under no circumstances should he have been playing. Anybody who is upset that he's not in the lineup has got some major problems. 

9. Bruce Arians and the offense have been on some kind of roll lately. Arians has been masterful in his play calling for most of the season. Tonight will likely be his biggest challenge of the year. With Sanders out, the Steelers will have a little less speed on the field and the Ravens pass rush isn't nearly as tame as the one the Steelers saw last week from the Patriots. I'd like to see the Steelers pull out the game plan they used against Tennessee, where Roethlisberger threw a ton of short and intermediary routes on 3-step drops. He rarely left the pocket, but the WRs and TEs are good enough to get open quickly and make plays.

10. A prediction: Steelers 21 Ravens 20. This one could definitely go either way. Both defenses are so good, these games usually are determined by which QB makes less mistakes. Flacco has been awful this season and while he is due to break out of his slump, I don't think it is happening at Heinz Field on a Sunday night.

An interesting email landed in our inbox this week from longtime Steelers fan Don Moore. Don attended Super Bowl X in 1976 between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys in Miami. He had seats just behind the endzone and was watching the pregame warmups with he witnessed something very bizarre...here's what happened:

Curious if anyone else is aware of this as I've never seen it in print. Prior to [Super Bowl X]  Roy Gerela was practicing kicks and there was no net. Balls were not being returned [from the stands]. He ran out of them, became enraged and jumped into the stands triping over the railing and falling akwardly on top of a poor woman in the 1st row. I was in about the 6th row, happened right in front of me. Police and Franco came over, helped Gerela off and that was that. No big deal - lasted less than a minute. I always believed though that was the reason for Gerela's poor game which they said was a result of cracked ribs caused by a tackle injury on the 1st play. Only thing I ever saw was a brief article years later that said the Steelers had settled a law suit involving an incident prior to the game. Any of this known? Amazing how things have changed. Can you imagine today a player jumping over the railing into the stands?

Don added:

Definitely a crazy incident to say the least. Gerela would go on to miss two relatively easy field goals (36 and 33 yards), an extra point and he was nearly the goat of the game. 

Here's what the United Press International wrote about Gerela's injury the next day via the Tyrone Herald:

It it possible that the injury occurred prior to the game and the Steelers were able to conceal the incident? It certainly would be a lot easier to do that in the 1970s prior to cell phones and such a large media presence at the Super Bowl. For what it's worth, I spent several hours searching for more info on the lawsuit and incident during warmups and found nothing. 

If anybody else remembers the strange pregram incident or can shed some light on the situation, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.  Also, if you are curious, Gerela is currently a high school teacher and assistant football coach in New Mexico.

Lots of Steelers news on this first day of November. First, the bad news...

-B- Steelers OLB LaMarr Woodley is expected to miss Sunday's game against Baltimore with a hamstring injury, sources tell the Post-Gazette. Even worse: he is likely to miss the following game against the Bengals. The Steelers will be without both of their elite pass rushers in Woodley and Harrison for the biggest game of the season. Lawrence Timmons and rookie Chris Carter will likely start on the outside with Stevenson Sylvester and Larry Foote on the inside. Ugh. 

Update:

Woodley just tweeted this video, saying not to count him out yet against Baltimore. I'd still be shocked if he played. 

-B- Speaking of Foote, Ron Cook has an excellent column today on Foote's leadership role on the team. Foote was the man barking out the defensive signals and playing one of the toughest mental positions in the NFL on Sunday. Lots of people rolled their eyes when the Steelers signed Foote last offseason, but - outside of Farrior - nobody in the league knows the Steelers complex defense better than him. He's smart enough to line up at all 4 linebacker positions. 

I especially loved this tidbit in Cook's column:

Foote never doubted himself. At least he didn't until Farrior called him at home Friday night.

"I was just relaxing on the couch when he called out of the blue," Foote said. "He told me I had better be ready for the Patriots. 'You know they're coming after you because they always come after me.' I was fine all week, but that got me nervous. He kept me in on a Friday night and kept me up all night watching film. I didn't want to let this team down."

-B- Here's the view from Pats land on Sunday's game from our buddies at Foxboro Blog.

-B- WPIAL playoff pairings are out.  

-B- Bill Hillgrove's call of one of the louder moments in recent Heinz Field history.