Bye week needs some new threads.

With Tuit rejoining Cam and Hargrave, the defensive line will head into the second half at full strength.
Knowing the capabilities of Tyson Aluala and the strides that LT Walton has taken, there is no need for Cam and Tuit to be on the field more than 75-80% of the snaps.

We have seen in years past, that these two have been on the field close to 90% of the snaps if not more.
We have also seen alot of 2 defensive linemen sets, so hoping this can keep them fresh as well.

Aluala should still see 20-25 snaps a game.
Lt Walton 6-10.

Be nice to see Hargrave snap count go up. He is not strictly a run down defender.

As far as Bryant.

Yes, they have gone 6-2 with very little production from this guy.

But, he is the key in making this offense turn a squandering 13-6 halftime lead into a 20-6 or 24-6 lead.

We have had too many dominant and momentum controlling first halves in which the actual score is no where indicative of how we played.
Way too many point left on the board settling for FG's over TD's

Can't let teams hang around, sticking their chins out and begging to be knocked to the canvas.

We should be throwing this kid the ball inside the endzone.
We have done so in the past.
Corner fade.
Jump ball.
Back of the endzone, high or incomplete out of bounds.

He is one of the endzone mismatches we have not taken advantage of.

Can't recall any passes thrown to him in the endzone?
Anyone?

But can recall him coming off the field in passing situations for guys like Rogers and DHB inside the 10 yard line = Dumb!

Stop playing to get closer to the endzone and start planning to get into the endzone.

Roethlisberger is a bigger key, IMHO.

He's still leaving waaaaay too many plays on the field, no matter who his WR's are.

Love Ben. Top 5 favorite Steelers of all time. He isn't right this year.

Yeah as it is called age catching up with him. Just like his Giants counterpart, Eli Manning. But still he will be a top Steeler in the top five no matter what.

I expect to flat out annihilate Indianapolis this coming weekend. A victory of 45-13 sounds good to me.

I hope you are right. I expect sloppy play out of their by week. The spread is 10. Steelers do not cover.

Based on the inconsistencies of this team, I suggest tempering those expectations.

I think it wil be a close game. Toss up, at this point.

I agree. Close game.

I think they need to be smarter with how they use Bryant. It isn't a matter of him losing his job to JuJu or lining up as the official #2 WR outside. Depending on how the defenses line up, on down and distance, matchups, you want to move Bryant and JuJu and never just line them up predictably.

I remember many big plays from 2015 where Markus Wheaton would line up outside and they moved Bryant around in the slot. No reason to have Brown and Bryant predictably line up, to have things set in stone, making it easier on the defense. Put Brown in the slot at times too. I have seen teams take their athletic TE and flex him out and have him line up at WR, we did that some with Green last season in his 6 game stretch. No reason why we can't do that with Vance McDonald and have Brown line up in the slot.

I just see Haley and the powers that be not using Brown to open things up for other plays/players. Use the coverage that he attracts and use it to scheme players open. The bunch formations that we used to employ are great to scheme players open, to get easy yards, yet we seem to have gone away from it.

But back to Bryant in the slot, no reason they should not be moving him around and trying to force the defense's hand. It is just too easy to defend that vertical deep threat if he is stuck on the outside and the CB gets help with both the sideline, the limited real estate, and safety help.

No reason why JuJu and Bryant can't both get 65-70% of the offensive snaps.

One thing I am pissed about today was hearing (reading) a quote from defensive line coach John Mitchell on Hargrave. He was lamenting how they would love to find him more playing time but can't justify taking Heyward or Tuitt off the field, etc.

That just makes me so angry. If your scheme is so fucked up that it is preventing great players from seeing the field, then the obvious answer is to change the scheme! We have an embarrassment of riches at defensive line right now, Heyward, Tuitt, Hargrave and Alualu and LT Walton and we play a defense where we ultimately end up playing a 2-4-5, primarily using just two of those defensive linemen. Hargrave is this incredible player who is strong as a pass rusher and against the run and he plays 46% of the time. That is nuts.

For me I get that they have to remove somebody from the field when Mike Hilton comes on, but why does it have to be Hargrave? Vince Williams has had a nice season thus far but he is playing 73% of the snaps, I get that he hasn't been exploited that much in coverage but he will be by the better offenses. I don't get what he gives you over Hargrave. To me I take Vince Williams off the field and leave Hargrave on the field. That interior pass rush is more important, that presence that Hargrave has in the middle, the double teams that he attracts can open things up for others. I fail to see how a 3-3-5 with Heyward, Hargrave and Tuitt is not more important than having Vince Williams on the field.

I don't really understand why they aren't using TJ Watt more in Vince Williams inside spot either. Want to get Harrison on the field? You move Watt inside next to Shazier and Harrison can line up in his old ROLB. Then you can do some interesting things with Watt inside. I remember Chad Brown back in the day, Watt reminds me of Brown in being very smart, technical and athletic, Brown played inside before moving outside. With Watt being inside you can blitz him from there, have him drop in coverage, an inside duo of Watt and Shazier in coverage is very enticing. Also you can have Watt move inside and line up on Harrison or Dupree and you could do some stunts and whatnot. Why be content with only having 2 of those 3 OLBs on the field when you can get them all on the field?

To me Vince Williams is preventing Hargrave and Harrison from seeing more time on the field and it is because the Steelers are being afraid to be bold and experiment with the players that they have. Williams seeing 73% of the snaps and Willie Gay seeing 30% of the snaps is not a good trend, those numbers have to go down, they are on the field way too much.

this is the kind of game you have to worry about

Great to see all the injured guys are making it back. SBI.

100% agreed.

Our coaching staff just seems so fucking lazy -- can't think of ways to utilize the assets we have - they are stuck in a rut, because they are too fucking lazy to innovate around the talent

Hargrave should be on the field at least 75% of the time -- same with Bryant/Juju

Scunge,

Isn't possible that the coaches would like to use Bryant in a more diverse manner, but he is too limited in his route running?

He has supreme physical talent, but did the guy ever run anything other than go or slant even when he was playing well?

The coaches might be too stupid to use MB in other ways or MB might be too stupid to be used in more diverse ways.

He has run routes other than a go or slant.

Would Hargrave playing 75-80% of the snaps be as effective as Hargrave playing only 50% of the time? Maybe our dumbass coaches know something that we don’t...just saying.

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I agree with this assessment.

Not that he "can't" run a bigger route tree, but that he is wholly unimpressive when trying to "sell" it, so that a defender does not have to take seriously the possibility of him running a more deceptive route than a fly.

Or maybe it's the coaching...

I tend to think the problem is with Haley. Half of Haley’s gameplay week in week out is, should we run bell off RG or should we pull decastro and run him off LG? Then he factors in AB touches. That takes us to 80% of the game plan. That’s why he’s out at oakmont by Wednesday at lunch.

It’s naturally a good bit MB part too. I think you could see him get visibly discouraged about either not being included or missing his opportunities.

But hey season is just half way. Like big snack used to say at camp every summer. I don’t need to practice. I play the games.

Second half of the season is for the gamers.

KC, love you man, but this is the take you get when only watching highlights of other teams and deeply analyzing every play of the home team. Brees. Wilson. Alex Smith. Prescott. Just some of the QBs I saw miss wide open guys this week, especially on deep balls.

Yes, the offense as a whole has left plays on the field and yes Ben has missed a couple-- but I don't think Ben is in the death throes of his career or anything... and it's no small thing that he is leading this somewhat dysfunctional team to the top of the conference in record.

I still believe Tuitt is the best player on this defense. His health going forward will make a defense that has been very good even better. Going to be nice to see him back out there Sunday.

You can still win with Ben. Obviously!

His mobility looks gone. And he no longer looks to go through all the reads, at least not as much. I think the lack of mobility is causing him to want to get the ball out faster. So we're not getting as many of those patented WTF Ben plays.

Loss of mobility means we are looking at post-peak Ben for sure.

But the team is 6-2, so, you can win with the guy.

He supposedly looked great running a full route tree on the scout team. He also did more of that vs Den in playoffs and in Ben 6 TD Indy game.

The league-wide state of the QB position is so bad, that Ben could be in a wheelchair and a have broken right arm and still be a top 10 QB.

But yeah, I'm definitely in the boat of thinking Ben isn't the QB he was 3-4 years ago. Agree with Lit's points and will add a general lack of accuracy onto it, as well. The guy is missing throws he wouldn't have missed back then, and isn't hitting guys in stride as much when he does complete them. He was never Tom Brady in the ball placement category, but he used to be a lot better than what he's shown over the past two seasons.

I’m not sure he’s a top 10 QB now without that wheelchair & broken right arm.

He is 9th in yards so he makes the cut there.

18th in TDs
37th in rating
19th yards per attempt

He is 5th in INTs so solid top 10 there.

We are 6-2 so hard to be too critical but if we are being real here we could be 6-2 with a lot of mediocre QBs handing the ball to Leveon Bell a league leading number of times.

With a handful of QBs that are currently playing better than Ben we could realistically be 8-0.

He’s been a part of the problem unfortunately right along with Haley, Tomlin, and the receivers not names Brown or JuJu.

This coming from a long-time Ben homer.

Slop and slather. Steelers win 15-13.