Good news. Ben’s injury is being reported as an MCL sprain, expected recovery 4-6 weeks. I’m putting money on him sitting out through the week 11 bye. Hopefully they can hang in the divisional race until then.
I doubt they’ll be able to keep him off the field if the doctors say he’s good to go. They can tell him he won’t play, but he’s got enough clout by this point that he’ll win that argument.
The silver lining here is the defence is starting to gel at a time when they really need to step up. Still hard to have a lot of faith in the secondary but the front seven looked really good yesterday. Tuitt and Heyward have been amazing. Mitchell and Spence made some game saving stops near the end; they will need that to continue of they’re going to hang in the fight with Ben out. Vick looked rusty but considering how few snaps he has had as a Steeler even on practice I have hope confidence that they can put together a pretty decent package for him. It’s not like he doesn’t have a lot of weapons to work with.
This game scares me. The Ravens really aren’t that good this year, yet they’re the favorites tonight because of Vick starting instead of Ben. The analysts are saying that the Rats could be 3-0, but they aren’t. This is largely because they can’t hold a lead or run the ball to grind the clock. Forsett isn’t producing anywhere near like he did last year.
On the other hand, Pittsburgh still has the explosive offense maybe dragged down by an anchor under center. The analysts are right when they say that Vick will make or break this game. If he protects the ball, uses Brown, Bell, and the other weapons, and doesn’t do anything really stupid Pittsburgh ought to win this.
Then again, this is the biggest rivalry in football (I don’t care if you disagree, I’m not having an argument over it) and it will probably be the usual bloodbath. Worse, the Steelers are one good hit away from Landry Fucking Jones being under center, and that will be the moment the season dies.
Yep, this game scares me.
EDIT: My prediction: Pittsburgh 24, Baltimore 20. I really hope I’m wrong and it’s not that close, but these games almost always are. And if Pittsburgh loses, I hope they don’t lose anyone else.
I cannot believe what I just saw. Josh Scobee should be cut tomorrow. Absolutely stunning. Crushing.
Yeah, I’m normally pretty forgiving of kickers. I could accept one bad day, but he’s been awful the whole season. He needs to go.
The other big culprit in the lose was the awful 4th down playcalling. Leveon Bell was having a great game, they should have given him a chance on those plays. Vick played okay, he did enough to win, but I don’t think the ball needed to be in his hands in those moments.
On the bright side, the defense is coming along much quicker than I expected. It was pretty ugly the way they were giving up a ton of long runs, but they came up with a lot of big stops when they were needed. I’m a lot more optimistic about that unit than I was at the start of the season.
You still have to replace him, though, and there’s not a lot to choose from. Randy Bullock and Kai Forbath have both been waived already this year; other than them, there’s nobody out there who didn’t already lose out to Scobee the first time around.
Maybe if Pittsburgh kickers had better footing? Just sayin’.
So it looks like losing the kicker in the preseason was worse than losing Ben for 4-5 games will be.
Jeff Reed would be a lesser bad option.
This Jeff Reed? He hasn’t played since 2010, when he only hit 24 of 32 field goals. I’d bet he’s a good ways behind even Scobee.
Scobee cost the game but Vick’s inability to find Brown is more concerning to me. This will be the first full week of practices for them so hopefully they get the wrinkles worked out. Plus Bryant will be back.
The defence looked good but how many times can you force a guy to the middle and then let him squeak through for 8 or 9 yards? Jarvis Jones did a great job setting his edge but the cutback lane was open every time (usually when Thomas was at the nose). They won’t want to be letting those plays go against KC in a few weeks!
Three kickers are scheduled to try out this week by the way: Kai Forbath, Chris Boswell and Randy Bullock. We’ll see. I thought Scobee was a good choice at the time…
New kicker next week. Same head coach. Should have kicked off with the wind in OT.
Nope. It didn’t matter. Tucker had no problems, not even on his 53-yarder, which even to the closed end was a hell of a kick at Heinz Field. If I recall correctly Tucker now has 2 50-yard field goals there out of a total of about 20, counting high school and college, since the stadium opened.
The last time Pittsburgh went for it on 4th they did the right thing, too, because as far as I can tell nobody has ever kicked a 50-yarder to the open end, let alone a kicker with absolutely zero confidence for a team with no confidence in him. That said, they should have gone with Bell instead of trying a Vick run or a pass to Brown. Go with the high percentage play. Bell should almost always be the call on short yardage plays.
I just can’t figure out how that slipped away. If Scobee had made either of those late field goals OR the ref hadn’t reset the clock to the north side of the 2-minute warning after the 4th down stop that game was over.
I think the Ravens were getting too much penetration and that’s why they tried some other fourth down options. I don’t like second guessing those plays too much but it did bother me that Vick’s impatience was really the only reason he couldn’t connect with Brown on a crucial down. It’s the whole point in having a veteran backup is to make that kind of play. Ah well, Big Ben looks to be back sooner than originally feared, if Vick can settle down just a bit they still stand a good chance of winning enough to stay afloat for the stretch run with guys like Pouncey coming back as well (and Shazier and Bryant).
Well, Bell is playing well.
That’s all I have. Here’s hoping the second half goes better.
That was a close one! Nice to see them come through and stay in contention.
I just don’t know what to say after that one. For the second week in a row. Simply stunning, only this time in a good way.
That was a hell of a fourth quarter. I know you can’t argue with success, but that was seriously risky play calling on that last play. Glad it worked, but I’m thinking more than half the time it doesn’t work. Very impressed with defense this game .