The indisputable evidence was there. What was in question was if Holmes had both feet on the ground in the endzone. That was obvious from the replays. Most everyone (including me) assumed that it was not ruled a touchdown on the field because of the ball not breaking the plane. However as you mentoined that is a moot point, as long as the receiver has two feet on the ground in the endzone while in possesion of the ball.
Huh? If you didn’t think the ball broke the plane either, clearly it wasn’t indisputable.
Only in the back of the endzone, when the ball has already broken the plane on the way to the receiver. As you can imagine, there has been quite a bit of discussion around here about this, along with 379 different people quoting the relevant rules. :dubious:
No matter, as poor as that call was, it didn’t cost us the game, we cost us the game by going to the goddamn fucking prevent on that last drive instead of sticking with what was working on defense, and the Steelers won the game by producing when it mattered. It’s often been said that it’s better to be lucky than good. The Steelers are both. Here’s hoping that y’all win out, we do the same and then take care of Denver, putting us back at the confluence for the Divisional Playoffs. Then we’ll see if the 3rd time really is the charm.
I bet it’s all Kyle Boller’s fault somehow. 
This is exactly right. Here’s what i wrote about this incident yesterday, in the NFL Week 15 thread:
It’s really fucking frustrating, because the Ravens seem to do this all the time. They did exactly the same thing against the Redskins last week, and suddenly a team that had made virtually no yards all game began marching down the field. Luckily, in that game it didn’t really matter because Washington were too far behind for a score to make a difference anyway. But my friend and i were yelling in frustration at the TV for the Ravens to play their regular defense.
Here’s the rest of my take on the Pittsburgh touchdown, also copied from the other thread:
What is it with that, anyway? So many coaches play so scared in the last minutes of a game. It’s so consistently ineffecitve, or less effective than just sticking with what clearly works that I don’t understand why it’s done.
I really just think that it’s a fear of giving up the big play. As you are no doubt aware, the main rationale behind the “prevent” defense is to maintain a fairly spartan defensive line, and keep plenty of guys for the secondary so that you don’t give up big plays downfield.
Of course, by doing this you give the QB plenty of time to move around in the pocket, and you give the wide receivers and tight ends lots of space for short runs across the middle. And, as Baltimore did on Sunday and last week, you end up giving up a lot of 5 and 7 and 10 yard plays, while preventing the other team from making a really big play downfield.
It just seems to me that some coaches haven’t woken up to the fact that, with 2 minutes to go and a good offense on the field, giving up 10 or 12 short plays is just as bad as giving up one long one. In the case of a team like Baltimore’s, the defense works so much better when it’s being aggressive that i think it’s worth risking the big play in order to do what you do best. Apparently the Ravens’ coaching staff disagrees.
I guess they’re worried about criticism. If you give up an 80-yard play for a touchdown, the coaches will likely be criticized for a poor defensive pattern. They will be asked why they didn’t play a safer, “prevent” defense. On the other hand, if they play “prevent” defense and the other team scores, it’s harder for the critics to point to a single bad call.
They always seem to overestimate the amount of time left, though. I can see the value in playing prevent coverage with 30 seconds left when the opponent has to drive 70 yards. But teams treat the opponent needing to travel 40 yards in a minute and a half the same way it seems.
It’s cowardly, most of the time. They want to avoid being criticized for allowing their team to give up a 50 yard TD pass that loses the game, but appear to be willing to accept 4 15 yard passes instead for the same result.
I don’t know how many Steelers fans here check this out already but I regularly follow Dale Lolley’s blog. He’s a reporter following the Steelers and has a lot of interesting insight into the team and some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. It gets updated every day or two during the season.
Thanks for the link!
These guys are killing me! Just killing me. Ben, two fumbles?
OK, guys, step up, we can still win.
Wow! A tremendous catch to put us back in the game!
How did we miss the field goal? 10-7 at the half isn’t too bad, but 10-10 would been better.
The offense is so frustrating. When they try, they are unstoppable, but they never really seem to try. And when they do, they fuck it up - this is the second game where Big Ben spiked it for no reason at all. It will be interesting to see which offense shows up the playoffs. If we can play no-huddle all the time, Steelers will destroy everyone.
I do wonder why we don’t go no-huddle more often, we seem to do so much better.
Difficult to run when you have a line comprised of Big Fat Road Graders (as you do), rather than Relatively Athletic Guys Who Specialize In Pass Protection (like the Colts).
Your linemen are best suited to “knock down guy in front, help running back to his feet, return to huddle, rinse, repeat” than “pull left, check position of running back going out to catch screen pass, run downfield and paste safety, run back to line”, in other words.
No home field advantage for us!
IMO, we were outplayed today. Ben’s fumbles didn’t help.
At least we should end the season with a win.
Very true. A lesser factor is that, as good as the defense is, it puts way more pressure on the D if the no-huddle sputters. A few years ago, the first year running no-huddle, we were getting burned deep quite often because the D wasn’t getting enough rest between series. The front seven couldn’t get enough pressure to help the secondary. Polamalu has mentioned this year that with an explosive D, they need the time to recharge and they aren’t getting it with the running game being so poor this year. Obviously it hasn’t hurt them that much but with the playoffs looming the units will need to be firing on all cylinders if they’re going to take down teams like Balt. or Indy.
Speeaking of the O-line, the pass protection has been much more solid lately (still sub-par though). Looking ahead to next year, I think Stapleton and Kemoeatu will be much better with a year of experience behind them; Hartwig and Starks have looked good. I think they should cut ties with Kendall Simmons and Willie Colon, move Marvel Smith to the right and draft a stud RT to spend a year either learning behind him or filling in if Marvel’s back flares up again. I know the D-line is getting old but 3-4 DEs can be found in the later rounds, the o-line is hampering the entire offense.
So next week is meaningless to you guys, right? #2 seed the whole way?
Put in your third stringers and practice squad players and still beat us by 30.
I failed to post last week and we lost. That makes me 3-0 in a post-win correlation. So I figure I’d better post now, just to make sure we pull it off this week.