In case you haven't heard from ESPN, most sports analysts these days say the Steelers are among the NFL's elite. In spite of their pitiful showing against the Eagles, I'll have to agree. The Steelers are 4-1 so far this year, and they're putting together a pretty impressive campaign. Their win on Sunday against Jacksonville only makes my belief stronger.
Let's be honest...the Steelers aren't unbeatable. They have their strengths and weaknesses, but the way they've been playing, their schedule (toughest in the NFL's history on paper), which had them projected to be a 9-win team at best, may not be a big obstacle after all.
How did the Steelers get to this point? Allow me to explain...
1. Ben Roethlisberger
Any discussion of the Steelers and how they got here starts with Ben Roethlisberger. In my opinion, Ben is one of the most underrated QBs in the NFL. He's a true franchise QB, and his team lives and dies with him. Some of his detractors say that he doesn't throw the ball very many times in a game, I say that's because he's so efficient that he doesn't need to.
Statistically, there are a lot of better QBs than Big Ben. What's important to remember, however, is that stats don't tell the whole story in football.
Statistically, there are a lot of better QBs than Big Ben. What's important to remember, however, is that stats don't tell the whole story in football.
I know this statement may be surprising to many of the long-term readers who know I'm such a stathead when it comes to baseball, but we're talking apples and oranges here. Baseball is a much more individualistic sport than football, and as such stats have a smaller margin of error when determining true ability. If a batter has a line-drive percentage of 28%, there's a chance that it could be higher if he were thrown more fastballs or lower if he were thrown more cutters, but the largest part of it is influenced by the batter. Due to this, it's easy to follow my credo in baseball stats that "stats don't tell the whole story, just the most important parts."
Football, however, is completely and totally a team sport. Ben Roethlisberger has 10 people working with him and 11 working against him, and they're all trying to accomplish different things at the same time. There's no one-on-one as with a pitcher and a batter. Ben's stats are reliant not only on his own ability, but the ability of his teammates to catch the balls he throws, the ability of the defense, the ability of the offensive line to block the pass rush, the ability of his RB to sell a play-fake, and myriad other factors. No statistic in football is anywhere near purely individualistic, thus stats are more of a scouting supplement than a sure thing.
What Ben Roethlisberger does well is enhance the ability of his teammates to make a play and at the same time minimize their shortcomings. He has a subpar o-line to say the least, and yet his ability to break a tackle and get the ball out puts his playmakers in the position to make things happen. In my opinion, he's one of the best at doing this.
2. The defense
Throughout history, great defenses have been a staple of the Steelers franchise. This year is no exception, but this defense is off-the-charts good.The combination of James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley coming off the edge is lethal, to say the least. So far, these two alone have combined for 12 sacks, 3 forced fumbles and an INT. The play that swung the game against the Ravens in the Steelers favor was one where Harrison got in the backfield and forced Joe Flacco to fumble, and Woodley picked up the ball and returned it for a TD. The outside linebackers in Dick LeBeau's 3-4 defensive scheme play the most important pass-rushing roll, and I've never seen a group do it better than these two have this year. They're giving opposing QBs nightmares.
Combine this with the always exceptional play of Casey Hampton on the d-line to open up penetration for the defense, James Farrior in the middle to be one of the league's better run-stoppers, and Lawrence Timmons being a versatile middle linebacker, and you're got trouble in the box. Add in a fully healthy Troy Polamalu, who already has 3 INTs this year, and I think it's fair to say that the defense is the biggest reason the Steelers are 4-1 right now.
3. Chris Kemoeatu
The offensive line last year, as a whole, was awful. The lone bright spots were Alan Faneca, who everyone knew would be leaving as a free agent at the season's end, and Marvel Smith, who spent most of the season injured. When Faneca departed, many Steelers fans were wondering if the line would be able to improve on their sad performance from last year.
As a whole, the answer is no. This line is still giving up way too many sacks in pass protection (although it would help if Roethlisberger could get the ball out faster), but the running game is looking much better than it was. Part of this is because Justin Hartwig replaced Sean Mahan at center. Hartwig is only an average center, but that's still a big improvement over the job Mahan was doing, if that tells you anything. The biggest reason for the improvement in the running game, however, is Chris Kemoeatu replacing Alan Faneca at left guard.
This guy is a beast. While I wouldn't say that he is a better blocker than Faneca was in his prime, I will say that I think he's better than the wrong-side-of-30-years Faneca is today. Kemoeatu pulls so well that you'd think Faneca never left, and he hits like a sledgehammer. He has quick feet, knockout power, and a great ability to get to the next level. For the life of me, I can't figure out why he wasn't starting over Kendall Simmons at right guard last year.
The vast majority of the big runs Willie Parker and the other Steelers backs have been able to pull off this year comes when they're running behind Chris Kemoeatu. If you need any more evidence, check out these posts from postgameheroes.com, who, by the way, do excellent analysis every week.
As a whole, the answer is no. This line is still giving up way too many sacks in pass protection (although it would help if Roethlisberger could get the ball out faster), but the running game is looking much better than it was. Part of this is because Justin Hartwig replaced Sean Mahan at center. Hartwig is only an average center, but that's still a big improvement over the job Mahan was doing, if that tells you anything. The biggest reason for the improvement in the running game, however, is Chris Kemoeatu replacing Alan Faneca at left guard.
This guy is a beast. While I wouldn't say that he is a better blocker than Faneca was in his prime, I will say that I think he's better than the wrong-side-of-30-years Faneca is today. Kemoeatu pulls so well that you'd think Faneca never left, and he hits like a sledgehammer. He has quick feet, knockout power, and a great ability to get to the next level. For the life of me, I can't figure out why he wasn't starting over Kendall Simmons at right guard last year.
The vast majority of the big runs Willie Parker and the other Steelers backs have been able to pull off this year comes when they're running behind Chris Kemoeatu. If you need any more evidence, check out these posts from postgameheroes.com, who, by the way, do excellent analysis every week.
4. Depth
The Steelers are deep at a number of positions in ways that would make most NFL teams green with envy. It's because of this that they were able to win two straight games despite significant injuries to the roster. The Steelers are deep in positions including, but not limited to:
- Running back. The Steelers are probably the most RB deep team in the NFL, and in today's era of the multiple RB system vs the feature back systems of bygone years, that's saying a lot. The only team that can give Pittsburgh a run for their money as far as
RB depth is concerned are the Giants. If you doubt me, I propose a challenge to you: find me another team in the NFL that can be down to its #4 running back due to injury and still have a game where their starting RB has 99 rushing yards and 54 receiving yards. Willie Parker has been out for two games, Rashard Mendenhall was knocked out for the season by Ray Lewis, and Carey Davis was also sidelined with an ankle sprain that game, and yet the Steelers were able to say "no problem" and let Mewelde Moore, Minnesota's former 3rd down back, do his thing against a tough Jacksonville defense. The Steelers are so good at this position that they were able to cut Najeh Davenport and send Gary Russell to the practice squad after the preseason because they had so many skilled RBs. On most teams, Najeh Davenport would have a role as either a third down back or somebody to spell the starter, and Gary Russell would be a goal-line back. Due to circumstances, Gary Russell has been recalled and Davenport has been resigned, which is a testament to the hard decision the coaching staff must have had to make.
- Quarterback. In the NFL draft this year, the Steelers took former Oregon pheno
m Dennis Dixon, with plans of making him their primary backup once Charlie Batch retired. Batch himself had served as one of the best backups in the league during his time with Pittsburgh. I know as a Steeler fan, I was never too worried when Ben Roethlisberger got injured. Even though he's the face of the franchise, Charlie Batch can come in and play good football for a game or two. He's not a world-beater, and he won't get you a Super Bowl, but as a backup, he's pretty much the cream of the crop. This year he went down with an injury, and the Stee
lers signed two QBs to take his place - Daunte Culpepper and Byron Leftwich. They were all set to compete for the job as Roethlisberger's primary backup until Culpepper made it public that he had a desire to compete directly with Roethlisberger for the starting job. As a result, the backup position kin dof defaulted to Leftwich. Of the two, I would prefer to have Culpepper, but as far as second string QBs go, it's pretty much a win-win situation for Pittsburgh. If Roethlisberger goes down this year, a former starting QB in a system not too dfferent from Pittsburgh's will step in to take his place. If they both go down, I have confidence that Dennis Dixon can provide a couple big plays while the others are sidelined.
- Safety. Everyone knows how good Troy Polamalu is. Less heralded is Ryan Clark, the starting free safety, who isn't an INT or sack machine, but who can do the job of being the last man between the runner and the goal-line very well. He's a hard hitter, and he's usually in position to stop the big play from being a huge one. Beyond the starters are backup SS Tyrone Carter, who could probably start on some teams, and Anthony Smith. There's a big drop-off in performance between Polamalu and Carter, but it's more to do with Polamalu being an exceptional DB than Carter being a bad one. Tyrone Carter is able to get the job done efficiently when called on to do so. Anthony Smith is most famous for running his mouth about the Patriots last year and getting shown up for it, but he's also an incredibly hard hitting backup FS. He's a raw product, which is why he's not starting, and as the Pats showed, he can be beaten deep. However, he does have the ability to put a hit on somebody big enough to make them think twice about coming at him with the ball. In most cases, Tyrone Carter will start at FS ahead of Smith if Ryan Clark goes down, but in the event that Anthony Smith plays he's an adequate backup. Last year he played in all 16 games and in the playoffs, and he started 10 times. He showed why he's on the roster with 53 solo tackles and 2 INTs returned for a combined 50 yards.
- Defensive line. This one is a big surprise, as last season when Brett Keisel went down, it quickly became apparent that the Steelers had absolutely no talent along the d-line past the starters. The Steelers didn't draft a d-lineman. Instead they signed Orpheus Roye as a free agent, who was a special teams ace for the Steelers in the mid-to-late 90s, but who is not of much use to the team in his 13th NFL season. However, Nick Eason has improved dramatically since last year, and while Chris Hoke is certainly not Casey Hampton, he's done such a good job filling in for Big Snack for the past two games that some Steeler fans are calling for him to start. Even Orpheus Roye has done about as well as you would expect a 35 year old defensive lineman to do in his limited action.
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1 comments:
"He has a subpar o-line to say the least..."
This is like saying the economy has had a tough month.
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