Week 6: Steelers 17, Jaguars 13

Steelers are good, true or false?

The halfway point of the 2011 NFL season is approaching. That means the Steelers are taking their midterm exams.

On Sunday, they passed the True-False portion of the exam.

Barely.

Here's a tip, kids. Most True-False tests have more true answers than false answers. So you probably can pass if you put down "True" for everything. It also helps if you know how to make the letter that looks like both a "T" and an "F." 

It was with the same half-assed effort that the Steelers won Sunday's game over the Jaguars.

To fully restore their status as Super Bowl contenders, the Steelers (4-2) needed a convincing victory over the one-win Jaguars. But the Jaguars had a chance to win this game until the very last second. Thankfully, Blaine Gabbert's lame-assed Hail Mary found nothing but black shirts in the end zone.

The Steelers will take the multiple-choice portion of their midterms Sunday at Arizona. In the same way that multiple choice can be tricky (all of the above, none of the above, some of the above), weird shit tends to happen to the Steelers in Arizona. Although the game will be at University of Phoenix Stadium, the Steelers won't be able to take this test online. They have to show up.

Then the material goes from tricky to tough. The next phase of midterms will be essay questions, which the Steelers will have to answer in two weeks when the Patriots visit Heinz Field. That's going to require a lot of studying. The good news is that Bill Belichick will be proctoring the test, and he thinks cheating is OK.

Then, the Steelers will go from the classroom to the schoolyard for the last part of the exam -- the bully test. The Ravens bloodied the Steelers' nose in the season opener, and visit Heinz Field Nov. 6. To pass that part of the exam, the Steelers will have to win the fight with the bully, which is really all you need to learn in school to be ready for the real world.

What this midterm exam analogy means is that the Steelers have one more week to get their shit together before the Patriots and Ravens come to town.

Give and take

The Steelers nearly let a 17-0 lead slip away, at home, against a team with a rookie quarterback that had scored just five touchdowns heading into the game.

We can choose to be alarmed at all that, or we can choose to be encouraged that the Steelers have forced just two turnovers this season yet somehow are 4-2.

You know the only other team in the history of the NFL with just two takeaways in its first six games, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com? This year's Dolphins, who dropped to 0-5 Monday night.

At least the Steelers didn't turn the ball over Sunday. They've had just five giveaways since their seven-turnover debacle in Baltimore, Still, their turnover differential remains at minus-10. Only the 1960 Giants (4-1-1, minus-10) and the 1960 Bears (3-2-1, minus-11) had winning records with a turnover ratio of minus-10 or worse through six games, according to Pro-Football-Reference.

Another interception or two could have turned a loss into a win in Houston and made Sunday's win a little bit easier. 

We can bellyache about how bad the Steelers' offense was in the second half Sunday or how the defense wasn't able to stop the run. But just one takeaway could have given the Steelers a short field to work with and maybe another score. That would have made the offense look better with more points on the scoreboard and it would have made the defense look better with fewer rushing yards for the Jaguars, who ran for 133 yards at a 4.4-yard-per-carry clip.

Turnovers aren't just window dressing for a defense, folks. They're a necessary tool for winning. Trying to win without getting turnovers on defense is like trying to bang nails into a wall with a baseball bat. Eventually you're going to need that hammer.

The Steelers' defense has to start taking the ball away at some point, right? The law of averages almost dictates it. In a way, it's comforting to think that winning should be easier when those takeaways start catching up to the giveaways.

But what if the turnovers don't come? Is the inability to grab fumbles and pickoffs a sign of the Steelers' age on defense? What makes this more confounding is the fact that Troy Polamalu has been healthy, despite Sunday's scare, and playing well. But he's usually good for an interception or two by this point in the season. He is 30 now. Are the hands the first thing to go?

One encouraging sign is that the Steelers had a similar shortage of sacks earlier in the season. Through the first four games, they had just seven. They've had eight in the last two games, including two Sunday by Brett Keisel. By the way, let's not underestimate how much he was missed in Indianapolis and Houston.

Sacks and turnovers have been signatures of the Steelers' defense since Bill Cowher rejuvenated the franchise nearly two decades ago. It took a while for the Steelers to get to the quarterback this season, but eventually they did. Hopefully one of these sacks will knock a ball loose and open the floodgates for turnovers.

Familiar script

There have been times this season when I didn't think I'd write the following words: The Steelers would not have won Sunday's game without Rashard Mendenhall.

Seeing the running game function without him last week seemed to spark Mendenhall the same way as his benching early in the 2009 season. He ran the ball 23 times for 146 yards and a touchdown that gave the Steelers a 7-0 lead. Mendenhall's 68-yard run set up a Shaun Suisham field goal and a 17-0 Steelers lead in the second quarter.

In between those scores was a 28-yard touchdown pass from Ben Roethlisberger to Mike Wallace and a 48-yard completion to Wallace. The second of those receptions marked the fifth straight game in which Wallace has caught a pass of at least 40 yards, the longest such streak since Terrell Owens did it in 2004. If that streak doesn't end Sunday, something tells me the Patriots will end it in two weeks.

Alas, that bomb to Wallace, which put the ball on the Jacksonville 31, didn't lead to any points. The drive ended with Suisham missing a 46-yard field goal. Suisham has made just seven of his 11 field goal attempts this season. Am I the only one who's nervous about this?

The trajectory of Sunday's game was eerily similar to the AFC championship game in January. The Steelers build a big lead in the first half. The opponent gets a field goal to gain a little momentum before halftime. The Steelers go scoreless in the second half and have to hang on for dear life to get the win. 

It's one thing to win in this fashion when a trip to the Super Bowl is at stake. It's quite another when the other team has no shot at getting to the Super Bowl. Or even the playoffs.

If they play like that on Sunday, the Steelers will flunk out of University of Phoenix Stadium.

Five end-of-August Steelers thoughts

By Mike Batista

I promised another post by the end of August, so here you go.

What a month August was. It started with me moving. I spent hours packing and unpacking (which I haven't finished) and had to run around to scrape together enough cash for the movers. All that, and it turns out my apartment in New Jersey is only 13 miles closer to Heinz Field than my apartment in New York.

Last week's earthquake didn't move me any closer to the big yellow stadium in Pittsburgh. Thankfully, I'm one of the lucky ones. Neither the earthquake nor Hurricane Irene had much impact on me.

My 40th birthday is another story. I could not get out of the way of that storm's path during the month of August.

So let's finish up this tumultuous month with five random Steelers observations as they enter their final preseason game tomorrow night.

• If James Harrison doesn't get any better, he can't play in Week 1. He's still recovering from back surgery in the offseason, and right now he's a liability. You can play a man down in football, just not American football. The Steelers won't win in Baltimore playing 10 on 11. Maybe they move Lawrence Timmons to outside linebacker and put Larry Foote on the inside, if he has anything left. Or maybe second-year man Stevenson Sylvester is ready to step in on the inside. The Steelers have drafted some good linebackers the last couple of years. It's time to put that depth to use. Jason Worilds showed some flashes last year. It doesn't sound like he's made much progress in the preseason, but he might have to be ready to replace Harrison on the outside.
• Someone tell me again how the Steelers got Jerricho Cotchery. It's a matter of keeping up with the Joneses in the AFC. The Steelers have to make sure they have more than teams like the Patriots, Ravens and Jets. The Jets' near-comeback against the Steelers in the AFC championship game was pretty damn scary. Somehow, one of the more formidable weapons of the Jets' second-half assault is now in a Steelers uniform. The Steelers should make like Joe Pesci firing his gun into the air after he jacked the truck in "Goodfellas." With Cotchery, the Steelers have the luxury of allowing Emmanuel Sanders to take his time coming back from foot surgery. That brings me to another Steelers receiver, someone who many are rooting for to make the team, but probably won't. Tyler Grisham will be fighting for a job tomorrow night. The Steelers have five legitimate threats at wide receiver with Mike Wallace, Hines Ward, Cotchery, Sanders and Antonio Brown, who looks like he's ready to have a breakout year. The Steelers can afford to use their sixth wide receiver spot on a special teams ace like Arnaz Battle. Grisham isn't as good on special teams. He's got practice squad written all over him.
• Cornerbacks Keenan Lewis and Crezdon Butler likely will make the team. I'd love to see one of them start opposite Ike Taylor at cornerback Sept. 11. That probably won't happen, though. Butler made the highlight reel with his 95-yard interception return for a touchdown in the preseason game against the Falcons. But he and Lewis both made some mistakes in the game, too. It would be quite a redemption story if Lewis becomes any kind of contributor, considering some of those boneheaded penalties in his first two years. But we're probably going to be stuck with Bryant McFadden starting, and maybe even William Gay as the nickelback. Same old mediocre Steelers secondary.
• It looks like Tony Hills won't be the starting right guard, after all. Doug Legursky will get a long look tomorrow night. It's too bad. I was really rooting for Hills to get a starting job. It would have been a shining example of perseverance. Hills dropped into the fourth round of the 2008 draft after breaking his leg his senior year at Texas. He seemed lost his first couple of years. I remember seeing him play a little bit in Tennessee last season when Steelers players were dropping like flies in the September heat. Still, it looked like he would have to get a job in the real world this summer. But he must have done something right during the offseason, because he's been competing for a starting job and has earned the label as the Steelers' most "athletic" offensive lineman. We might not see Hills' name listed among the starters on the CBS graphic a few minutes after 1 p.m. on Sept. 11. But Hills might be in a good position to make the team and be heard from eventually. Hang in there, Tony.
• I don't know about you, but I'm just not comfortable with Shaun Suisham as the Steelers' kicker. His wide, wide, wide left on the 52-yarder, indoors, in Super Bowl XLV is burned into my consciousness like the sight of Rosie O'Donnell naked.

That is all. See you in September.

Giving thanks

Steelers 19, Bills 16, OT

By Mike Batista

In the final hours of Thanksgiving weekend, the Steelers gave us one more thing to be thankful for.

This win.

Let us give thanks that Bills' receiver Stevie Johnson dropped the winning touchdown pass in overtime. He'll probably be as infamous as this Stevie is famous.



Let us give thanks that Leodis McKelvin tripped over Arthur Moats, his own blocker, on the opening kickoff of OT. Otherwise he'd have had a touchdown.

Let us give thanks that McKelvin fumbled Daniel Sepulveda's punt from the Steelers' end zone, costing the Bills 15 yards of field position. Were the Steelers lucky to dodge the upset and not follow Black Friday with a Black Sunday? Absolutely. But let's give them credit for winning despite being backed up inside their own 1-yard line during overtime. That's usually a recipe for disaster.

Speaking of recipes, let's break down this game by turkey parts, in honor of Thanksgiving:

The Leg

The leg I'm talking about here is that of Steelers kicker Shaun Suisham (pronounced SWEEZE- um). Cutting Jeff Reed seems like a smart move. For now.

To some degree, Suisham probably knew what was going through Johnson's mind Sunday. Last season, kicking for the Redskins, Suisham missed a 23-yard field goal that would have finished off the 11-0 Saints and given them their first loss. That choking legacy followed him to Pittsburgh.

Suisham made four field goals Sunday, all of them longer than 40 yards, including the 41-yard game-winner in overtime. Guaranteed the 2010 Jeff Reed would have missed at least one of those field goals.

Now let's see how Suisham kicks at Heinz Field.

The Wing

Troy Polamalu usually takes flight after an interception. His flight Sunday was more of a puddle jumper. The Bills were at the Steelers' 12 with three minutes left when Polamalu picked off a pass deflected by William Gay at the Steelers' 1. Polamalu returned it five yards to the Steelers' 6. Polamalu's fourth interception of the year temporarily preserved the Steelers' 16-13 lead.

I know it's beating a dead horse to say that Polamalu's absence last season was the main reason for the five-game losing streak that ruined the Steelers' season. It's so much of a dead horse that flies are starting to swirl around it. But the evidence just continues to mount.

Aside from his acrobatic interception, Polamalu also recovered a fumble at the Steelers' 19 on the opening drive of the second half, at least delaying the Bills' comeback. He also had a pass breakup which helped hold the Bills to a field goal on their final drive of regulation, and a key pass breakup and tackle in OT.

This game was taking on the mood of other late-November stinkers by the Steelers, like last year's loss to the Chiefs in overtime, when they were without Polamalu; the 2007 loss to the 1-8 Jets, by the same 19-16 score in overtime, by the way (even though they had Polamalu for that one) and the Thanksgiving loss to the Lions in OT. Guess what the final score of that game was.

But thanks to Polamalu, this will not be one of those years that the Steelers suffer a late-November upset that derails their season.

Keep in mind that Polamalu isn't 100 percent healthy. He's had hamstring issues, but has been able to play on Sundays by limiting himself in practice.

When Polamalu went down for good last season during the home game against the Bengals in Week 10, I was watching at The Public House, a Steelers bar in Manhattan, without the benefit of audio. A fellow Steelers fan receiving cell phone updates broke the news that Polamalu was hurt. Not what I needed to hear.

Due to schedule commitments, I watched Sunday's game at Bob Hyland's Sports Page in White Plains, just a general sports bar but not a Steelers bar in particular. So of course I couldn't hear the announcers.

I'm now so paranoid about Polamalu getting hurt that I became worried that I didn't see him on the field early in the fourth quarter when the Bills faced a third-and-10 at the Steelers' 11. The Steelers led 13-7 at the time and were in danger of losing the lead. Ike Taylor broke up a pass to Lee Evans, forcing the Bills to settle for a field goal. I was relieved when I saw Polamalu lined up on the other side of the field when they showed the replay.

After Polamalu's interception, they showed Polamalu on the sideline, and I didn't know if he was hurt or just praying. Next time Polamalu prays on the sideline, I wish he'd use a rosary so we know he's not hurt.

The Breast

I'm going to talk about the offensive line for the "Breast" portion of my column, because most of these guys have man boobs.

Problems on the offensive line are nothing new for the Steelers. Still, I'd like to dedicate this song to Max Starks and Willie Colon, who might have been seen as part of the problem before being lost for the season with injuries.



The Steelers were poised to dominate this game. They scored a touchdown on their opening drive, taking up nearly half of the first quarter. They ate up another six minutes and ended up with a field goal to take a 10-0 lead early in the second quarter.

But the offensive line kept the Steelers from breaking the game open. Roethlisberger was sacked five times, and six holding penalties were called, four of them on left guard Chris Kemoeatu. The offensive linemen aren't talented enough to block straight up, so they have to cheat.

Steelers reject Kraig Urbik, chosen in the third round of the 2009 draft, started at right guard for the Bills. Does this mean the Steelers missed the boat on him? Or does it mean that the Bills are so bad he can start for them? All I know is Urbik never got called for holding on Sunday.

The Wishbone

This isn't a suggestion about the kind of offense the Steelers should run. It's a reference to the way Marcus Stroud and Moats yanked on Roethlisberger and twisted his knee after sacking him in the fourth quarter. This was after Roethlisberger apparently sprained his right foot in the first half.

Roethlisberger showed some major balls, and not in a women's bathroom kind of way, with his 18-yard run in the fourth quarter. The Steelers had blown a 13-0 lead and faced a third-and-17 at their own 29. On his bad foot, Roethlisberger slipped a sack and scrambled for the first down. Rashard Mendenhall then took advantage of the Steelers' regained momentum with a 22-yard run, his longest in a 151-yard day, that set up Suisham's longest field goal of the afternoon, a 48-yarder that gave the Steelers a 16-13 lead.

In Tuesday's press conference, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin seemed optimistic Roethlisberger would be able to play Sunday in Baltimore. I'm a little worried. He wore a protective boot on Tuesday and it didn't seem likely that he'd practice Wednesday. I just hope this isn't one of those injuries that's more serious than the team is letting on. Roethlisberger needs his feet more than most quarterbacks.

Leftovers

Did James Harrison rough Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick? Probably. But he didn't lead with the crown of his helmet, and at the very least there should have been an offsetting penalty on Fitzpatrick's beard. ... So there's no way the Steelers can win in Baltimore after their performance Sunday in Buffalo, right? Well, things change from week to week in the NFL. Let's hope the Steelers got a wakeup call on Sunday.