Ask a Steelers Fan

You have to imagine, this is a city that had Jerome Bettis. Not only that, we loved Jerome. The steelers are known for smash mouth football. The fans prefer smash mouth football. Since Jerome left, the smash in our football left also. Since then we have struggled in short yardage situations and milking the clock when we have a lead. So there has been a search for who can take up that role on our offense. Now enter Issac Redman. Last year as a rookie, he was the only back to score a touchdown on our goal line drills in training camp against the first team defense. And he not only did it once he did several times. Having a great camp culminating into the absolute destruction of the panthers in Week 4 of the preseason, Redman was subsequently cut from the team and placed on the practice squad. The coach sited conditioning reasons and putting a return specialist on the team.

Now this year has been more of the same from redman except he is in much better football shape. He has now made the team, so we are all excited about what he will do in the regular season. If he is the cure to our short yardage problems I believe they will build a statue of redman in pittsburgh.

is the 3rd string QB

I think we finish top in our division, with a 12-4 record. Reasoning is:
The Ravens are a good squad but their D the first 6 weeks will be very hurt by the loss of Ed Reed and corners who finished last season as starters in their top 3, that secondary will take some time. Flacco is also not a good QB yet, he is reliant on Ray Rice as his number one passing option which hurts this team greatly. They could easily however take the top spot in the division ahead of us.
The Bengals are a team that is never consistent and never will be with the circus that they run there. Ochostinko and TO are going to clash eventually and Palmer is not the same as he was pre Kimo. I don’t believe that Ced Benson will post the same success as 2009 either. The D however will remain steady.
The Browns are… well the Browns.

In terms of the NFCS, I can’t look past the Saints, returning SB champs and the best O in the league? That defense is pretty good aswell. I think we can handle the Panthers and the Bucs with ease, just on a sheer talent level. I think our 2 teams will be a great match but in the end our superior D and homefield advantage will prevail in a tight game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG-eipmRGDw&feature=related

1) Troy is looking good, he pulled up on a few hits in the preseason but you can put that down to it being preseason and him still being uncertain. Give him time and he will come back to the form he showed against Tennessee last year on opening night. The defense didn’t crumble solely due to the loss of Troy, we also lost the best 3-4 DE in the league to injury, throwing off our DL rotation. Our 2 ILB’s were both hampered, Timmons by nagging injuries and Farrior by putting on too much weight. We also lost McFadden to the Cardinals for a season forcing Willie Gay ( a great nickel back) to start, which had disastrous consequences for us.

2) The passing game is not going to win us this game, however DD might be able to. He is amazing when in open space and if our dumbass of an OC can use him properly you guys could well be in for a long night. Predicting 170yds 1TD 1INT and 60 rushing yards with 1TD. I think our Dline will not be concerned with Ryan, they will be too busy eating up 2 Olinemen each. Our OLB’s however could get very well acquainted with Ryan, Woodley is an absolute beast and the entire league knows about Harrison, don’t forget Timmons either, he may well post double digit sacks this year.

3) Unfortunately for Dwyer he is the victim of a suddenly deep RB core. Mendenhall is a beast and should destroy some LB’s this year. We have Mwelde Moore as our 3rd down back, a job that he is incredible at. And then there are Redman and Dwyer, competing for a hat on gameday and goaline carries. He has looked poor to start with, coming in overweight and getting injured early on don’t help. He has looked nice running the ball but his catching and blitz pickup are both suspect, don’t expect to see much of him soon.

4) I stated my opinions above about this. Wallace is looking really good, and could become a true superstar this year. He is running his routes as well as Santonio did and his speed is amazing to watch, every QB underthrows him by a good 5 yards. His hands and YAC are not quite at Bluntonio’s level but the rest of it is looking bright for him. Worth noting are Antwan Randel-El and Emmanuel Sanders, ARE because if he is in the backfield with Dixon you could get burned 5 different ways, and Sanders because he has looked good as a rookie and could get some looks in our Trips set that we often use. Oh and Antonio Brown, mainly on punt and kick returns, he beat out Stefan Logan for the spot and will likely make a play or two this season.

Essay over?

with the rookie center than it was with the vet. You can see a difference. Pouncey is more athletic and has more talent than hartwig does period. We thank Justin for his services over the last two years but its time to move on. Flozell has gotten a lot better and will continue to do so over the course of the season we believe. Him moving to RT is a good thing, they say he has trouble hearing in his right ear, so at RT he has to use his left to hear the snap count. He only has 2 false starts in the 4 preseason games. We hope to see more of the same during the regular season.

I believe the run blocking will be improved. The pass blocking remains to be seen, Essex the RG is the weak link in the line, we’re already campaigning for Pouncey’s brother for the RG spot next year. But to note, when dixon started last year there was only one sack. So Dixon has shown to be able to avoid the rush when given a chance. I doubt you get many sacks especially with the lack of pass rushers, even though your line has improved, its a long way to the top and I believe that Atlanta may now have an average pass-rush as compared to an above average pass rush.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he absolutely explodes this season.

+1

Pouncey has been beasting in camp and preseason.

He’s been lighting it up against our Pro Bowl starting nose tackle. There isn’t a center in the league (aside from Saturday, and maybe Incognito) that can do that.

Just FYI…

Hes a dual threat quarterback with that unknown factor. Hes new. Hes unknown. Not as physically gifted or explosive as Vick once was, but hes definitely far beyond the average in terms of speed, agility and elusiveness that your ordinary quarterback. Plus, he plays with a huge level of confidence. He legitimately loves this game and comes across as one of those players who would play for free.

The only thing is, he has to have an accurate, powerful arm as well.

If a QB is a threat to run every play, but doesn’t have an exceptionally strong arm, safeties can hold routes for 3 seconds, and then converge on the LoS to help contain the running QB. If he doesn’t have an arm, 3 seconds is all the D needs to keep coverage, because his receivers will be out of his range.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Vick had a cannon for an arm way back when, but he had/has no control and even less accuracy. Take away his ability to throw, and all you need to do is prevent him lighting off huge runs.

I shall tell you 2nd Quarter on Sunday : )

can handle teams #1 WR. They will probably let Troy just roam, he won’t have anyone one particular assignment the whole game. I would guess of Troy doesn’t cover the TE it will be Timmons, who is super fast and is a good tackler.

Very good point on the second stanza. Dixon problem is that he doesn’t hit the deep routes or doesn’t even see them. He also doesn’t make the right read and take off running. We’ll see how this plays out.

I would say thats the way to go too, bunch of blitzes and hope that they don’t let Wallace run a fly route because he can run pas the corner and the safety.

I wouldn’t expect much running, the steelers defense is always good against the run even last year.