Depressing to do this again but a collection of Steelers' offensive plays Sunday night that were plain broken. Nothing to do with scheme or concept. Just fundamental breakdowns that ruined plays. Happened far too often this year.
Sad thread incoming... #Steelers
Second snap of the game. Feels like Harris ran the wrong way. Roethlisberger turns expecting Harris to run to his left (defense's right). Has to switch ball to left hand to get exchange off.
MIKE 'backer unblocked, Harris forced to bounce. Goes nowhere.
Next drive. Zone run left side. Miscommunication between Hassenauer (C) and Leglue (LG). Who is staying on the 1st level block, who is climbing to LB. Both come off and climb. DT left unblocked and Harris has no crease.
Run dead in the water.
3rd down. Ben changes play. Freiermuth doesn't get correct signal and runs wrong route. Just gets locked up on the CB. Roethlisberger wants him on the out. Incomplete, punt.
Another third down. Roethlisberger wants Johnson vertical. Throws into double coverage (safety shallow but don't get the throw here) and Johnson breaks off his route. Doesn't think ball is coming to him. Incomplete, #18 throws up his hands.
Confusion between Turner and Hassenauer over the protection. Turner expecting Hassenauer to slide to him. Hassenauer slides away. 1T runs in free to sack Ben.
Turner/Hassenauer stare at each other.
Remember that weird-looking handoff to Najee? This is what happened. RPO. Ben wants JuJu to run the slant but JuJu settles on a curl. So Roethlisberger tries to hand the ball back to Harris, who isn't expecting it.
Ben motions to JuJu to run the slant post-play.
Last one I'll show. Simple mesh concept. Confusion between JuJu and Washington. Feels like both thought the other would set the mesh and they would run under.
Narrowly avoid colliding with each other and Ben's pass is almost picked.
Had a similar thread after the Bengals blowout loss. Number of mental/assignment mistakes were off the charts this year, both sides of the ball. Lot of youth, lot of guys stepping up into prominent roles. But so many plays were wasted by unfundamental football.
Talent, scheme, nothing else matters when you can't carry about basic assignments. I'd guess a solid 10% of the offense's plays this year were ruined by unforced errors. That's not acceptable in a training camp practice, let alone a game.
Frustrating.
I generally put those assignment/mental mistakes on coaching. But it's playoffs and most of the guys I'm showing here played a lot of ball by this point. Largely, they've been taught these things.
JuJu bit of an exception with all the time missed. But still painful to watch.
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