Someone has to say it...

[Titansfan777]

...how do you feel we would have fared with Big Al in the game? I thought we did great on the line for alot of the game, but how do you think we would have done with him in there

[Sect309Fan]

I really don't think he would have made a difference. We stopped the run effectively, and we sacked Big Ben 4 or 5 times.

I didn't miss him at all.

[LiamVengeance]

Didnt miss him. Washington is looking silly right now as we arent noticing a difference.

EDIT: I hope Jason Jones can develop into a monster and take Haynes place solidly. He has when he's been called in and that play where Kearse got in untouched, JJ was getting blocked by the Tackle and Guard from what i remember

[Sect309Fan]

Didnt miss him. Washington is looking silly right now as we arent noticing a difference.

Washington may really be able to use him. We don't know yet. But they are still predicted to finish last in their division.

[utkjoe]

I think he would have made a difference at the end when we were only rushing 4 and getting nowhere near the QB. He would have been better at creating that push (if he was healthy, which was always iffy with him).

But for the most part our defense looks very good and we've shown we don't need him.

[titan4ever]

The D is not why we lost. They did thier job by holding Pitt to 10 points, 4 sacks, and three turnovers. It was the Os job to put more points on the board.

[TTP77]

I thought the Dline did a good job overall. We got gassed at the end when they went no huddle on us and Ben started getting rid of the ball fast. My big beef defensively was the soft play by our secondary. We were playing way off the WR IMO.

[Aceonline]

We moved the ball well. Our defense caused them to punt alot. But we couldn't get the ball past the 10 yard line. Great punt game by Pittsburgh

[Titansfan777]

I feel the defensive playcalling was getting a little too similar to last year...it was as if they still thought they could only rush the D-lineman and that would create enough pressure. We did that last year bc Big Al could help generate much more of a push up the middle and take double/triple teams...allowing our LB's to sit back and play the pass.

We cant do that anymore without him in there. I think that would have changed the outcome of the game maybe by forcing another int or another sack or two. But we still did great on the line...for 3 quarters anyway.

[Titansfan777]

The D is not why we lost. They did thier job by holding Pitt to 10 points, 4 sacks, and three turnovers. It was the Os job to put more points on the board.

Its not about that. I was just wondering how people felt AH would have affected the game.

[TTP77]

We struggled with the no huddle last year even with Albert. Pitt changed their offensive playcalling in the 4th and the D just got worn down.

[Toronto]

Its not about that. I was just wondering how people felt AH would have affected the game.

Don't think it would have mattered a ton. They only scored 13 points, he can't play special teams or kick field goals.

[MrBean]

We struggled with the no huddle last year even with Albert. Pitt changed their offensive playcalling in the 4th and the D just got worn down.

That's honestly the thing...we were getting too damn gassed with the no huddle. Albert gets gassed quicker than anyone else... he would have been even worse out there in the 4th quarter.

[Predarat]

After Bironas missed the two FGs Big Al would have got into his truck and ran over him. Heintrich would have missed the 47 yd field goal and the game would not have gone into OT and the Steelers would have won 10-7.

[TTP77]

The game probably woulda lasted longer too with more "injury" timeouts. Albert always flopped a lot when he got gassed like that lol. :lol

[Titansfan777]

The game probably woulda lasted longer too with more "injury" timeouts. Albert always flopped a lot when he got gassed like that lol. :lol

just what I was thinking :lol

[titan122]

I dont think he would have made much of a difference. There may have been a couple of times in the third or maybe even in the fourth quarter that he may have been able to get one of our other guys free to pressure big ben. but there is no way of knowing what would have happened.

Overall I thought we played verry well against the champs and the d done verry good job up until late in the game.

[Titanico]

We cannot go missing players forever. The NFL is very demanding and while Haynesworth was a disruptive force, our defense showed that is ready for any challenge.

What I really didn't like, is that we stopped pressuring Roethlisberger, that our offense couldn't work when we were behind our 10 yd. line. That we sold the game to an uncomprenhensive bunch QB dives and that, no matter that we have a good core of receivers, when Scaife got injured our offense never worked again, like if the other receivers couldn't do a lot.

More knowing that our defense was tired. Fisher should had tried ways to make Bironas pass from the villian to the hero of yesterdays game.

[JimOkc]

TTP and Bean were correct in my estimation. The thing that really hurt was not being able to rotate fresh defenders in when the Steelers started using the no huddle.

[BJShan]

I think the outcome would have been the same. Al would dominate in the first half but would often disappear completely at times during the second half. How many times did we see him off the field on 3rd downs late in the game? I know I saw it a lot. Not to mention his rampant "injuries" that were like clockwork in the 4th quarter.

[titan4ever]

Its not about that. I was just wondering how people felt AH would have affected the game.

TF777, I will give you this much; I would have love to see how the game would have played out with Big Al still here.

I believe the benifit we will get from the fourth quarter and overtime from this game is later in the year when it happens again we will blitz more. :thumbsup

[tyrant28]

i hate to say it, but to me the loss is souly on rob!! had he had made those two feild goals before hand, that would have been the six we needed to win, and this would not be an issue! yea, stewart and vandenbosch with their penalites did not help matters, but its all on rob in this one! two missed field goals , both of them from close range unexceptable!!!!

[ChrisJohnson'sdreads]

Personally I need to see more than one game to make a fair judgement. We didn't need Albert to beat the Steelers last time & the D-line did a good job again this time without him as well. The problem could be other teams. I don't know if our front four alone can get to someone like Tom Brady who has a decent O-line but we will have to see. Like I said I need to see more games.

[JimOkc]

Kimmie!

Respectfully, I disagree about Rob. I thought the first miss was the result of a bad snap. I thought Hentrich did a great job to handle that snap but as it wasn't smooth and messed up Rob's kick.

Secondly, Blocks happen. Maybe he didn't get it as high up as he would have liked but Farrior made a great timed play to get the block. Heck if you watched Reed's game winner, our guys almost had a block on that.

[TTP77]

There were definitely things that went wrong snapwise but I thought the first one we got a good hold despite the snap but Rob just pulled it. Now I think you could say the snap problem threw him off but good kickers are supposed to be able to adjust for those situations. The blocked kick he just kicked it really low but as I recall there was really good pressure by the Steelers. I don't think you can completely absolve Robbie but I wouldn't pin this loss entirely on him either.

[ChrisJohnson'sdreads]

There were definitely things that went wrong snapwise but I thought the first one we got a good hold despite the snap but Rob just pulled it. Now I think you could say the snap problem threw him off but good kickers are supposed to be able to adjust for those situations. The blocked kick he just kicked it really low but as I recall there was really good pressure by the Steelers. I don't think you can completely absolve Robbie but I wouldn't pin this loss entirely on him either.

#1 Agreed, like you said "I thought the first one we got a good hold despite the snap but Rob just pulled it. Good kickers are supposed to be able to adjust for those situations"

#2 Blocks happen

#3 I also agree you can't put it all on Rob thought the Defensive play calling late in the game was highly questionable

[TTP77]

thought the Defensive play calling late in the game was highly questionable

I have more issue with the offensive play calling...:lol

Truth is we played an excellent football team to OT and almost pulled out the upset. As Keith said we have no reason to hang our heads after this game. Yes, it's frustrating that we lost but it's not the end of the world and we all saw some good stuff from this team. Now we just need to get healthy and build on it. I do think we could upgrade our return game though. :thumbsup

[ChrisJohnson'sdreads]

I have more issue with the offensive play calling...:lol

Truth is we played an excellent football team to OT and almost pulled out the upset. As Keith said we have no reason to hang our heads after this game. Yes, it's frustrating that we lost but it's not the end of the world and we all saw some good stuff from this team. Now we just need to get healthy and build on it. I do think we could upgrade our return game though. :thumbsup

I can see where the offensive play calling was an issue as well and not having Scaife in there hurt those last couple of drives...

I believe it was BJShan that posted this over in the Good the bad & the ugly thread.

Peter King's reaction

"I'll forever wonder why Tennessee defensive coordinator Chuck Cecil called the dogs off late in the fourth quarter, with Pittsburgh driving to win. After Jevon Kearse demolished Ben Roethlisberger and left him reeling at the Tennessee 33 with six minutes left, the Steelers had a third-and-12 and were on the edge of field-goal range. One more strong rush, and the Titans could preserve a 10-7 lead and beat the Super Bowl champs. But Cecil called for a three-man rush, and Roethlisberger had enough time to throw for a 15-yard gain. A tie game soon followed, then a Steelers OT win. I can hear Tennessee fans everywhere saying this morning: "Damn pree-vent defense. All it did was prevent us from winning.''

Thats why I said defensive play calling I couldn't agree more with the above statement

[TTP77]

I already said in another thread I thought that our secondary played too far off the WR's. I think that was maybe the only bad play Griff had all night as I think he let Santonio get behind him. We still held them to 13 points. We only scored 10. Yes, missing two FG's hurt but we had other opportunities. CJ was non existent the second half basically.

[gnarl]

they played fisherball the way fisherball was meant to be played last night. except for 1 thing... penalties, im not blaming anyone for the loss...but u can't play our style and win w/ all the penalties. I think we just beat ourselves.

[ChrisJohnson'sdreads]

I already said in another thread I thought that our secondary played too far off the WR's. I think that was maybe the only bad play Griff had all night as I think he let Santonio get behind him. We still held them to 13 points. We only scored 10. Yes, missing two FG's hurt but we had other opportunities. CJ was non existent the second half basically.

Very true, I mean like I said in another thread I would like to see us go back to what we did towards the beginning of last season (depending on the game). I would like to see Lendale start and tire out the defense then bring in CJ.

[TTP77]

We didn't even use Lendale that much and I thought he was looking pretty good. We did exactly what Fisher said in his pre game interview we shouldn't do and that is abandon the run. Inexplicable

[Titanico]

CJ had a hard time because Pittsburgh has a very good defense. He wasn't given the chance to have another good or decent run, when they adjusted.

Pittsburgh's LBs are the soul of that defense.

It's still early in CJ's career, if he studies tape and learns how to adjust more times as he did on the west-east run, where he earned 32 yds., he is going to be more than fine and one of the elite RB's in this league.

When you have the ball close to your goal line, is quite a responsability for any RB. They know they don't have room for mistakes or else. he did the right thing running through the center and trying to get the best from it.

I should had done short passes to go down field. Fisher showed lot of respect to them, when he ordered the runs (him or Dinger).

[BJShan]

they played fisherball the way fisherball was meant to be played last night. except for 1 thing... penalties, im not blaming anyone for the loss...but u can't play our style and win w/ all the penalties. I think we just beat ourselves.

5 penalties in a game, especially the first of the season really isn't that bad. It seems like we generally average 7-10 in a normal game anyways. I don't think you can single out the penalties as the main reason for losing.

[Titanico]

they played fisherball the way fisherball was meant to be played last night. except for 1 thing... penalties, im not blaming anyone for the loss...but u can't play our style and win w/ all the penalties. I think we just beat ourselves.

Yes. The penalties stopped our drives.

Also, the bad snap in the first FG attempt, afected that play. On the 2nd FG bad attempt, all the credit goes to Pitt's defender. I am not sure what the wind conditions were, because in the FG that tied the game for Pitt's, their kicker also kicked very low.