Turning The Corner: Where The Steelers Go From Here

Okay. Everyone take a deep breath.

First, the positive. The Steelers are still alive in the division courtesy of Cincinnati's unthinkable loss to the lowly Oakland Raiders. Cincinnati still faces Minnesota and San Diego, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility for them to lose two more games. If the Raiders can beat them, maybe the Jets can too.

Now, the negative. The Steelers cannot afford another loss, particularly next week against division rival Baltimore. The loser of that game can start checking out January tee times. The winner will duke it out with the Bengals and the rest of the AFC's playoff contenders for one of the remaining playoff spots.

Now that we have everything laid out, let's look at the schedule that remains.

The Steelers play in Baltimore, at home against Oakland, at Cleveland, home for Green Bay and Baltimore again, and then back out on the road to finish against Miami.

Of those teams, only Green Bay has a winning record this season. Baltimore is always hazardous to Pittsburgh. Miami is dangerous too. Cleveland and Oakland are bad, but both teams would love to knock the Steelers out of the playoffs, so they can't be ignored either.

In short, the Steelers' margin for error is now razor thin.

The Steelers had what can only be called a team loss on Sunday. Every phase failed to execute at critical points and there were even some poor coaching decisions that contributed.

Therefore, a look at the whole team is in order as we discuss how the Steelers can rebound and avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in Mike Tomlin's tenure.

Special Teams

We're going to work in order of importance. The Steelers have allowed four kickoff or punt returns for touchdowns this season. If the coverage units don't improve quickly, it will matter little what the offense or defense accomplish.

After last week's return by Bernard Scott, the Steelers parted ways with linebacker Arnold Harrison. The move was partially a message to the remaining members of the coverage units that poor performance would no longer be tolerated and could result in unemployment.

A week later, it looks like that message fell on deaf ears.

Perhaps the only quick fix that can be tried at this point is to play some of the team's starters on special teams. Rashard Mendenhall, James Harrison, and Brett Keisel are among the current starters who have played on coverage units in the past.

Maybe it's time to go back to the future. Whether its a lack of ability or lack of desire, the Steelers' coverage teams cannot adequately tackle returners and also are very poor in their pursuit tactics.

Jeff Reed is being asked to kick more directionally instead of booming kicks downfield so that the Steelers can collapse their coverage down onto one small piece of field. The problem is that they are getting there too late and are missing opportunities when they arrive.

On punts, fewer and fewer Daniel Sepulveda offerings are returnable. Sepulveda is quite the weapon, but his kicks are getting shorter because he has to kick out of bounds to prevent disaster. When he shortens his kicks to place them out of bounds, he sacrifices field position.

The kickoff returns have been far worse than the punt returns, but neither unit has distinguished itself in 2009, a year after both ranked as the league's premier units.

On the other side of special teams, the return game, the results have been unspectacular at best. The Steelers have returned one punt for a touchdown this season.

Stefan Logan's speed has not translated into many big plays, although the average starting field position is an improvement over last season.

Logan has been replaced periodically with Mike Wallace and Mewelde Moore. Neither has proved to be an improvement.

While the return teams are not as big a concern as the coverage teams, the Steelers would still benefit from being able to operate on shorter drives and also to have the occasional big return to balance out their poor coverage.

There's not much more that can be asked of Jeff Reed or Daniel Sepulveda. I don't and won't buy into the notion that Reed should be a better tackler. If a kicker or punter is responsible for making a play, ten people have failed in their responsibilities already.

Defense

For the first quarter of the season, the Steelers defense couldn't find a complete game. They needed a closer worse than their North Side counterparts, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

A few times, they needed a starter instead. Either way, they weren't playing a full 60 minutes.

Then, mystically, it seemed to fix itself. They had a lapse here or there, but they were playing great football from start to finish. No one is perfect on every play.

Last week against the Bengals, when the defense needed to rise up and make a big stop in the three point game, they bent and broke and allowed the Bengals to widen their lead with a late field goal. They also let the Bengals chew up a good portion of the clock.

Sunday against the Kansas City, the Steelers let a mediocre (at best) offense drive 62, 91, and 76 yards in the second half and overtime. The Chiefs overcame a ten point deficit and beat the Steelers.

It used to be that a seven point lead was safe in Pittsburgh. The offense would grind minutes off the clock and the defense would snuff out any hope of a rally.

Now, no lead is safe. In four losses, the Steelers have blown leads in three contests. They've also made a few of their wins a lot closer than they needed to be (remember that Chargers game where a blowout turned into a nail-biter?).

The defense has played through injuries all season, but injuries aren't their biggest problem. They are wearing down, something no Steelers defense has done since the early part of the decade. Teams aren't finding openings early, so obviously the scheme and talent is sound. It's in the second half that the problem lies.

Perhaps the most troubling schematic issue facing Pittsburgh is that Dick LeBeau pockets several blitz packages whenever his star safety, Troy Polamalu, is on the sideline nursing his balky knee.

LeBeau needs to turn the Steelers loose in the second half and let them blitz continually. When Matt Cassel was under pressure in the first half of Sunday's game, he couldn't get anything done.

In the second half, Cassel drove the Chiefs against a defense sitting back and protecting the lead.

The "prevent" defense prevents one thing: victory.

Offense

Where to start?

Statistically, the Steelers have one of the league's top units. Ben Roethlisberger is having a career passing year.

Interestingly enough, last time Roethlisberger had a career year in yardage, the Steelers finished 8-8 after a Super Bowl victory the previous season.

This year, Ben is on pace to shatter his previous totals in many categories. The problem, as always, has been sacks.

Roethlisberger has a tendency for holding the ball too long. This gives the Steelers great plays. But when the offensive line struggles as they have the last two contests, Ben has much less chance of making a play.

I'm not advocating that the coaches try to change his game. But Ben needs a lesson in "when there is no play and one isn't going to develop, it's time to throw it away."

Lately, Ben has also seemed to have trouble feeling backside pressure, which is deadly for a quarterback.

On the rushing end, things have drastically improved from early on. The biggest problem here is play (and player) selection. At first, the Steelers were running Mendenhall into the ground. Then they over-corrected.

Now they are getting there, but they aren't using him in the right situations. Everyone will point at the play in overtime as a key example. Bruce Arians, faced with a third down and two yards, in field goal range for Jeff Reed, chose to run a toss play with Mewelde Moore.

First of all, if you look at the Steelers film from the last two years, the toss play is one of the worst in their catalog of rushing plays. It rarely, regardless of the player, yields a gain and all too often yields a loss. Without calling Elias for some official statistics, I'd say its about an 80% failure rate for yards gained.

Add in that, of all three of the Steelers backs, they chose their slowest. Mewelde Moore is not an edge runner. He runs a good screen route in the flat, but he doesn't turn the corner like Willie Parker can.

So if you have to run a toss play in that situation, you should be using Parker.

But let's throw that out and take it a step further.

Why don't you have your prized stallion out there going up the gut to grind out two yards. Mendenhall has been great between the tackles and was gaining 3.8 yards per carry yesterday. The Steelers needed only two to drive further.

Instead, they lost almost three.

More than anything on offense, the play selection has been hideous. Ben Roethlisberger shows a deft ability to run the no-huddle, calling his own plays, and creating outside the pocket.

Too often, and way too often against the Chiefs, Roethlisberger was running pocket passing plays, huddling between snaps, and running Bruce Arians' offense.

Turn him loose already.

In overtime (and, for that matter, in the 4th quarter when we were tied at 17 and then 24), I would have come out in a no-huddle offense.

The common misconception is that you don't run out of the no-huddle. That's not true. You can run out of that scheme. The reasoning behind it is that you keep moving and keep the defense from substituting and getting into a groove.

Someone needs to tell Bruce Arians what his unit's strengths are fast, before we lose another game because of an inept call.

Coaching

Without beating a dead horse about the offensive play calling, I think that Mike Tomlin needs to change too.

I rarely would attempt to criticize any head coach's style or game strategy, but I think Tomlin has a flaw.

Unfortunately, the Steelers always have had this flaw. Chuck Noll's teams did it. Bill Cowher's teams raised it to an art form.

The Steelers, for whatever reason, play down to their competition.

Against good teams, Pittsburgh plays its finest football. They routinely knock off more talented or equally talented teams. It's the bad teams that they struggle most with.

On Sunday, it was more of the same. The Kansas City Chiefs were 2-7 coming in. Pittsburgh was 6-3. The Steelers offense moved the ball at will and their defense was coming off a string of excellent showings. The Chiefs were struggling on offense and defense.

But Pittsburgh let the Chiefs hang around, even allowing them to revive themselves after falling behind 17-7 at halftime.

As a result, Pittsburgh lost.

If there is one thing Mike Tomlin needs to change, it is that aspect of the team's motivation. The Steelers should have the desire to prove themselves every game instead of just rising to the occasion against good teams.

This trend is particularly alarming, as the Steelers face only one more team (Green Bay, 6-4) that currently sports a winning record. If they can't get up for games they should win, the Steelers could not only finish without a playoff appearance, but with a .500 or worse record.

The Big Picture

There's a lot of bright spots, but there are also a lot of things that need sorted out. There's a soft schedule remaining, but a lack of motivation to beat struggling teams. There's a great opportunity to win another title, but some doubt creeping in as to whether or not this team wants it badly enough.

For Pittsburgh, it's time to prove that they are defending champions, and to prove it every single week.