Steelers 38 Buccaneers 13: Full Review

The Pittsburgh Steelers are now 3-0 without Ben Roethlisberger after defeating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. I'm happy because of this because 75% of the teams that start 3-0 in the NFL make the playoffs. Not to mention that this team will still have a huge upgrade on offense Ben Roethlisberger comes back. That being said here's my breakdown of the game.

Charlie Batch: The Slumlord did an okay job yesterday. I'm not going to give him an A like some of the overreacting critics because he did not give n A effort. Batch's first pass of the game was a horrible interception that gave the Buccaneers an easy field goal to go up 3-0. Batch threw 3 tochdowns, but two of them should have been picked.


He had 2 TD passes to Mike Wallace, the first one was under thrown that the safety(who was a white guy filling in for the suspended Tanard Jackson) made a terrible play on the ball and the other was under thrown and got a lucky tip for a TD .So he could have had or should have had atleast 3 or 4 Ints in this game.
Take away the 2 TD passes and he was 10-15 for  99 yards and 2 Ints.Thats under 5 yards a completion.

However, Batch did get the win, and played a lot better then Dennis Dixon which didn't surprise me. So I'll give Batch a B- for his contributions.

The Running Game- Rashard Mendenhall  is running like he has something to prove, maybe critics and his haters. So far he has started three games this season and has topped 100 yards in two of them, including 143 against the Bucs on Sunday. Unlike Fast Willie Parker, Mendenhall seems to run with consistency, not getting most of his yards on one big run. He also has yet to lose a fumble. His ball security this season is much improved and he looks more like the back the Steelers expected in the 2008 draft.

The Steelers finished with 201 yards on 32 carries as a team, good for an average of 6.3 yards per. Isaac Redman chipped in at fullback and carrying the ball with 6 carries for 31 yards. Batch also had a qb scramble for 24 yards. More importantly the Steelers picked up 10 first downs on runs. Running game gets an A+

Offensive line: I thought the offensive line had a great day in both pass and run blocking. Zero sacks allowed and averaging 6.3 yards on the grown? Yes please!  Doug Legursky looked good at right guard filling in for Trai Essex. Flozzell Adams, from what I remember had zero penalties. All in all, I'll give the unit an A for the day, although I'm going to re-watch the game again for further review.

The O-line as a "whole" did a very solid job against a stingy 4-3 Tampa Defense, but don't let that game fool you with the O-line either. Their biggest test comes this week with the Baltimore Ravens 3-4 scheme and Haloti Ngata.

Defense: They completely shut down the run as usual and got a quarterback benched for a second straight week. That's just awesome. More importantly this defense is more intimidating and more opportunistic. Last year the Steelers couldn't force a big turnover to save their lives, this year they can't stop it.

So far they've forced nine fumbles (recovering six) and picked off six passes. That's 12 turnovers in three games. When you win the turnover battle, you usually win the game. Also the turnovers aren't just coming from the same two for three players. This week Ryan Clark got a huge(kind of lucky) fumble recovery that gave the Steelers great field position. Also, by far the most awesome play of the game was Brett Keisel's interception return for the touchdown.

A few extra thoughts:
Why is Antwaan Randle-El still getting so much playing time?  Why is Antwaan Randle-El still returning punts? Shouldn't Antonio Brown get some more chances?

Where are the Bruce Arians haters? Face the fact that he called a good game yesterday.. He mixed the pass and run very effectively and kept Tampa Bay off balance. His effective use of the deep ball sprung the sturdy Mendenhall. Once he gets his quarterback back, the offense will be this effective every game.

Maybe Max Starks is underrated after all. He didn't take a penalty or allow a sack.

Bottom Line:
All in all it was another great effort by the black and gold who are now 3-0, despite the fact that their best offensive player has yet to take the field. Next week, the Steelers welcome the much loved Baltimore Ravens, who are 2-1, thanks to a 24-17 win over the Cleveland Browns, who are 0-3. It's going to be the toughest test of the season. Since 2004, the Steelers are 0-4 against the Ravens when Big Ben doesn't start. Just saying.