Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Injuries catching up with the Pittsburgh Steelers, star players need to step it up

On paper the Pittsburgh Steelers look as good as any team in the entire NFL. They have pro-bowlers all over the place on defense, a few good skill players, and a two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback. That being said, the Steelers are starting to get beat up and are losing players left and right.
Before the 2010 season even started, the Steelers lost Willie Colon for the year to a torn Achilles injury. Colon was considered the Steelers best offensive linemen by most at the time and was a major loss. The Steelers then went out and signed free-agent tackle Flozell Adams. Adams has gotten adjusted to right tackle and has done a good job filling in.
Against the Miami Dolphins. the Pittsburgh Steelers then lost defensive end Aaron Smith to a torn rotator cuff. The Steelers didn't rule out a possible late season return for Smith, but he would miss most of the regular season. This was the 3rd time in the last 4 seasons that Smith suffered an injury of these proportions.
The Steelers other starting defensive end, Brett Keisel, also continues to battle nagging hamstring injuries. Keisel looks like he's going to try and tough out the injury, but the Steelers can't afford to lose any more linemen.
After a close victory over the Cincinnati Benglas, the Steelers seem to have what head coach Mike Tomlin describe as "a laundry list of injuries". Here's a list of players that are either questionable or probable for the Steeler's next game against the Patriots:
  • Heath Miller (probable) Miller has fluid in his knees as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
  • Isaac Redman (questionable) Redman suffered a concussion in Monday's game against the Bengals, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
  • Mewelde Moore (questionable) Moore suffered a concussion in the Monday night win over the Bengals, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
  • Will Allen (questionable) Allen suffered a concussion in the Monday night game against Cincinnati, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
  • Brett Keisel (questionable) Keisel suffered a hamstring during the Monday night game.

To top that list off, the Steeler's lost their starting left tackle Max Starks to a neck injury Monday night. On Wednesday, the Steelers officially placed Max Starks on injured reserve, ending his 2010 season.
Now the Steelers have their starting right and left tackles to season ending injuries. The Steelers don't have a lot of other options for their replacements. They can move Flozell Adams from right tackle to the left tackle position, which he played for over 10 seasons, or they can have young tackle Jonathan Scott fill in at left tackle for the time being. Neither option seems that great but the Steelers have to try and overcome this.
The Steelers are 6-2 and gearing up for a big showdown with the New England Patriots (6-2) Sunday night at Heinz Field. If the Steelers are going to overcome these injuries and beat the Patriots, they're going to need their star players to step up.
I'm talking about two individuals in particular: safety Troy Polamalu and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
The Steelers played without Roethlisberger for the 1st 4 games of the season this year. They banned together and went 3-1 without him. They played a team game and made some big plays to overcome not having their star quarterback.
Roethlisberger has played well since being back, but now they need him to play even better. They need Roethlisberger to play some of the best football of his career to overcome all of the deficiencies of this team. He's certainly capable of it. They need him to "take over" games and make everyone around him better.

The same thing can be said for the Steeler's star safety Troy Polamalu. Polamalu missed 11 games last year and the Steeler's looked lost without him. The secondary gave up big plays in the passing game almost weekly, and nearly everyone blamed it on Troy's absence.
Now that Troy is healthy, he needs to be the hero of this defense. Polamalu needs to play the best football he is capable of playing. Ed Reed, who is often Troy's counterpart for being considered the best safety in football, already has 3 interception in the 4 games he's been back.
Polamalu hasn't had an interception since week 2 and hasn't been playing anywhere near the level that he's capable of playing. That has to change immediately.
Despite the list of injuries, if these two players step their games up and play the at their highest level of football from hear on out, the Steelers will still very much be contenders. If that happens the rest of the team will band together and this season can still be a great one. The Steelers just need to go back to 2008, when they thought of themselves as a "band of brothers".

5 comments:

  1. gostkowski is done for the year as well. cancels out though when you think of reed's six misses so far this year.

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  2. So who'd you steal this article from?

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  3. I stole it from bleacher report. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/514765-injuries-starting-to-pile-up-for-the-pittsburgh-steelersj

    I also got paid for it sko pens

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  4. So how do you feel about the articles you got paid for that you stole from another blog? Just because you are not a good writer doesn't mean you have the right to brag about how good you are because you can steal other people's hard work and talents. They work their asses off, you steal articles. That's it. You never even had the balls to post what you did on facebook like you do EVERY OTHER FUCKING ARTICLE YOU WRITE.

    You ran away like a pussy little bitch because you didn't want anyone to know you suck and copied an article. You'll never make it as a writer because you can never escape that you did that. No legit news source will hire you because it kills their legitimacy.

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  5. Actually I did apologize on facebook and on postgameheros.com and on here. The apology is on here. I resigned from bleacher report.com and stopped posting for a while. Since then postgameheroes.com has took the story down and I've actually been in constant contact with them on a weekly basis talking about the Steelers through emails. I was a borderline alcoholic going through some dark times.

    I've changed mentally and spiritually since then. Joining a church, donating to charity ect.. I feel really bad for what I did and have to live with it. I will never do anything like that again.

    As for the money that I maid from the barstool days, as soon as I get my check I'm donating it to my friend Marissa's charity, the St. Jude foundation.

    I'm also doing very good in school and will be attending Point Park university in 2012. I wish no ill/will towards you.

    ReplyDelete