Grades and thoughts on the Steelers loss against the Ravens

Offense ….C -

Overall I feel the Steelers offense played well enough to win but had way too many penalties ,especially the last drive from their own 2 yard line ,when a first down could have won the game. A false start by guard Chris Kemoeatu and another by tight end Matt Spaeth forced the Steelers to have to punt from deep in their own end zone after failing to get a first down .Charlie Batch came back down to earth after his stellar
performance the week before . Batch seemed a lot less sharp with his passes and a little nervous in the pocket . He was 12 of 21 passing for only141 yards and had an interception and no touchdowns for a QB rating of only 57.8. The offense did have a long drive... driving 93 yards from their own 7 for the go ahead TD on Rashard Mendenhall's 7 yard run into the end zone . Mendenhall ran for 79 yards on 25 carries and had 2 TD runs... a workman like day against a stingy Raven's defense .The Steelers offense did not take advantage of two Raven's turnovers failing to score on either with great starting field position . Overall the offense only managed 210 total yards and that's not going to win most of the time .

Defense.....C +

The defense also played good enough to win ...but in the end gave up too many pass plays to Joe Flacco and the Ravens , giving up 256 yards passing and letting Flacco complete 24 out of 37 passes and a touchdown … The defense did come up with a couple of turnovers Ike Taylor had an interception and linebacker James Harrison forced a fumble ,recovered by linebacker Lawrence Timmons but as stated before the offense failed to take advantage of them . Timmons was once again a tackling machine leading the defense again with 13 total tackles .The Steelers defense was again great against the run giving up only 70 yards on 27 attempts for an average of only 2.6 yards a play rushing . The Steelers D only had one QB sack and that was by nose tackle Casey Hampton. Much of that was due to Flacco getting rid of his passes quickly after a short drop back in the pocket .In the end the Steelers could not stop the Ravens passing game with Flacco hitting TJ Houshmandzadeh for an 18 yard touchdown with 34 seconds left to win the game 17 to 14.

Special teams.....F

It starts with Jeff Reed his failure to make 49 and 45 yard field goals in a tough game like this is inexcusable . In a game like this every point counts and you cannot afford to miss these when playing a teams like the Ravens in a divisional game at home. Keyaron Fox called for holding on the last punt was also costly giving the Ravens the ball at the Steelers 40 on their last drive . Dan Sepulveda had another solid game punting averaging of 49.4 and a net of 45.6 on 5 punts...but I think Reed's bad performance

and Fox holding on the last punt brings this grade way down.

The Good …

Rashard Mendenhall …. He ran the ball hard and even though the yards where tough to come by ...He came through big time on the Steelers last scoring drive that gave them the lead late in the game...he had 2 Tds total and 79 yards rushing .

The Bad …

The Steelers where penalized 11 times for 88 yards ..that really hurts your chances of winning .

The Ugly …

Jeff Reed missing field goals from 49 and 45 ...although not chip shots you have to make these type of clutch kicks in big time games that points are hard to come by.

OK so its on to our bye week and the Steelers are 3-1 and getting Big Ben back ...Next game at home against the Browns ,so things are not all bad .... Hey don`t forget to spread the word about the Blog  and leave some comments .