The NFL Thread 2021: Los Angeles Rams Win Super Bowl LVI

[theRepublic]

Mandalore76 said:

One other thing that bugs me is this fixation on the Steelers offensive regression, but no one talks about the way in which the Mike Tomlin defensively-led Steelers has exited the post season in the Steelers last 3 playoff appearances:

2021 Playoffs
WildCard	Sun	January 16, 2022	boxscore	L		@	Kansas City Chiefs	21	42

2020 Playoffs
WildCard	Sun	January 10, 2021	boxscore	L			Cleveland Browns	37	48

2017 Playoffs
Division	Sun	January 14, 2018	boxscore	L			Jacksonville Jaguars	42	45

But sure, let's blame the offense for not averaging over 45 points per game.

I'll finish this rant by saying there are worse ways to go out then Ben (29 of 44, 215 yards, 2 TD's, 0 Ints) did last night.  Dan Marino ended his career in a 62-7 playoff loss against Jacksonville with an 11 of 25 for 95 yards with 1 TD and 2 Int's stat line.  Jacksonville led 38-0 before Marino's first completion of the game, and he ended up getting pulled from the game after 1 series in the 2nd half.  

I wasn't expecting anything good in last night's game, but the Steelers surprised me by containing Patrick Maholmes and the KC offense for over 1.5 quarters, and actually having a 7-0 lead with 6 minutes to go before halftime.  To my pleasant surprise, I got to watch almost an entire half of football before feeling like my team was out of the game.  Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there.  Even so, as badly as they got beat, the Patriots 30 point loss to Buffalo was worse.  New England didn't score a single point until they were down 26-0.  Anyway, now the Steelers will spend the rest of the postseason in the same positiion the Cleveland Browns are:

Not sure why you are so defensive of the Steelers offense.  Especially since it is responsible for at least 2 of those losses, and arguably the 3rd as well.

Let's start with the Chiefs game yesterday.  The Steelers had 39 net yards at the end of the first half.  Net 40 if you want to take out the kneel down to end the half.  You are not going to win any game playing offense like that.  After the Chiefs scored a TD on the opening drive for the 3rd quarter, and then forced a fumble and scored another TD, the game was over.  The Chiefs played prevent defense the rest of the way.  While the game was "close", the Steelers possessions ended: Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, End of Half, Fumble.  Net 38 yards on those 9 drives. The defense getting lit up by the Chiefs is nothing to be ashamed about.  Happens to a lot of teams.

Let's go to the Browns game.  All you need to know is Browns, zero turnovers, Steelers, 5 turnovers.  Steelers possessions started: Fumble, Interception, Punt, Interception, Punt, Interception.  28-0 start for the Browns.  Game was basically over at that point.  Win probability for the Browns never dropped below 85% after that point.  The second half garbage time points made it look closer than it actually was (TD with 1:09 left).  Offense lost this game too.

Finally the Jaguars game.  Another game they lost the turnover battle, this time 2 to zero.  Problem was the first interception set up a short field (18 yard line) for the Jaguars to easily go up 14-0 in the 1st quarter.  Then a Ben fumble was returned for a defensive TD to make it 28-7.  They gifted 14 points to the Jaguars in a game they lost by 3.  Although again, the final score looks a lot closer than the game actually was.  The Steelers scored two TDs right at the end of the game.  One with 2:01 left, and one with 0:01 left.  The defense only gave up 378 yards in this one.  And the Jaguars were actually the 5th highest scoring team in the league in 2017, and 6th in yards.  Not that bad a job considering the competition.  The turnovers on offense is what really did it.

If you look at the advanced statistics for the Steelers this year, the offense was bad.  Football Outsiders DVOA have them as the 25th best offense in the NFL.  ESPN FPI has them as the 27th best offense.