The Steelers Are Developing A Bad Habit

Ben Fumbles

      The Pittsburgh Steelers are getting into the habit of losing. Five turnovers, two of them returned for touchdowns, doomed the Steelers to a 40-23 loss to the Chicago Bears. The 0-3 Steelers will head to Europe and play against the 0-3 Minnesota Vikings to try to avoid becoming the franchise's first team in 45 years to lose their first four games.

       "We have to do a better job taking care of the football, period," said Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, whose team has lost nine turnovers in three games this season and the defense hasn't gotten one turnover. It is the first time the Pittsburgh Steelers have lost their first three games since 2000. It was nice to see Heath Miller back in action.

        The 0-3 start, never experienced by any of them here, had some players groping for ways to describe it. "It's a deep hole," Roethlisberger said. "It's getting deeper, but we're not going to quit." "We need to make something happen here quickly," defensive captain Ryan Clark said. "It's hard, it's frustrating, it's all those words," said another defensive captain, Brett Keisel. "This team is not going to lay down and roll over."

       Although Ben Roethlisberger completed 26 of 41 for 406 yards and Antonio Brown caught nine passes for a career-high 196 yards and two touchdown, the turnovers killed them. Tomlin has a big job ahead of him, perhaps his biggest since taking the job in 2007. Part of that is to keep his winless team focused on their jobs."I'm not going to pat them on the back for sticking together, for continuing to work or for being mentally tough," Tomlin said. "I expect them to, and that's what I just told them in there."

1 Half Is Better Than None!

I know we're in the Super Bowl. And as a Steelers fan I should be ecstatic. I know Ben Roethlisberger made a terrific play to pick up the 1st down that iced the game for the Steelers in the final 2 minutes. But, the Steelers only played one good half. The Pittsburgh Steelers played like Super Bowl champs in the 1st half to lead the New York Jets 24-3. But, as the 2nd quarter ended the defense allowed the Jets to march down the field with sloppy play, poor tackling and stupid penalties. Right then I felt that those 3 points shifted the momentum of the game. And just like Lee Corso on ESPN's College Gameday, I was saying "Not so fast my friends."

At half time people were calling my house and telling me what a total beat down the Steelers were going to put on the Jets. Even my wife whose watched every Steelers game with me this year and knows how the Steelers leave teams hanging around and make every game a heart attack, she was just beside herself with optimism. I had to put out the caution flag to preserve my own sanity. "Don't you remember the lousy 1st half we played against the Baltimore Ravens?", I asked. "And didn't we play an awesome 2nd half to beat them?" Could it happen to the Steelers?

Well no on expected the Jets to do the same thing to us, but maybe the Jets. The Steelers came out flat on defense in the 2nd half. It was like we knew we won and just wanted to let the time run out, not have any turnovers and move on to the Super Bowl. The only thing was, there was too much time left to waste! A lot can happen in a half with a team as desperate as you are to win a championship. If we could make adjustments to turn the game around against Baltimore, so could they. And they almost did!

In The NFC championship game we saw the Green Bay Packers only play half a game with the Chicago Bears and almost let a 3rd string quarterback beat them. Let's hope the Steelers have a better half than the Packers do in Super Bowl XLV. And why not play two good halves? That might give us our 7th Lombardi trophy. Go Steelers!