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So you thought the Steelers looked bad a week ago against the New England Patriots. They were merely one of a number of teams that looked wretched on opening weekend.
The Chicago Bears also did not score a touchdown. Four other teams scored just one offensive touchdown, including the Green Bay Packers and their star quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The Packers and Bears were chosen to play the first game of the NFL’s 100th season because of their histories. But the
NFL didn’t know they were going to mimic what the game looked like 100 years ago. The 13 combined points by the Bears and Packers were one less than the total scored in the first NFL game.
On Oct. 3, 1920, it what was known then as the American Professional Football association (it was renamed the NFL in 1922), the Dayton Triangles beat the Columbus Panhandles, 14-0.
The NFL of today is much more
offensive, though you might have had a hard time telling if you tuned in to watch either of the national telecasts on NBC last week.
NFL games early in the season often don’t resemble games that take place in the final three months of the season, and there’s a good reason for that. Coaches don’t want to expose their star players to unnecessary hits and possible injury in games that don’t count.
The results are mistaken-ridden games in September that fans have a hard time watching. On a night the Patriots raised their sixth Super Bowl banner, the game did a 14.8 Nielsen rating, which is significantly down from the previous two Steelers-Patriots games that were Sunday late afternoon games. The 2018 game at Heinz Field did a 16.5 and the 2017 game did a 17.0. Both were close games that came down to the final minutes of the fourth quarter.
The Bears and Packers did much better with a 15.3 rating Thursday night. The game was the highest-rated NFL Kickoff game since 2016 and was up 14 percent over the one last year.
Not that it was a wellplayed game. There were 20 penalties accepted for 178 yards. There were 17 punts, and spectators went 2½ quarters without witnessing a point being scored.
“There certainly is a shift in the limited number of plays guys are getting [in the preseason],” said Seattle coach Pete Carroll, whose team visits the Steelers Sunday after an uninspiring victory in its opener against the Cincinnati Bengals. “You can see it around the league. It definitely affects the early performances.
“How do we react to it? We just do what we do. We’re trying to figure out the right way to get our guys ready so we can come out and play well. Some of that is to keep guys healthy. That’s part of it. It’s kind of a new trend. We’re just trying to get right. We didn’t
play the type of game we wanted to play in the opener. I don’t attribute it to what happened in the preseason, but it’s in question now.”
A second preseason
September is becoming known as the second preseason in the NFL because so many players are held out of preseason games or get limited snaps when they participate.
When the current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2020 season there is momentum for the NFL and NFLPA to come to an agreement on a revamped preseason schedule. The new-look preseason would feature two preseason games and possibly one or two controlled scrimmages against other teams.
The controlled scrimmages would allow coaches to protect their star players. Quarterback would be off limits to defenders. and other aspects of the scrimmage could be amended to protect players from injury.
The league is expected to expand the playoffs, which will more than make up for the lost revenue of preseason games.
Steelers offensive lineman David DeCastro likes the idea of having only two preseason games, but he hates the idea of scrimmaging other teams.
“I think the controlled scrimmages are really stupid,” DeCastro said. “The [joint] practices, it’s one of the dumbest things we do.
All people do is they fight each other. There are no penalties, no fines. People don’t want to be there. They start acting up and getting in fights. It gets them out of practice. They don’t care about the guys across from them. I think two preseason games are fine.”
But as players and coaches get used to the trend of starters resting during the preseason there is an acknowledgement that slow starts are sometimes inevitable.
Ben Roethlisberger has been one of the most prolific and most consistent quarterbacks in the NFL over the past decade, but he is almost never sharp opening weekend.
Roethlisberger was 27 for 47 for 276 yards with no touchdowns and one interception against the Patriots. He finished with a 65.9 quarterback rating. Since 2011, the first year of the current CBA, Roethlisberger has posted five quarterback ratings of 80.0 or lower in nine opening week games.
Last year. he threw three interceptions in a tie against Cleveland. He also threw three interceptions in a 35-7 loss to Baltimore in 2011. Overall, in the past nine Week 1 games, Roethlisberger has thrown 11 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. The Steelers are 35-1 in those openers.
The Steelers have taken a conservative approach with Roethlisberger during preseason games. He has played in only one preseason game for the past several years. This year, in the third week of preseason games, he played 20 snaps against Tennessee.
In a season in which the Steelers are breaking in a new starting receiver in Donte Moncrief and a rookie in Diontae Johnson, it’s easy to see how the offense might be a work in progress in September. Practice is one thing, but there is no substitute for ingame experience in real NFL games.
“You’re always hopefully getting better as the season goes because you’re getting more games in,” Roethlisberger said. “You’re getting a better understanding of each other whether it’s new guys or young guys. Typically, you’re always improving as the season goes on. Does that have anything to do with the preseason? There are a lot of teams that didn’t play anyone in the preseason, and they won games on Sunday. So I don’t know what that has to do with us. For us, we’ll just continue to get better.”
For the Steelers, it’s not just the offense that’s trying get over a bad performance. Defensive coordinator Keith Butler said all three New England touchdowns came on blown assignments that were attributed to breakdowns in communication.
Butler acknowledged injuries during the preseason, and the decision to hold players out of games contributes to the mistakes his players made against the Patriots.
“You have to dadgum practice,” Butler said. “Practice is important in training camp. As a coach, you have to weigh the plusses and the minuses of who you put out and how much you put them out there in training camp just to make sure they can play a 16game schedule. A 16-game schedule is a long freaking season, man. What it does to your body and stuff like that. It is hard to dadgum make it through those 16
games and then go to the playoffs. You hope you play 20 games. That is what you’re are hoping, or 19 if you get a bye in the playoffs.
“You have to do what you have to do, and sometimes those guys that are young guys, first and second year and maybe third year, you can’t afford for them to miss time in the communication arena. And that happens. Does that happen every year? Probably so to a certain extent. For the most part, we are going to try to do what we do best and that is get after people and try to eliminate some of the thinking.”
Steelers defenders played a bit more than the offensive starters in the preseason, but the opener was the first game for cornerback Joe Haden, who missed most of the preseason with an ankle injury.
Haden doesn’t mind dealing with some early season hiccups if that means the team’s best players enter the season healthy.
“Anytime you line up and the ball is snapped it can be your last play,” Haden said. “So you’re just trying to get your main people to the regular season when the games really count. And then whatever happens, happens.”
What usually happens for the Steelers is a quick rebound after uninspired openers.
Roethlisberger usually heats up pretty quick. Last year, he threw for 452 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions in a 42-37 loss to Kansas City in Week 2. That was the start of a scintillating stretch for Roethlisberger, who threw 20 touchdowns and just three interceptions over the next eight games. The Steelers won six of those eight games.
Now, with a fan base growing tired of excuses, the pressure is on to do it again.