I only have myself to blame. I know better. I allowed myself
to fall victim to the moment. I invited the sweet wave of unencumbered joy to
sweep over me after what appeared to be a Xavier
Grimble touchdown reception. All the pressures and problems
of the outside world seem to fade away while you are focused on the singular
endeavor of rooting for our beloved Pittsburgh
Steelers with all of Steelers Nation. For someone like
myself who doesn’t drink alcohol or partake in some form of pharmaceutical
stress reliever, Steelers games can be a welcome distraction and a euphoric
escape.
Yesterday’s game doesn’t fall into that category however.
I have learned the hard way to never celebrate an apparent
great Steelers play prematurely. Instead I will attempt to contain my
excitement while I scan the screen for any sign of a yellow flag. It may be my
imagination, but I would swear I have watched the players in the process of
celebrating a big play only to have a flag be thrown incredibly late. Was it
stuck in the refs pocket or what? What was he thinking waiting so long to throw
the flag? It almost appears sometimes that they are allowing the play to
develop and then deciding whether or not to throw the flag. Either it’s a
penalty or it isn’t. The resulting inconsistencies are truly maddening. I feel
we can all agree, like the strike zone in baseball, we only want the game to be
called the same both ways.
The other reason I delay getting too ecstatic after any
successful Steelers play is because of instant replay. You simply can’t count
your chickens before they hatch. You have to hold in your excitement till you
have watched every angle of the replay to confirm if it was a successful play
or not. It doesn’t matter what the call was on the field, because a stadium
full of people will quickly draw their own conclusion. They will cheer or moan
their decision in a concerted effort to help the coach decide whether to
challenge the play or not.
I have been doing better this year in delaying my
celebrations in an attempt to limit my utter disappointments, but yesterday I
received a painful reminder why that is necessary and prudent.
I jumped off the coach celebrating what I thought was a Big
Ben TD pass to Grimble, but quickly realized something wasn’t right. I never
saw a ref give the touchdown signal, but he had to have scored on that play,
right? Wrong! Even though his full speed momentum did allow him to break the
pane of the goal line, he forgot the most important objective. The freaking
football. Not only did he fail to secure the ball, but to make matters worse he
fumbled out of the end zone, which results in a change of possession.
The fact that I had already celebrated the score made the
resulting disappointment seem so much worse. That single play summed up Sunday
afternoon’s game to a tee. The Steelers were able to pull defeat from the jaws
of victory. Maybe fate has a way of evening these things out, because we done
the exact opposite the week prior.
Hopefully this game won’t turn out to be a total loss, but
rather a learning tool moving forward. The Steelers should realize they are
capable of playing with anybody in the league, but that they can be their own
worst enemies. The Steelers beat themselves in Denver.
This team is still finding their identity. The upper echelon
teams know who they are and are consistently performing as such. The Saints are
the class of the league at the moment. The Rams and the Chiefs are
offensive juggernauts who are trying to learn to play a little defense, at
least enough to compete for a title. Then you have teams like the
Steelers, Chargers, Bears,
and Texans.
These teams in my opinion are still finding themselves and have yet to reveal
what they will become.
I wrote a few weeks back that I feel the Steelers have the
unique potential to develop into a punishing power offense, and I still believe
that to be true. The Steelers have cleaned up some of their penalty problems,
and up to yesterday they had improved their third down conversation percentage.
But they are still suffering from self-inflicted wounds of their own making.
Ball security has to be a priority moving forward. Dropped passes, fumbles, and
interceptions are keeping them from reaching their potential. This team is
close to being something special, but ball security can derail any team.
I also have an opportunity to learn from this game. Like
Leon Lett before me, I need to wait till we are in the end zone, and it is
confirmed by replay, to celebrate.
No comments:
Post a Comment