Week 11 - Nov 21 - Oakland

[Finnegans Wake]

28-3 and about 10 mins to go in the 4th - this is exactly the kind of game the Steelers needed after that debacle against the Patsies.  A nice confidence builder that can set the tone down the stretch.

Jonzr, you haven't been reading the boards of late.  Confidence is, like, so week 4.

OK, so we're not exactly confident, but we're not on the verge of collapse either.  So we can go back to thinking about beating the gimme teams like Buffalo and Carolina.

Problem remains those pesky teams with a pass attack, like New Orleans and New England.

One encouraging thing that I didn't expect?  Some personnel moves.  Getting the young WRs involved in what I hope is a permanent promotion over ARE, and Foster replacing Essex at RG.  Someone mentioned that Foster is sort of a Keydrick Vincent type.  Works for me.

[pensodyssey]

Problem remains those pesky teams with a pass attack, like New Orleans and New England.

One encouraging thing that I didn't expect?  Some personnel moves.  Getting the young WRs involved in what I hope is a permanent promotion over ARE, and Foster replacing Essex at RG.  Someone mentioned that Foster is sort of a Keydrick Vincent type.  Works for me.

It just seems like LeBeau is either limited by the talent level of his personnel (I'm thinking about the corners here) or just doesn't have any good ideas versus the dink/dunkers.  Hard to figure.

Also agree about Manny Sanders replacing ARE. 

[Finnegans Wake]

Problem remains those pesky teams with a pass attack, like New Orleans and New England.

One encouraging thing that I didn't expect?  Some personnel moves.  Getting the young WRs involved in what I hope is a permanent promotion over ARE, and Foster replacing Essex at RG.  Someone mentioned that Foster is sort of a Keydrick Vincent type.  Works for me.

It just seems like LeBeau is either limited by the talent level of his personnel (I'm thinking about the corners here) or just doesn't have any good ideas versus the dink/dunkers.  Hard to figure.

Also agree about Manny Sanders replacing ARE. 

I think it's just a bad schematic matchup that LeBeau has not traditionally adjusted to at all.  It would be interesting to go back and watch the 2006 and 2009 Patriots games where we did beat them pretty soundly and see what we did right as compared to the rest of the time.

[aj_law]

Problem remains those pesky teams with a pass attack, like New Orleans and New England.

One encouraging thing that I didn't expect?  Some personnel moves.  Getting the young WRs involved in what I hope is a permanent promotion over ARE, and Foster replacing Essex at RG.  Someone mentioned that Foster is sort of a Keydrick Vincent type.  Works for me.

It just seems like LeBeau is either limited by the talent level of his personnel (I'm thinking about the corners here) or just doesn't have any good ideas versus the dink/dunkers.  Hard to figure.

Also agree about Manny Sanders replacing ARE. 

I think it's just a bad schematic matchup that LeBeau has not traditionally adjusted to at all. 

Honestly, I just think it's just the recipe for beating the 3-4.  The scheme is based on deception and ability to pressure the QB.  No pressure equals easy completions.  If there's no pressure because everything is three step or five step drop, pass...well, maybe they need to consider running a different scheme?

To me, I don't know why they even bother coming out in the base set.  Seems like nickel and dime is the way to go.  Force them to hand it off 25 times.  If stopping Danny Fucking Woodknob with a buncha DBs is the alternative, I'll take my chances there.

[Merman1983]

Well we beat them in 2008 because that was the glorious year that Brady's knee exploded.