Niners TE Vernon Davis Must be Looking Forward to This Game

Rob Gronkowski had open space in front of him for much of the game vs. the Steelers. 

Going into the season opener in New England, we knew the secondary was a hot mess. A week later, and it's still hard to fathom how bad the Steelers' secondary was against the Patriots. They lived down to expectations, and then some.

If there was one guy you'd think they would have had a game plan for, it was Rob Gronkowski. But no-o-o-o.  By some combination of incompetence, lack of talent, lack of planning and lack of brains, the Steelers let Gronkowski romp and roam through wide swaths of open space.

The San Francisco 49ers bring a pretty talented tight end of their own in Vernon Davis to Heinz Field on Sunday. In fact, Vernon Davis is a very talented tight end. The Niners also have two wideouts familiar to Steelers' fans, and familiar not in a good way: former Ravens Anquin Bolden and Torrey Smith.

San Francisco also demonstrated in their season opener that they can run the ball, with Carlos Hyde, who racked up 163 yards rushing against Minnesota.  And quarterback Colin Kaepernick, of course, brings a multi-dimensional game that includes running speed that the Steelers just haven't seen in another quarterback.

Fix the Secondary

There is no fix in personnel coming.  At this point, it will have to be up to the Steelers coaches and players to fix the mess that the secondary has become.

Loose coverage, sloppy tackling, missed assignments, poor angles, mental miscues -- the Steelers' corners and safeties have done all of the above with alarming regularity over the course of the first four games this season.

We first saw it in the season opener at home vs. Cleveland. Dick LeBeau has always coached his guys to tackle the catch. His guys missed way too many tackles and let Cleveland receivers run free on their routes and after the catch.

Alarmingly, too, on the touchdown by Travis Benjamin, a smallish second-year speedster, he just flat-out beat Ike Taylor on a simple out route in the end zone. Fast, quick, economical moves -- nothing fancy. Benjamin just beat Taylor, who lost coverage on Benjamin and let him get open in a small space.

But then we saw almost exactly the same play, same part of the field, same result, in the Tampa game, with different players. Vincent Jackson, a tall receiver, used virtually the same route on William Gay. Same result. Gay lost coverage on Jackson and let him get open in a small space. Troy was late to the play, so he was no help and is not to be absolved.

The capper of all plays this season, of course, was the 41-yard fourth-quarter pass to Louis Murphy in Sunday's loss to the Buccaneers.  Joey Porter's Pit Bulls have watched that play over and over, and it it textbook on how NOT to play secondary. Textbook.

Every single player in the secondary screwed up. Watch it closely. You'll see. The corners drifted, seemingly expecting help from safeties who weren't there. Cortez Allen seemed to have a brain cramp for a crucial second there, when Murphy broke inside. And the safeties came up and ... and...  seemed to lose focus ... well, who knows what Mike Mitchell was thinking. He looked lost.

And then, after Murphy caught the ball, he ran free. They didn't tackle him until he meandered way downfield, to the five-yard line to be exact.

The Steelers have to fix the secondary, and fast. Like this week.  If Mike Glennon and Louis Murphy can beat in you on a comeback drive in the fourth quarter at your stadium, you're in trouble.

The Steelers are in trouble.

DaBody52

Arthur Moats ‏@dabody52  9h

It's official I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler! Definitely enjoyed my time in Buffalo & all the support that I received from the fans! Thank you!

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For some reason, Joey Porter's Pit Bulls have a good feeling about new signee Arthur Moats ("DaBody52" on Twitter). He should be a welcome addition at linebacker.  Maybe part of the reason the Steelers signed him is for help on special teams, where he was a mainstay for the Bills. Surely, however, the Steelers want to see what he can do at linebacker, where the team needs major help, whether they want to admit it or not.

Moats is not likely to provide major help immediately, but he should help. Reading the tea leaves, it appears he will play inside linebacker, mostly, at the position formerly occupied by Larry Foote, where Moats will compete with Vince Williams for playing time.  The Steelers had considerable trouble stopping the run last year. Not all of that difficulty can be ascribed to the front three; the absence of Foote hurt the run defense. Maybe Moats can help. Somebody needs to help.

Interestingly, Moats has a body type (listed at 6'0", but call it 5'10", and 250) similar to James Harrison, so maybe he plays with leverage. He had success in college as a pass rusher (the Buck Buchanon Award winner) at Division II James Madison University, which is ancient history for the 26-year-old, but still: It is not inconceivable the Steelers might try him at Jarvis Jones's spot, as a backup to Jones.

Then again, it's entirely possible Dick LeBeau will continue to expand the scheme of three safeties on the field at one time, along with two corners and three linebackers (Jones, Timmons and Worilds). The four safeties to get playing time will be Troy Polamalu, Mike Mitchell, Will Allen and Shamarko Thomas.

We expect to see more three-safety sets this year, with Shamarko playing closer to the line of scrimmage and disrupting crossing patterns.

One thing, though: There's not much height back there, or in the linebacking corps. Listed at 6'0", Mitchell's the tallest of the safeties. Who covers the tall tight ends and receivers so prevalent in the league these days?

Didn't the Steelers used to win this sort of game?

The one that got away: Charles Clay scores the winning TD
after Troy Polamalu and Cortex Allen failed to bring him down. 

Missed tackles. Blah. Blocked punt. Blah. A Ben Roethlsiberger fumble that led to a Miami touchdown. Poor clock management. Nine penalties. Dropped catches, off-target throws, sloppy play all around.

The Steelers' defense surrendered their 11th play of 50 yards or more this season, and it couldn't have come at a worse time: late in the fourth quarter, when running back Daniel Thomas broke a run for 55 yards on the decisive winning drive where Miami drove 80 yards to score with about three minutes left.

This came after another ineffective punt from Mat McBriar, who bounced one into the end zone for a net of 28 yards. That meant the Dolphins started their drive on the 20-yard line instead of backed up against their goal line.

The Steelers have had punting problems all season, and today was no different. In the first half, Miami blocked a McBriar punt and went on to score a touchdown. The Dolphins won by six points.

Center Cody Wallace played reasonably well.

On the plus side, the offensive line played reasonably well, and that includes third-string center Cody Wallace, who made his first start six seasons into his NFL career, and tackle Mike Adams.

Antonio Brown played well, although he had a drop, and almost won the game at the end had his momentum not carried him out of bounds. That would have been a play for the ages. Emmanuel Sanders had a touchdown catch among his four receptions but had a drop, too.

On defense, Jason Worilds and Cameron Heyward played well.  Also on the plus side, Mike Tomlin stayed on the sidelines.

Who's Calling the Plays?
Le'Veon Bell carried the ball only 16 times (for 63 yards), and had just one carry in the second quarter after gaining 36 yards on nine carries in the first quarter. We could ask why the Steelers didn't try to run the ball more in classic wintry conditions, especially in the second half. In fact, the question was asked of a testy Ben Roethlisberger during his post-game meeting with the media, and his response was a terse "No idea. Coach Haley's over there. You can ask him."

It was a legitimate question, though, and we hope somebody asks Haley, or Tomlin, and actually gets a meaningful answer, but that's not going to happen. Roethlisberger's response, though, just invites more speculation that there may be, and probably is, tension between Roethlisberger and Haley and provides more evidence of a disconnect between the two.

Oh, by the way, Mike Wallace caught only two passes for 19 yards and was not much of a factor. We didn't expect him to be.