NFL Divisional weekend: Eagles get tough, Steelers fall apart

Amazingly, the Pittsburgh Steelers played their worst football of the year in the Divisional round to begin their game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Steelers too often came out in empty formations as well as running screens and toss plays that played right into the Jaguars defense’s greatest strength: speed.

The Pittsburgh defense was abysmal as Leonard Fournette ripped off chunk run after chunk run, often without contact until a few yards downfield. The Steelers inside linebackers were abused in the run and pass game. Maybe resting their top starters in Week 17 and then having their bye last week had something to do with it, but the way Pittsburgh began this game was embarrassing for such a talented and proud organization. But about midway through the second quarter, Ben Roethlisberger hit a big-play touchdown to Antonio Brown and Fournette injured his ankle.

The Steelers had life, but shortly after, from yet another empty set, Roethlisberger held the ball for an eternity and Telvin Smith scooped and scored after a Yannick Ngakoue sack. But the Jaguars took a taunting penalty and gave Pittsburgh excellent field position to end the half. On fourth and 11 after a very disjointed drive, Roethlisberger hit Martavis Bryant in the end zone to make this a 14-point game at the half with the two Roethlisberger turnovers looming very large at that point.

Pittsburgh got the ball to start the half and drove down the field. Le’Veon Bell capped that drive off with an impressive touchdown catch on a wheel route and all of a sudden, we were watching a totally different game. The screen game finally began to really pay off for Pittsburgh in the second half. Fournette returned in the second half, but the Jaguars offense sputtered.

After the Steelers botched a fourth and very short opportunity, Bortles connected with Keelan Cole before Fournette quickly finished the drive to put Jacksonville up by two touchdowns. This was a big throw from Bortles to Cole, but as was the case in Philadelphia, he was hidden for much of this game with great effectiveness.

Still, Pittsburgh wasn’t dead yet. On another crucial fourth down, Roethlisberger hit Brown for a spectacular 43-yard touchdown against A.J. Bouye. Roethlisberger made some fantastic throws in this game and finished the day 37-of-58 for 469 yards with five touchdowns and a pick against a premier pass defense. But as well as he played for almost the entire game; it was Roethlisberger’s turnovers, highly-questionable coaching, and terrible Steelers defense matched against a tough-minded opponent in Jacksonville that ended Pittsburgh’s season.

The Steelers defensive game plan of playing a lot of man coverage and blitzing quite a bit was a questionable one and surprisingly, Bortles was rarely hit. Pittsburgh’s pass-rush was horrible and the Jaguars offensive linemen were the unsung heroes.

Against a predictable offense with serious questions surrounding their passing game, the soft Steelers defense allowed 38 points on their home field and really didn’t make a big play on this side of the ball. And for some reason, Pittsburgh elected to try an onside kick even though they had two timeouts and the two-minute warning down a touchdown, which put the Jaguars in field goal position by just falling on the poor onside attempt.

That was more than Pittsburgh could overcome with the horrible start they had to this game and many coaching decisions deserved to be questioned. The Jaguars deserve all the credit in the world for their resiliency, physicality and a strong game plan, but the Steelers lost this game more than Jacksonville won it.

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Two positions that Pittsburgh must address are inside linebacker and free safety. Ryan Shazier’s tragic injury obviously has a lot to do with this on the second level, but even heading into the season, there was concerns here other than Shazier. Still, Shazier’s loss was just massive and it could be argued that it cost Pittsburgh a trip to the AFC Championship game.

At free safety, Mike Mitchell not only hasn’t made big plays, but this secondary has allowed far too many deep balls. Pittsburgh needs to find a rangy playmaker for deep centerfield duties that can make up for mistakes made by the other 10 defenders. It should also be noted that even though the Steelers have recently used first-round picks on their starting outside linebackers, Pittsburgh has very little pass rush off the edge.