We know. Trust me, we know.

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Rock gets a +1 for this post.

I'm so pissed right now I want to leave a bag of flaming poo on Dom Caper's front porch then ding dong doorbell ditch his ass.

His conservative playcalling cost us the game.

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Um, let's settle down a bit.

Firstly, I have to disagree with Rock in his analysis; way too subjective and to be blunt he got it wrong. I guessed yesterday that Bell was at fault, and Leroy Butler confirmed that he was in his 5 Questions series.


Link 

Bigby, Collins, and Woodson are playing 3 deep safety. The whole emphasis of the play should be to force your guys inside, towards help. You have two of the better ball hawks in the league in Woodson and Collins , free to roam, and then you have Bigby as help, too. You force your guy inside, towards the help, and force Ben to throw into a crowd.

So in the end, Atari was doing fine, but Bell not so much so.

Bell made a mental blip, which should not be surprising considering he has had less than a month to digest Capers heavy playbook.



Capers is not at fault, IMO. People are unbelievably mad at him... which I can understand, but you can't blame Capers for having to use a 4th CB that is young and inexperienced, and also hasn't had a lot of time to understand his assignments.

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You know, with all due respect, this post is downright idiotic. I can understand the anger of losing that game, of how we should have won and everything... But you honestly shouldn't take a series alone in and of itself to come to conclusions.

Before the final drive, Big Ben carved our defense. Even saying that is an understatement.

Hell, first play of the game, Bush gets beat. Straight man coverage, 4 rushing, and we got burned. You don't think Capers is aware of this when deciding to go to Prevent?

As a DC, you put your players in position to make plays. How many times on the final drive were our players in position to make plays? A heck of a lot.

Chillar commits a penalty, wipes out an INT. Woodson can't hold on to an INT. Jenkins tries to tackle Roethlisberger high, and he can't bring him down. Tramon has a chance to INT a pass for Holmes, he drops it. That's four right there. For what it's worth, Bob McGinn lists the number of times the Packers missed ending the game on the final Steelers drive at 6. Out of 15 plays, then, McGinn counts the Packers as having been in position to close out the game 6 times.


Perhaps we should read what Capers has to say, about going to prevent.



Insider article link 


Look, you want to be mad at Capers for underestimating the inexperience his DBs had... fine. You want to blame Capers, who has coached DBs himself, for not making sure his young players knew what to do, be my guest.


To start attacking Capers for irrationally running Prevent on the final drive is to come off as engaging in nonsensical rambling.

Which, to be quite frank, a few people seem to be doing in the wake of the loss.

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Wouldn't know how to do without these pics and analysis Rock. +1 again.

Josh Bell should be our nickel back.

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another great post, +1


I have to agree with that. I know he gave up the touchdown, but I was actually pretty impressed with how well Bell played that down considering he's only a second year player and new to the team. Like other people have said, not a lot of corners are going to be able to make that play, and it looks like he should have had some help over the top (presumably Bigby judging from this post). Anyway, judging by what little I saw of Bell in this game I'd like to see him given a chance over Bush for sure.

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I agree with you. Like I stated, the call was actually quite nice, assuming it was a regular cover 3 man. There should be no way that you give up a huge TD in that case.

The only thing I put on Dom is the personnel on the field. Mainly who's rushing the passer.

But, anyway, Butler is right. Of course he is. Only problem I have is that, on the third pic, Bigby is just running into his own zone. He was defending somewhere as far back as the goalpost when that ball was thrown. What exactly was Bell supposed to lead him into? Open field? Bigby was way out of position. Had Bell done his assigned job, we'd be over here blaming Bigby for being out of position or Bell for being out of position.

Now whether Bell knew that he got not help from Bigby is a mistery. I'm guessing that he didn't, and that he just played it wrong, but for me, the blame in this one falls on Bigby. He's the one who wasn't where he should be. He's the one that forced Bell to go for the ball, anyway.

I was talking about the Green Bay vs. Pittsburgh game. You must have been watching a different one.

Not only did we have no pressure on Big Ben, we had no potential for one. I personally never mentioned the secondary, because without pass pressure, I don't expect anything but precisely what happened. 3 man rush...consisting of 3 worn-out Defensive linemen? Dom Capers can say (as can you) whatever they want, however irrational in the face of the obvious evidence. I know what I saw. Maybe at some point when we are all sitting on our couch in the off-season, someone will bother to go back and analyze just how effective our #2 on paper defense was when we rushed 3. I already know the answer.

Great analysis and screen caps.

You should add another screen capture showing Jolly after he beat his blocker and was practically dragged down by his jersey from behind, trying to get to Ben.

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Bigby being as far as the goalpost can't be right.... three deep safety calls for three safties on the goal line.


As for Bigby running into his zone, it's his job to read an react. It might be the case that once he saw Wallace heading towards the sideline, he decided to cheat by sliding over into Collins area.

You do raise an interesting point, and Bigby may very well have been out of position. But then again, he may have been out of position because he saw Bell forcing his guy outside, and so he decided to creep over to the side with that had more receivers emerging.

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