Pittsburgh Steelers Week 8 Recap:
Terrible Towels, Officiating and Gameplay!
OH MY!

The Steelers & the Jaguars have played 28 times. Jacksonville Jaguars lead series 15-13-0. The Steelers had a chance to tie the series 14 even with a win today but, the Jags had something else in mind.Before the game even started we had some fan made drama. Trevor Lawrence was asked about the Pittsburgh Steelers organization and about his first time playing in Pittsburgh.

“I'm excited",  Lawrence said at his Thursday media availability. "Definitely one to check off the list, playing in cool stadiums, history places, and obviously Pittsburgh — [the] whole organization has an aura around it that's really cool. You always know what kind of team Pittsburgh is going to have each year — physical, great defense, and their offense is playing really well."
 

A reporter had asked Trevor Lawrence if he knew all about the signature Terrible Towels where he then called them, “The little yellow towels”. You already know Steeler Nation went crazy over that. This is because we are very proud of those little yellow towels. The Terrible Towel has been a staple for Steelers fans since 1976 when it first made an appearance in Super Bowl X against the
Cowboys. The Terrible Towel has even become one of the longest standing football traditions.

The Pittsburgh fans and players don’t take well to disrespect of the terrible towel. To that point, we have a HEATED RIVALRY with the Tennessee Titans that will probably last forever because they had players stomp on the terrible towel during a game a couple years ago. I understand fans being furious at that disrespect but, being mad at Trevor’s comments? I think that’s being a little bit of a jag off. (PUN)

Now, on to the game….and at this point, what can I seriously say that I haven’t said already. This Steelers offense is HORRENDOUS. Once again only scoring
10 points. Everyone wants to FIRE MATT CANADA (and I’m all for that) but we have to start addressing the fact it’s more than bad play calling.

The O-line is playing awful. Kenny Pickett in his second season in the league and has been playing pretty mediocre football for the majority of the year. The offense can’t get anything going running the ball which puts all the pressure on Kenny to win the game by throwing the football. Which might just be too much to ask of him currently.

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The defense is still elite and is the only thing that keeps us in any of these games. With that being said, our defense didn’t play as well as it has been playing this entire season. Granted, We kept making Jacksonville kick field goals which is obviously better than allowing touchdowns.

But no matter how many chances our defense gave the offense to help get back into the game they couldn’t. It also doesn’t help that the officiating was awful.

Now I’m not gonna be like some other writers and blame every loss my team has on the refs. I have a friend (also a writer) that always blames the refs every time his team loses a game. It’s quite embarrassing. But, this was just ridiculous.
 

The Steelers’ Keanu Neal got the worst roughing the passer call after a routine hit on Trevor Lawrence.On an early key third down, the Pittsburgh Steelers safety pressured Trevor Lawrence and made what appeared to be a routine form tackle. That was not the officials’ interpretation. They penalized Neal with an erroneous roughing the passer call. (Lawrence did complete the pass to Christian Kirk anyway,)

And the more I watch it, I’m really unsure what Neal was supposed to do differently because that is a classic football hit — exactly the way it’s taught.

It was one of many awful calls from the zebras. Even the players themselves spoke on it after the game.

Steelers WR Diontae Johnson called out the referees after Pittsburgh's  loss to Jacksonville in Week 8.

An offside call on right guard Isaac Seumalo, who was called for lining up in neutral zone, made Johnson very upset. Because of this call, it resulted in Chris Boswell’s 55-yard field goal turning into a 61-yard field goal attempt which went wide right. That field goal would’ve made all the difference because it would’ve cut the Jags lead to 3.

 

“Refs were just killing us the whole game",  Johnson said. "The same refs we had at training camp. I didn't like the refs today. At the end of the day, we can't keep complaining about the refs. Like Coach [Mike Tomlin] said, we can't worry about the refs, whatever. But everybody's different. I didn't like the refs today. They must've got paid good today or something, but they blew -- that field goal, that hurt us coming into the half. We needed that."

Diontae Johnson continued to express all of his frustrations with how inconsistent the refs were with roughing the passer calls. They didn’t call a roughing the passer call on defensive end Adam Gotsis after Kenny was hit hard during the first half.
"They was calling some stupid stuff",  Johnson said. "They should get fined for calling bad, making worse, terrible calls and stuff like that. That's how pissed I am. They cost us the game. I don't care what nobody say. They cost us the game."

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Johnson continued: "[The officials] wanted [the Jaguars] to win, bro. They was calling, everything was in their favor. They was getting every little call, but it is what it is. But we can't, like I said, I'm moving on from it. I'm ready for Thursday."

The Steelers (4-3) were called for six penalties for 52 yards, while the Jaguars were whistled for six penalties costing them 72 yards. Several times, the Steelers were flagged on crucial plays, including a defensive pass interference against James Pierre on the Jaguars first drive on third down.

Then to add injury to insult….Kenny Pickett got hurt. A rib injury that he had to leave the game with.

Overall it was an ugly loss and a bad day for the Steelers. But we have to get the ship right to face the Tennessee Titans on Thursday night football.
 

The Jags beat the Steelers 20-10
AFC NORTH STANDINGS
Ravens 6-2
Steelers 4-3
Browns 4-3
Bengals 4-3