The title “My Worthless 2 Cents” that I came up with isn’t one I feel I can take full credit for, but is a story in itself, so here it is. I was in the 8th grade at the time, and found myself tagging along with my older sister (a senior in high school), as she was a part of the high school theatre group who would work as ushers for local community theatre productions. Working as an usher at a production of “Harvey”, the dad for one of my baseball friends came up to me at intermission and handed me two pennies and asked me to go back to the dressing area and find the lead actor in the play. I was to give him the pennies and tell him “this is from the guy with the big nostrils, giving you his two cents worth”. I thought this was funny so I agreed to do it, especially since I knew the two were friends. I go to the dressing room and deliver the message and the “gift”. The response I was given was even better. The actor told me to return the pennies and I was to “tell the guy with the big nostrils to take his worthless 2 cents and shove the right up those big nostrils”. So that’s it. This is my 2 cents after sitting on the latest Steelers game for a bit. You might tell me to take my worthless two cents and shove them up my nostrils, and that’s okay, because we are friends and I don’t look at it as personal.

I am going to break things down into three categories: One, something I feel stronger about. Two, something I have softened on a bit. Three, something that didn’t really change.

SOMETHING I FEEL STRONGER ABOUT

Playing/Coaching in our fears. I don’t care what Mike Tomlin said in his post-game press conference. What we saw on the field for players and coaches who were playing in their fears and coaching in their fears. Kenny Pickett not only was playing in his fears, but looked fearful while playing. But nothing exemplifies coaching in your fears more than what we saw in this game. We all know that Matt Canada coaches in his fears. It’s why the offense has been so awful this year. At least I don’t have to talk about that anymore as Canada was relieved of his duties. But we also saw it on the defense during Cleveland’s last possession. The Steelers had held the Browns to less than 60 yards in the second half, by being aggressive and mixing coverages. However during the last possession it was like Kevin Stefansky knew exactly that Mike Tomlin would drop his team into cover three. He was dialing up plays to take advantage of it and get the chunks of yardage that he needed to get into field goal range, and it worked. The Steelers did just as he expected, and it looked as if the Steelers were coaching to try to not lose the game and get into overtime. I hope this is not going to be a trend that we continue to see on the defensive side of the football.

SOMETHING I’VE SOFTENED ON

Elandon Roberts. I’m not sure I could really say I’ve softened on him, as I haven’t been that hard on him this year. It’s more like an unexpected surprise. I was worried about him having to see the field more. I know he’s a great run stuffer, but was curious as to if he could handle the increase in snaps on passing downs that he was going to see. Boy did he ever show up to play this week. He seemed like he was everywhere. Not only that but his tackling was some of the best tackling I’ve seen from a Steelers linebacker in the middle for quite some time. He wasn’t just tackling people he was hitting them and stopping them dead in their tracks.

SOMETHING THAT HASN’T CHANGED

The passing game is awful. The passing game has been awful the past few weeks, but there could be hope on the horizon. The Steelers will need to use the rest of this season to find out if the problem was Matt Canada, Kenny Pickett, or perhaps both. I’m hoping that as the coaching staff pieces together the offensive game plan for the rest of the season, that we at least get the opportunity to find out if Kenny Pickett can be the quarterback moving forward. I would love to say that at least the passing game can’t get worse than the 77 net passing yards the Steelers had against the Browns, but I’m afraid that it actually could. To me the big thing this week against the Bengals will be do we see some different route combinations, and do the coaches try to get Kenny more into the flow of the game when it comes to throwing the football.

There you have it. My worthless 2 cents. Maybe you liked it, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you want to tell me to shove my worthless two cents up my big nostrils. Maybe you have your own worthless 2 cents you would like to share. If so please feel free to share it in the comments below, I might look at it and tell you to shove it up your big nostrils…but that’s okay, because we are still friends.