Steelers penalties
Steelers penalties
There was a lot to like about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ first preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. Whether you’re a fan of QB Will Howard or QB Drew Allar (or just a fan of the Steelers), you’re likely pleased with the quarterback play. However, not everything was rosy in Pittsburgh on Thursday night. One of the biggest issues was the penalties.
The Steelers finished the night with 11 penalties for 134 yards. That’s bad. The Packers committed nine penalties as well, so the refs weren’t exclusively picking on the Steelers. It’s troubling after head coach Mike McCarthy recently spoke about his displeasure with the offense’s pre-snap penalties earlier in the week.
Two-time Super Bowl champion and former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger wasn’t thrilled with the penalty problems Thursday, either.
“We saw the penalties,” Roethlisberger said Friday night on his Footbahlin podcast. “Now, the next question is, is it going to get resolved?… Are you gonna be in trouble for it? Or is it just gonna be like, ‘Hey, guys, let’s, let’s try not to do that again.’ Let’s see where it goes, because we can’t keep being a highly penalized football team and want to be a Super Bowl contender.”
The first half was the worst for the Steelers. They were penalized seven times for 85 yards before halftime. Team president Art Rooney II joined KDKA’s broadcast, and he seemed displeased. He expressed his frustration with the number of penalties and even the nature of some of them. He commented specifically after LB Cole Holcomb’s late hit and CB Doneiko Slaughter’s unnecessary roughness penalty.
It wasn’t just the defense, either. OL Troy Fauntau, making his first NFL start at left tackle after playing right tackle last season, struggled with penalties. He even wiped out RB Lew Nichols’ touchdown with a penalty. He’s aware of the work he needs to do to clean that up, which is good.
However, the Steelers cannot afford to keep making mistakes. Something has to change to prevent the defense from giving away free yards or the offense from losing yards (or even points). Roethlisberger pumped the brakes on freaking out, though. For the moment, anyway.
“We’re not gonna panic on it right now,” Roethlisberger said. “But what I don’t wanna see is double-digit penalties every week. You can’t do that.”
It’s only the first preseason game. Everyone is getting back into the swing of actual football, so rough patches are understandable. If it’s still occurring weeks into the regular season, though, the Steelers will have a problem on their hands.