Standard or no standard, injuries hurt.

[BlitzburghRockCity]

Standard or no standard, injuries hurt.

Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin will never admit it but the fact is that injuries do affect the outcome of games. I understand you don't want to pass the buck or place blame on anyone but yourselves but seriouly it's ok to admit that injuries do take their toll.

Perhaps it's because you then open yourself up to the criticism that you did not prepare your team well enough. Maybe you didn't draft well enough, or maybe the guys you counted on the come through just didn't have enough in crunch time to handle their responsibility.

It would be hard to blame them when you look at the number of players that Pittsburgh lost either for the entire season or for significant chunks of games.

-Aaron Smith lost for year since week 4.
-James Harrison missed 4 games with the orbital bone injury. Missed 1 game on suspension.
-Lamarr Woodley missed the remaining 8 games of the season since he injured his hamstring against the Patriots in week. Even though he returned on a limited basis against the 49ers and Broncos games he was rendered largely ineffective splitting time with Jason Worilds.
-Ryan Clark - Missed the Broncos game due to his sickle cell trait. Nobody can certainly blame him for that or Mike Tomlin for keeping him out.
-Emmanuel Sanders - missed time not only in preseason but significant amounts of time with knee and foot injuries.
-Rashard Mendenhall - Tore ACL in the final regular season game.
-Ben Roethlisberger - We all know the story of Ben, the thumb injuries, the broken foot, high ankle sprain.
-Casey Hampton - ACL injury in wildcard game in Denver.
-Chris Hoke - stinger suffered vs Jaguars, ultimately on injured reserve.
-Brett Keisel - groin injury in wildcard game in Denver
-Max Starks - ACL injury in wildcard game vs Denver.
-Maurkice Pouncey - high ankle sprain in the preseason game vs the Falcons. Was n problematic causing him to miss games or parts of games for the length of the season, ultimately taking him out of action for the post season.
-Marcus Gilbert, Doug Legursky, Chris Kemoeatu all missed atleast 2 games due to injury or in Big Juicy's case both injury and poor play.
-Mewelde Moore - Knee and ankle injuries caused him to miss 5 games, including the final 3 of the season.

When you have that much turnover, that much inconsistency on the offensive line, the linebackers, Quarterback, any key positions on the team you are going to have issues. Backup players are just that, backups. They are supposed to live up to the standard but no matter how much you want preach that they need to do so, sometimes you just don't have the horses to pull it off.

No team in the NFL has perfect depth at every position. You strive to have a complete team full of players who can step in and not miss a beat. Show me an NFL team that has that every year and I'll show you somebody's fantasy league. In the world of free agency and the salary cap, it's nearly impossible to have a roster full of players with no drop off in performance from one level to the next.

Still though the Steelers have major issues to deal with this offseason and tough decisions to make. If you're going to preach "the standard is the standard" then you better build your team as such as best you can. Forget about allegiances to older veterans, trying to get one more year out of a guy so you address another area of need, or keeping project players around that aren't panning out.

We'll dive into all these and more as the season goes a long because our standard is to discect the standard and find out why the standard isn't up to standard. :)

[Rampage]

This team was definitely hit hard by injuries this season. Every team gets a few, but this year there weren't only a lot of injuries, but injuries to big time players on this team. Heck, looking back on that Denver game, they did us a favor by winning. This team, err, I mean this team's backups would have been slaughtered by New England.

[Scorp]

Don't use these injuries as an excuse. Steelers still had their chances to win and if it was Ben or Bruce or whoever then so be it but even the blame game doesn't change a thing. Steelers shouldn't be afraid to make changes so they can be the threat they were either in the 70's or in 08. There's always room for improvements.

[coldrolled]

This team was definitely hit hard by injuries this season. Every team gets a few, but this year there weren't only a lot of injuries, but injuries to big time players on this team. Heck, looking back on that Denver game, they did us a favor by winning. This team, err, I mean this team's backups would have been slaughtered by New England.

I still say they played the broncos like they knew the pats game was a loss coming.

They were beaten up over the last 5 weeks.

[BlacknGold Bleeder]

It's not a fact of playing a blame game it's the simple truth !! We had an extraordinary amount of injuries to starters.Is that an excuse,it could be if your looking for one,but I have not heard that being used as the reason we lost. They lost this game because they played piss poor,just like the SB last year.I would rather they play at top of game and lose then see a shitty performance.
In the one and done format that the playoffs are ,no team can play a bad game!!

[BlitzburghRockCity]

The Steelers lost because they didn't make the necessary plays when they needed too. That in part is due to injuries, also to game planning, player execution, and clock management. You win and lose as a team.

That being said if anybody is going to sit here and say that if Woodley and Harrison were healthy like last year, if Ben doesn't have the bad ankle, if the defensive line isn't decimated by injuries and the offensive line could keep the same 5 guys on the field all the time that things wouldn't be different, then you're out of your mind. Nobody can predict the future but the fact is the Steelers couldn't overcome their injuries. You also have to look at the lack of depth like I mentioned in the first post. You have to have guys that can step up and lets face it many of the backups we saw this year were the same guys that couldn't play last year or the year before. Sure at times they looked ok, better even, but in the end the same issues that haunted them before still bit them.

[LatrobePA]

I'm just gonna throw this out there to see if it sticks:

Maybe if Tomlin made ALL the players practice and not give days off to the vets we could of weeded some of the pu**ies out in camp and or practice??

Just thinking!

[Nolrog]

I wonder how many of these injuries are related to the hold out and lack of mini-camps and what not (and lack of off-season conditioning by some.)

The 3 ACLs, those guys will be out much of next year (if they are all torn, which it seems like.) It's 8-10 months to heal from that surgery, which puts us into October or there abouts.

[BlitzburghRockCity]

Injuries earlier in the year can definitely be attributed in some way to the lockout. Players work out on their own and try to stay in shape but inevitably unless you're out there doing it in the offseason in OTA's and working out at your team facility or atleast with an NFL quality trainer, you are usually more liable to pick up the hamstring, twisted ankles, and other various training camp injuries.

Sometimes though like what happened in the last game, it's just stupid luck to see 3 players go out with significant injuries. If you aren't in shape by the playoffs you're never going to be.