Ben Roethlisberger was guiding his team down the field, a chunk at a time, during an eight-minute opening drive. Just as he was about to bring the Pittsburgh Steelers into the red zone, receiver Justin Brownfumbled, short-circuiting the drive.
It was all downhill from there as the Steelers were routed by their rival Baltimore Ravens, 26-6.
"It was one thing here and one thing there," Roethlisberger said, per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I don't know if we can point to any one thing right now. They're a good defense. Don't get me wrong. But we beat ourselves."
How bad was it? Let us count the ways:
Aside from Le'Veon Bell's running, there was little positive to take away from Thursday night.
"You turn the ball over, you are highly penalized, you're extending drives. You are going to lose football games like that and we did tonight," coach Mike Tomlin said, per the team's official website. "I'm not going to accept it, they can't accept it. It happened tonight, but we've got to make the necessary corrections to move forward and make sure it doesn't happen again. These games are too precious."
The defense was atrocious again, making it six consecutive quarters it's looked more like a Satin Curtain than a Steel Curtain.
Big Ben's performance was as rotten as the defense's. He consistently missed open receivers, didn't get through reads well and looked more discombobulated than in command of the offense.
This was the sort of Steelers' offense we saw early last year, before Todd Haley allowed Roethlisberger to command it from the no-huddle. Soon the coordinator will need to step aside and do the same.
The latest "Around The NFL Podcast" recaps the Steelers-Ravens game and previews the other 15 games in Week 2.
