lumm0x

After watching how Payton called offensive plays last preseason and this first game one thing seems consistent to me. He is only utilizing these games to dissect our protection/blocking schemes, the route running and seeing who stays in position and gets their assignments correct and who does not. His play calls are very simplistic. He's not doing a ton of calls where we run various looks from a single offensive line up. He's lining the guys up in a formation, running a staple play in it and then moving to a new formation and running another well used route or run block scheme.

I am certain that just like last year, these formations will suddenly have a myriad of options thrown in them and wrinkles that are intended to throw defenses off their plans.

I really don't think he entered this game with a goal being to win or to strut his stuff as an offensive mind. He wanted to see some youngsters and how they've grasped what he's taught them so far in camp. To see if their repetition in camp translates to a real game scenario.

Take nothing negative from the fact that we didn't light it up. I doubt he wanted to, and if we did it would have been because the Steelers blew their own assignments. I think Tomlin had the Steelers fired up for his first real action and they wanted to win one for their rookie coach and use it as something to build momentum off of after a poor outing last year.

The only things I saw that mattered were:

Colston had some sharp routes even if the defense anticipated them. Bush looks equally or more elusive. Smith and Grant look solid on the ends. Hollis needs to trim it up...alot. Kaeshviharn can tackle better than anyone else in the secondary. David looks lost as a m2m corner. Lance Moore looks like he really wants this job as does Pierre Thomas.