The offense couldn’t bail out the Steelers, either, not while committing seven turnovers — five by Ben Roethlisberger, who had won his last seven starts against the Ravens.
“We got beat into submission,’’ linebacker James Farrior said.
We got handled in all three phases,’’ added Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. “We accept responsibility for the plays we made and didn’t make. We compliment them at the same time for the way they performed. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do.’’
A lot of that work didn’t get done during training camp and the preseason, in part because many veteran teams — and the Steelers certainly have their share of vets — didn’t want to push such players. Better to save them for the regular season, allowing them to work their way into “football shape.’’
But avoiding the pitfalls of preseason games has its drawbacks, too. That manifested itself in Baltimore, where the Steelers couldn’t keep up.
“It was like we were a step slow all day,’’ Farrior said. “From the first play of the game, they had their foot on the gas pedal and we couldn’t stop it.’’
Ditto for the Falcons in Chicago, where the stats were relatively even, but the performances hardly were.
Chicago was the more-inspired team in a 30-12 romp that could have been worse. Anyone who expected Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, Roddy White and John Abraham to be the best players at Soldier Field instead saw Jay Cutler, Matt Forte and Brian Urlacher — especially Urlacher — take charge.
“We’ve got a lot of things that have to be corrected,’’ Falcons coach Mike Smith said, noting the high number of penalties, three turnovers and sloppy tackling — all symptomatic of poor preparation.
“In terms of how we’re going to do that, we’ll get back out there, get on the horse, jump back into the saddle and get back to work.’’
Cliches notwithstanding, maybe the Falcons needed to ride the horse more during training camp and the preseason.
