Of course the thing we all remember about the week two game against the Pittsburgh Steelers is the benching of Vince Young to start the 4th quarter. I was furious about it at the time, but after re-watching this game it was the right move. Vince Young would not have led a TD drive against that defense if he had an infinite amount of time to do so. He was completely over matched.
Believe it or not, I had completely forgotten that the Steelers ran a reverse for a TD on the opening touchdown. I had also forgotten that Marc Mariani fumbled on the ensuing kickoff. That was one of only two fumbles he lost last year with the other being the short kickoff that ended up losing the Denver game.
Will Witherspoon had a sack and a strip of Dennis Dixon on a blitz. I am pretty sure Witherspoon made his only two plays of the year in the first two games.
Example one that Vince was lost: He had to take a delay of game penalty coming out of a timeout because he couldn't figure out what Troy Polamalu was doing pre-snap.Mariani made up for his fumble on the first kickoff with a 38-yard punt return on Pittsburgh's first punt.
If VY had infinite time against the Steeler defense, Polamalu would have an infinite number of interceptions. He made Young look really silly with his pick in the end zone.
At one point while re-watching this game I wrote down "this would have been a lot worse if Pitt wasn't so terrible." I can't remember exactly what happened, but for most of the game they looked just as inept on offense as the Titans (of course they were playing without Ben Rapelisberger).
VY did have a nice roll out 17-yard completion to CJ that was upheld on review.
Example #2 Vince was lost came on the pick that he threw to LaMarr Woodley. It is called a zone blitz Vince. You might want to look out for it against the Steelers.
Later we saw the huge run by Chris Johnson called back because of a hold by Eugene Amano. It was a hold, and the worst part about it was that it wasn't necessary. There is no way Chris Hoke was going to make it out there to stop CJ.
Then CJ had a rare fumble that set up a field goal for the Steelers to end the half with a 13-3 lead.
This was a really bad half of football.