Altoona Mirror, October 3, 2018

If this is Wednesday, it's time to sort through some of the things that happened in the Steelers' Sunday night game against the Baltimore Ravens.
--Ben Roethlisberger called it a bad day at the office, and it certainly was. His passer rating was a mediocre 72.5, but you didn't need that number to know he was off most of the night. Despite a long touchdown pass, he and Antonio Brown don't seem to clicking. Play makers have to make plays, and Roethlisberger has only been at his usual level in two of the four games.
--No he's not too old. Roethlisberger correctly noted on his Tuesday radio show that people were praising him for his work in the Tampa Bay game. He didn't age that much in six days. Something is off, though.
--The latest reports suggest Le'Veon Bell will be back in a few weeks. That won't be a moment too soon. For all the angry "who needs him?" sentiments that have come from his holdout, the Steelers clearly need him. You don't take one of the premier offensive players out of the lineup without noticing the difference.
--The Steelers' philosophy has long been "next man up" when injuries hit. In the case of the non-injured Bell and the severely-injured Ryan Shazier, that's hollow talk. The "next man" isn't nearly as good.
--Falling behind 14-0 in a matter of minutes took the crowd out of the game. It's been said before, but it's worth repeating: There's no real home field advantage at Heinz Field. The extra seats and luxury boxes are great for the Steelers' bottom line, but there isn't the noise edge that Three Rivers Stadium provided for 30 years.
--The Steelers only ran the ball 11 times, and only 10 of those were legitimate rushing attempts. All but one of them went to James Conner. Why? Conner couldn't get any traction, so why not try one of the other backs?
--You can make the case the Steelers defense was better because they held the Ravens to field goals in the second half and kept the game manageable. But the case can also be made that the defense failed because they couldn't stop the Ravens and allowed Baltimore to dominate time of possession.
--The Steelers really need to win this Sunday's home game against Atlanta to get back to .500 (plus a tie) and to get some measure of confidence. They're at Cincinnati the following week, and that looks like a tougher assignment than it did a month ago.
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The Pirates' decision to fire hitting coaches Jeff Branson and Jeff Livesey has a lot to do with the regression of Josh Bell.
Bell went from 26 home runs to 12, and the staff didn't seem to have answers for that. On a team as desperate for power as the Pirates are, that sort of decline can't happen.
Branson and Livesey put in plenty of time with Bell, but couldn't correct things.
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Congratulations to Chris Rickens of Altoona, who accurately forecast the Pirates would win 82 games.
Chris was closer to the number of home runs the Pirates hit (157) and thus  won the tiebreaker to claim the 2018 Guess How Many Games The Pirates Will Win contest.
Honorable mention (but no prize) to Joe Maschue, who also projected 82 wins but lost on the darned tiebreaker.
Thanks to everyone who participated. Here's hoping we can do it again in March.
(John Mehno can be reached at: johnmehnocolumn@gmail.com)