Sep 19, 2015 5 min read

Tom Brady completed 25 passes against the Steelers in their 28-21 opening-game loss to the Patriots.

I figure I could have made at least 20 of those throws.

Of the 32 passes he threw, do you know how many went farther than 10 yards in the air? Eight.

I’m too tired to look it up, but I’m going to guess that some of those eight “long” passes were among the incompletions.

It sure wasn’t a good look for the Steelers’ defense that allowed receivers to run free all night and did nothing but reinforce the belief that 21 points won’t come close to being enough for this team to realistically expect to win a game.

Brady’s 25-for-32, 4-touchdown night had the national media slobbering all over themselves to declare his greatness, which makes me wonder if we were watching the same game.

Throwing eight-yard passes to wide open receivers does not require greatness. How many difficult, low-percentage throws was he required to make?

How many times did he pay a physical price for dropping back to pass? You don’t have to worry about taking too many hits when you’re only waiting for your receivers to run 25 feet.

So, was the Steelers’ defense that bad or was what we saw from the Steelers and the Patriots another sign of how ridiculously easy it is to complete an NFL pass in 2015?

How about both?

Steelers fans are geeked about the offense the Steelers can produce when the team is intact and rightly so. No Steelers’ offense ever had the potential to be as high scoring as this one.

The problem is it’s 2015 and the league is full of high-scoring offenses and the teams that figure out how to play some semblance of defense are the ones that are going to go deep in the playoffs.

Only five teams gave up more passing yards per game than the Steelers last year and, after five exhibition games and one regular season game, there is no reason to believe the 2015 defense is better.

The Patriots won but they also gave up 351 passing yards to an offense that was missing two of its best weapons.

The quarterback the Steelers get in Game 2 – Colin Kaepernick – hasn’t been called the greatest of all time yet, but he presents some problems Brady didn’t because of his mobility.

And the team he plays for has one of the better defenses in the league. The 49ers were fifth in total defense last season and they gave up the third fewest yards last week when they allowed three points to the Vikings.

This is supposed to be one of the few easy games on the schedule.

We’ll see. Right now it doesn’t look that easy.

• The injury to Jung Ho Kang could be a killer for the Pirates, but it wasn’t a cheap shot by Chris Coghlan of the Cubs, who broke Kang’s leg and tore up his knee with a takeout slide Thursday.

Kang made a poor decision by planting his foot hard on the right field side of the bag before making the throw to first base. A Major League shortstop should know a hard slide is coming and be prepared to leave his feet to avoid it. Kang’s a rookie who played all of his baseball in South Korea. Maybe they don’t have takeout slides like that one over there.

• Four extra points were missed in the first week of NFL games compared to the eight that were missed all of last season. Instead of the media focusing on what a brilliant idea it was to move it back to the 15-yard line, the focus should be on how ridiculously easy a 33-yard field goal is and how it kills excitement by making coaches too conservative in the red zone.

Only the NFL, with its monopoly and compliant media, could get away with selling the idea it makes sense to award three points for a kick from 20 or 30 yards out, while saying the same distance is too close for awarding one point.

• Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Troy Tulowitzki was given credit for putting them in first place since coming in a trade deadline deal with Colorado. His OPS-plus was 102 on the day Kang was hurt. Kang’s was 123.

• Remember when the Royals got Johnny Cueto from the Reds? His ERA in his last five starts is 9.57.

• Andrew Luck put up a 63.6 passer rating in the Colts’ loss to Buffalo last week. Here are five of his ratings in his previous seven starts: 59, 76, 41, 76, 23. If he’s an “athletic” quarterback, do you think more would be made of those numbers?

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.