Week 6’s Pittsburgh Steelers Z-Factor
It would not be a Pittsburgh Steelers regular season without a few rollercoaster rides of emotion. As soon as the Steelers appear to be in control and finding winning formulas, they turn out a stinker like last week’s performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Let me be the first to tell you that I didn’t see that loss coming, especially at Heinz Field no less. I won’t continue to pour salt in that open wound though because like the Steelers, I’m on to Week 6 of NFL action.
Despite their recent struggles, the Pittsburgh Steelers still own the top spot in the AFC North. They now travel to another team atop their respective division, the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs.
KC has been absolutely rolling this season, there’s no denying that. The Chiefs not only hold the lone undefeated record left in the NFL, but they also handed the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots a loss in their home stadium. The latter thought to of been a near-impossible task, up until Alex Smith and rookie phenom, running back Kareem Hunt, came to town.
Yes, the defense is going to need to show up under the bright lights of Arrow Head Stadium. However, this week’s Z-Factor is going to be someone that can help Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. This player hasn’t been featured much this year, but whenever he is, the Steelers seem to do better.
The Outlaw, Jesse James, is this week’s own Z-Factor.
I’m not making things up when I say that the Steelers appear to do better when big number 81 is involved. Thanks in large part to ESPN.com and their stat tracking, there is a very real correlation (this season anyway) between Jesse James getting the ball, and Pittsburgh winning football games.
In the Steelers three wins so far, James has 13 catches for 108 yards and two touchdowns. During Pittsburgh’s two losses, James tallied five catches for 43 yards and no scores. Now, that could all be coincidence, but I firmly believe there is a very strong level of comfort between Ben Roethlisberger and Jesse James. Jesse may not be Heath Miller (not by a long shot) but that “security blanket” vibe is there.
With Big Ben coming off the worst game of his career to date, he’s going to need his new age security blanket to get him into his groove on the road.
In last year’s playoff meeting between these two teams, the Outlaw showed up in a huge way. Jesse James actually outperformed Kansas City’s All-Pro tight end, Travis Kelce, in every statistical category (5 catches/83 yards for James and 5 catches/77 yards for Kelce).
If the Steelers can get that kind of game out of James again, then Roethlisberger should play a lot better as a result, and walking out with a win becomes that much more realistic.
