All good, a little bad, not much ugly in Steelers Thursday night win
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Yeah, so I stole that line from Dickens, but hey, it still kind of felt like that a little bit during the Titans game. After the Colts game, a win that felt like a loss, the first half of the Titans game might have had you wondering what to expect. I mean it started off great – the Steelers employed a hurry-up no-huddle style of offense and took the first drive down the field to score on a 41-yard TD pass from Ben to AB that split two Titans defenders.
Then, inexplicably, the Steelers decided to stop using the no-huddle. And things ground to a screeching halt.
75 yards on the first drive of the game. Then a 5-play drive for 1 yard, a 3-play driver for -1 yards, then another 3-play drive for -7 yards. 75 yards in one drive, -7 in the next 3. Even after Coty Sensabaugh set them up at the Titans 20 following a nice INT, they managed to net 10 total yards over a frustrating 8 play drive that saw the Steelers move to the Titans 9, then back to the 20 and finally settle for a Chris Boswell FG from the 10.
To call the first half frustrating would be an understatement. Then the second half came around and the sky’s opened up and the light shone upon the Heinz Field grass (ok, it was a night game so I know that didn’t happen). The Steelers looked like the team we’ve all expected them to look like all year long. Finally.
One giant brain fart (Mariota to Matthews for a 75-yard TD) and 2 quarters later the Steelers ended the night as 40-17 winners.
Let’s break down the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the Titans/Steelers game.
Good
The Ben Roethlisberger/Antonio Brown Show
10 receptions on 13 targets, 144 yards, 3 TDs.
That was the stat line of on Antonio “Tony Toe Tap” Brown. Taken in and of itself, you have to say that’s a great game. Still, it doesn’t begin to really tell the tale of what was clearly the Ben Roethlisberger/Antonio Brown show.
Let’s start with the 41-yard TD pass on the first drive. AB is running a simple go or fly route it looks like. He gets separation on LeShaun Sims. Ben sees him streaking, looks to the right to force the Kevin Byard, the Titans safety, to stop and consider the throw to that side, then he pumps, pulls it back and launches a perfect ball to AB.
People might think that was a “jump ball” – but it wasn’t. It was a ball that Ben knows only AB is going to catch, or it’s going to fall incomplete. It’s a ball he’s been missing on early in the year, but this was on target, and AB does what he does, plays bigger than he is, goes up and pulls the ball down. Then later in the second quarter, Ben scrambles, avoids the rush and finds AB over the middle for a long gain and a first down. (Yes, AB fumbles the ball, and we are lucky Martavis Bryant was aware enough to jump on it, and that the refs stink and don’t know the rules.)
In the third quarter, after leading a masterful drive down the field, Ben and AB tell the red zone monster to shut up, as he tosses a clean crisp pass to AB on a slant for their second TD pass. Another nice pass to the outside later in the game as Brown shows his “toe-tapping” skills to stay inbounds was just classic Ben to AB.
Leave it to these two to save the best for last. 2nd-and-5 from the Titans 10, Ben throws a fade to AB, who uses his left hand to pin the ball to his helmet bring it in and complete an amazing TD catch.
It wasn’t all perfect. Ben missed a few guys, and AB dropped at least one ball he should have caught, but overall, these two guys were playing ball the way they know how.
Thanks for all that single man-coverage Titans!
Cam Heyward is a Grown Ass Man
3 Tackles, 2 sacks, and 3 QB hits.
Forget the Pro-Bowl. Who cares. Cam Heyward is playing at an All-Pro level. I’ve been saying that since early in the year and it hasn’t changed. Cam is playing the best football of his professional career. There are points in the game where he is literally unblockable. He gets constant pressure on the pocket, pursues the ball carriers tirelessly and continues to be the driving heart of the defensive front.
He leads the Steelers in sacks with 7 (which is only a half sack away from his best season) and that is something that is normally unheard of for a Steelers interior defensive lineman. It’s usually the OLBs who are the glory boys, but Cam is well on his way to a potential double-digit sack year.
I am going to keep saying it. Cam Heyward is a grown ass man playing amongst boys.
Vinny Vidi Vici 98
Speaking of guys who have a lot of sacks from surprising places, Vince Williams has 6 for second place on the team.
From his ILB spot!
If you had bet someone at the beginning of the year who would have had those numbers, most people would have probably bet on Ryan Shazier rather than Vince Williams. But here we are, 10 games in and it’s Vince Williams who is racking up the numbers.
Lawrence who?
Bad
Artie Burns (sort of)
We’ve been having some internal discussion on Artie Burns here in the SCU backrooms, and I’m finding myself falling on the side of being negative about our former first round pick. It’s not really that Artie has played bad. He had a tremendous pass defense that led to Robert Golden’s INT (and if I really wanted to highlight some iffy play, it probably should have been Golden’s), but he also looked lost a couple times.
Expectations were high for me after what I thought was a really solid first year for a young player who started a good portion of his rookie season. Coach Tomlin often says it’s second-year growth that is crucial for these young guys, and I’m just not seeing what I would call growth in Artie Burns.
Maybe the problem is just inconsistency. It’s fair enough to say he’s still very young, and his experience is limited – but you would still think he’d be showing more consistency rather than less. I still have a lot of faith in Artie, and think he’ll turn into a solid, if not really good pro, but he does need to be more consistent in his play and avoid the bad looks, especially on run defense, that have shown up this year.
Some Group That Still Stinks (Yeah, you know who it is)
I’m only going to focus on something that actually benefited the Steelers, even though I thought the roughing the passer call on Stephon Tuitt was ridiculous.
Look, these guys are paid to know the rules. They did when they gave the Bears the ball at the 1-yard line earlier in the year, but they forgot that rule this time around. You cannot advance a fumble the way that Martavis and AB did. The ball should have been placed where AB lost it. Instead, the Steelers were the beneficiaries of the refs ineptitude.
Hey, they stink even if their stink benefits the good guys. A bad smell is still a bad smell.
Ugly
That Drive
I struggle to find something to really call ugly in this game. Maybe the drops in the first half, and maybe the missed tackles which also occurred primarily in the first half. Still, those really would only be storylines if they hadn’t been cleaned up, and they were. This was probably the second best overall game the Steelers have put together (I still give preference to the win in Baltimore), and they finally eclipsed the 30-point mark rather emphatically.
What do I need to complain about?
No surprise, I found something. I mentioned it in the intro to this article, but I just want to point out again how frustrating this team can be at times. Coty Sensabaugh comes up huge and makes a nice read on a Mariota pass and gets the INT, setting the Steelers up at the Titans 20. Yay Team!
Over the next 3 plays, the Steelers manage to get the ball to the Titans 9 where they have first and goal. Again, Yay Team!
Then the Red Zone rears its ugly head. Ben is sacked for a loss of 6. DeCastro is called for a false start, and suddenly it’s 3rd and goal from the Titans 20, right where we started this drive. The Titans do a nice job of giving the Steelers nothing to work with, and Ben has to scramble up the middle for 10 yards to give Boswell a short FG attempt (which he of course makes).
This drive feels like a microcosm of their season to this point – moments of solid, even great play, sandwiched between frustrating collapses in discipline and execution. Let’s hope that the second half of this game becomes a model for the rest of the season.
Conclusion
The Steelers are 8-2 and have a narrow lead to sit as the number one seed in the AFC. They look to be starting to play up to their potential. The next game against a lack-luster, Aaron Roger-less Green Bay squad should let us see if they have shaken off the maddening inconsistency that has plagued them this year.
If it has, this team definitely has the talent to be the AFC representative in the Super Bowl. If not, they still have the talent, but they may not have the skill. I’m tentatively optimistic looking ahead considering the way they played in the second half of the Titans game. Let’s see what happens next Sunday night against Green Bay.
