Takeaways: Injuries, officiating hobble Steelers in loss to Jaguars
Steel City Underground presents post-game takeaways from every Pittsburgh Steelers game of the 2023 NFL regular season.
On Sunday afternoon, the Pittsburgh Steelers hosted a hot Jacksonville Jaguars team at Acrisure Stadium and looked like they’d round out October of the 2023 NFL regular season with a real shot at upsetting the opponents’ road win streak. In the wet conditions, playmakers were stepping up but two key injuries and a random penalty hobbled the Steelers as they lost, 20-10, in Week 8.
The hamstring injury to safety Minkah Fitzpatrick was something that forced the Steelers to make an adjustment in the defense, including a bigger role for Miles Killebrew, but the injury to quarterback Kenny Pickett sucked the air out of Steelers Nation collectively.
Behind by just six points, 9-3, with 18 seconds left in the second quarter, Pickett dropped back to pass. Jaguars defensive lineman Adam Gotsis tipped the ball and then drove Pickett into the turf. With all of the weight on top of him, Pickett was unable to protect himself and remained down on the field to be attended to. A rib injury was confirmed as was the inevitable result: a need for Mitchell Trubisky to enter as the second-half quarterback. Before the play, Pickett completed 10-of-16 passes for 73 yards.
The Steelers offense got off to a hot start, almost. On the opening play, Diontae Johnson was wide open down the middle of the field and just couldn’t get more than his fingertips on the ball. If he’d have completed the play, despite the rain, it likely would have been a 75-yard touchdown reception. George Pickens also had a big-play opportunity on a corner route in the first half but Darious Williams was able to break up the pass as it was a tad short.
“We didn’t come out fast enough. We didn’t play well enough… We had too many three-and-outs, stuff like that. We’ve got to do a better job in certain situations. We’ve just got to play harder and execute more.” – Diontae Johnson
With Trubisky at quarterback, the Steelers were playing catch-up and the veteran completed 15-of-27 pass attempts for 138 yards and a 22-yard touchdown pass to Pickens, but threw two absolutely game-killing telegraphed passes for easy interceptions by a Jaguars team that has been stacking takeaways. The touchdown was Pickens’ only catch on five targets.
The Steelers only put together a combined rushing yards total of 70 in the game, which didn’t assist in time of possession or converting critical downs.
The Steelers defense entered this game knowing they’d need to execute at a high level in order to assist their offense. Linebacker Cole Holcomb led the team with 11 total tackles and was the beneficiary of a fumble recovery thanks to Kwon Alexander ripping the ball out of tight end Evan Engrams‘ hands.
Keanu Neal also grabbed a fumble recovery on the day as the Steelers defense logged three total takeaways – including an interception by Damontae Kazee – and sacked Lawrence three times. Elandon Roberts had 1.5 sacks, Alex Highsmith and T.J. Watt earned 0.5 a piece, and Armon Watts got 0.5.
The Steelers only allowed the Jaguars offense to score a single touchdown. The rest of the points for Jacksonville came via field goals.
The bizarre things that happened in this game revolved around some truly questionable calls by officials that were considered judgement calls. Poor judgement? Unfortunately, irreversible.
Following a 55-yard field goal conversion by Chris Boswell, the officials flagged guard Isaac Seumalo for “lining up offside.” The replays did not shed insight as to why the flag was necessary and head coach Mike Tomlin said, in his post-game press conference, “I hadn’t seen that called in 17 years of standing on the sidelines. Offsides, aligned offsides on a guard, on a field goal protection. So it didn’t matter what they said. I have never seen that.”
The result was that Boswell, who’d been perfect on the season, was forced to retry to field goal and pushed the ball wide right from 61 yards. No good.
In Pittsburgh, offside on the offensive guard? Officials are told to call that if a lineman has his head in the neutral zone on the short yardage push plays, not on field goal attempts.
— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) October 29, 2023
Neal was flagged for “roughing the passer” when he hit Lawrence just a step after the ball had been released. Contrast that to the no-call on Gotsis who drilled Pickett, whose arms were pinned, and landed with his full weight on the quarterback, and Steelers fans were throwing their hands in the air.
Pittsburgh has very little time to figure everything out before they’ll be on the field again for Thursday Night Football against the Tennessee Titans.
The Baltimore Ravens lead the AFC North (6-2) after beating the Arizona Cardinals. The Cleveland Browns lost to the Seattle Seahawks as the Cincinnati Bengals defeated the San Francisco 49ers. That means the Steelers, Bengals, and Browns are all tied up at 4-3. The division is the NFL’s only one to have all of its teams at .500 or better at this point in the season, making the Steelers’ 2-0 division win-loss record even more important.
