2023 Steelers Season Recall: Road win in Seattle keeps playoff hopes alive
Steel City Underground presents our 2023 Steelers Recall: A Look Back at Pittsburgh Steelers games and storylines from last season.
In Week 17 of the 2023 NFL regular season the Pittsburgh Steelers traveled to Lumen Field in Seattle with their postseason hopes on the line. The 8-7 team was teetering on the brink of their first losing season under head coach Mike Tomlin following earlier losses to a pair of two-win teams. In those losses, veteran quarterback Mitchell Trubisky played poorly, with his third bad performance being his last as the team opted to start third-string quarterback Mason Rudolph against the Cincinnati Bengals while starter Kenny Pickett remained sidelined.
The result of Pittsburgh’s last home game was not only unexpected but tremendous. They came away victors with a 34-11 win, but now had to repeat their success for the final two weeks of the season in hostile road environments.
The first of those would be in Seattle, where the Steelers seldom found success. Fans who like betting on NFL matches, would find the Steelers 4.5-point underdogs against the Seahawks. You can bet on the NFL using one of the online bookmakers with an online casino you can pay with Skrill. However, if you were one of those who remained faithful and put your money on Pittsburgh, then you didn’t need the points.
Pittsburgh was able to grind through the game with a healthy run attack and smart passing paired with some strong defensive plays. The Steelers found a way to get Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren heavily involved in carrying the ball as they chewed up yards on the turf with their legs while bullying their way through Seahawks defenders. However, the game started with confidence in Mason Rudolph’s arm, as the Steelers marched across midfield, only to have their drive stall after four consecutive pass attempts.
A Diontae Johnson fumble nearly killed the Steelers second offensive possession, which was saved by replay ruling the ball was out-of-bounds. The Steelers would then run the ball in eight of the next nine plays, including two Rudolph keepers for one-yard gains and a fourth-down conversion to keep the 14-play drive sustained. First into the end zone was Jaylen Warren on an 18-yard run that would put the Steelers up 7-0.
Seattle answered quickly with a seven-play drive that knotted the score at seven-all. The Steelers would go up 10-7 off of a Chris Boswell field goal, but the Seahawks would score another touchdown on their next drive to take the advantage 14-10.
Najee Harris would then go to work, scoring the first of his two rushing touchdowns as the Steelers offense provided complimentary blocking for the duo. The Steelers were up heading into halftime but the Seahawks came out of the locker room hungry, tying the game at 17 apiece following a nine-play drive to open the third quarter. From here on it would be all Steelers, as Najee Harris found pay dirt again on a four-yard touchdown following a 71-yard, six-play drive.
The teams would trade field goals throughout the fourth quarter, and Harris could have gone into the end zone, again, in the final seconds of the game. Instead, he chose an unselfish move of sliding to be downed and allow quarterback Rudolph to kneel on the next play in victory formation.
Harris and Warren joined three other Steelers running back duos in franchise history who’ve recorded 1,000 yards rushing apiece on Sunday. In just the first half, Harris carried the ball 13 times for 74 yards while Warren had seven carries for 67 yards. That was the most yardage earned by the Steelers on the ground since Week 14 of the 2016 NFL season (153) against the Buffalo Bills.
Harris and Warren finished the game with 197 rushing yards on 50 carries and three combined touchdowns.
The previous “play Trubisky” crowd was also silenced after the three-game losing streak that positioned the Steelers with no better than a 25% chance of making the postseason with one game to go. Rudolph became a hero, after he strung together 567 yards of passing with two touchdowns and no interceptions between two games, both of which Pittsburgh scored at least 30 points more on offense: a feat that hadn’t been seen since Ben Roethlisberger left town.
Defensively, the Steelers applied pressure in their own manner of grinding down the Seahawks’ offensive effectiveness. Heavy outside force from T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, primarily, kept Geno Smith in a state of urgency as Seattle’s quarterback, but the defensive front also compressed many times to prevent Kenneth Walker III from gaining much after his rushing touchdown; they held him to just 53 yards in the game and the Seahawks went pass heavy.
A heads-up strip sack by Nick Herbig, who substituted for Highsmith, was a pivotal moment in the game that set up more points on the scoreboard via a Chris Boswell field goal.
The Steelers would hold for a 30-23 victory to improve to 9-7 on the season. “Fighting back, 9-7, a chance to qualify for the playoffs. I’m a glass half full type of guy. And we got an opportunity,” said defensive leader Cameron Heyward, as the team turned their attention to their final regular season game in Baltimore against the AFC’s No.1 seed Ravens in Week 18.
We will cover that game in our next Recall series column to revisit what was a sloppy game for a number of reasons. Stay tuned!
