The Vikings are giddy over how well their offense and defense performed against the New Orleans Saints on Monday night. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was impressive, but I do feel that’s more of an indictment on how bad the Saints are than how good Minnesota currently is.

Week 1 football games don’t always tell the full story. Teams are still finding their groove and will continue to do so throughout the season as strengths take shape and other factors, such as injuries, impact game plans.

I feel one of the two Vikings units won’t have a repeat performance on Sunday. The Steelers shot themselves in the foot quite a bit against Cleveland and barring a penalty-filled encore, I don’t see Minnesota’s secondary having the same success they had with the Saints again this Sunday. In fact, their defense may be hard-pressed to pressure Ben Roethlisberger or stop the running game if Pittsburgh’s offensive line and Le’Veon Bell can get going (and they should have more success than New Orleans did in that department as well).

Bell has received a lot of criticism for being “rusty” after not being involved in the Steelers preseason activities. However, Mike Tomlin wasn’t blowing smoke when he mentioned that the much of the team’s struggles, and Bell’s meager stats overall, were impacted by penalties:

Like I mentioned, penalties and being behind the chains ruined your balance. It puts you in predictable circumstances. It plays in the defense’s favor. They took advantage of it, but they also played well. They played well technically. They have good players. And the acquisition of Coach [Gregg] Williams and the schemes that he employs is formidable. I’m not surprised by that. I’m very familiar with that. We’ve had some difficult running games against Coach Williams in the past in instances where Le’Veon was in training camp, for example, 2015 St. Louis Rams. That’s why I lose patience when we repeatedly cover the same things.

In the clip below, you can see how one of Bell’s best runs of the game was taken off the board by a penalty on rookie WR JuJu Smith-Schuster.

Flipping the sides of the ball, the Steelers front seven, and even their secondary are better than what New Orleans fielded on Monday night. Sam Bradford may still give the defensive backs fits with his “dink and dunk” style. Yet, the Vikings were a team capable of establishing the run in order to setup the pass.

After a heavy dosage of dump offs throughout the beginning of the game, the Vikings dial up a a counter play-action pass. With right guard Joe Berger pulling to the left to sell the run fake, both cornerback De’Vante Harris and safety Kenny Vaccaro bite hard leaving Stefon Diggs wide open for an easy touchdown:

I would expect Pittsburgh to apply more pressure to the quarterback on Sunday than the Saints were able to. I would almost guarantee that they’ll be better at stopping the run too.

While repeating a seven sack performance is unlikely, the Steelers should be able to take advantage of a newly put together Vikings offensive line, which includes rookie center Pat Elflein. On the Saints lone sack of the game on Sam Bradford, Cam Jordan is lined up at 9-technique, spins around defensive tackle David Onyemata (#93) and uses him as a pick, like a stunt, to get a free run at Drew Brees.

Minnesota QB Sam Bradford may have played out of his mind this past weekend, but expecting him to do the same two weeks in a row falls into the same category of thinking the Steelers were equal or best those seven sacks, or that T.J. Watt will have a multiple sack game with an interception. Tempering expectations, the edge should still go to the Steelers, who are tough to beat at Heinz Field. They also have the advantage of an extra day’s rest (since Minnesota played on Monday night).