We had to wait a lot longer than other fanbases to get our first taste of 2016 Steelers football. Pittsburgh would travel to the nation’s capitol to face Washington in a primetime game played on Monday Night Football.

Looking back on these games, it’s funny how you can forget all of the things that happened. There was some incredibly ugly football to start. The Redskins had some opportunities to strike first with a touchdown, but some off-and-low passes by Washington QB Kirk Cousins led to only a field goal.

The Steelers offense tried to answer on the next drive, but a pinball pass would popup into Redskins’ corner Bashaud Breeland‘s hands instead.

The Pittsburgh defense would look so much different than the end of the year. Sean Davis was playing in the slot, Robert Golden was the starting safety, Cam Heyward was healthy, and four linebackers (Jarvis Jones, Arthur Moats, James Harrison and Anthony Chickillo) all saw near-equal playing time. Regardless, they would hold the ‘Skins to another field goal, and Washington would lead 6-0.

The very next Steelers offensive play would see Ben Roethlisberger blitzed, fumbling, and miraculously recovered by Maurkice Pouncey. Pittsburgh would travel down the field some more, where Antonio Brown seemingly fumbled the football, but was overturned as a “no catch” and allowed the Steelers campaign to continue.

Jesse James would nearly fumble, a flag was nearly thrown for a late hit, and the Steelers would wind up with a 4th-and-1. They decided to go for it, and go for it they did, as Roethlisberger connected with Brown for a 29-yard touchdown.

The Redskins would attempt a 4th-and-6 on their next drive, but would fall short of converting. A 14 play, 67 yard drive chewed the clock to less than a minute, when a strange game would get even stranger. Eli Rogers had a coming out party in this game, catching 6 balls for 59 yards, including his first career touchdown… which was actually intended for Sammie Coates, but ricocheted back to Rogers (who was alert enough to make the grab).

Receiving the ball to start the half up 14-6, the Steelers would get close enough for Chris Boswell to knock-in a 46-yard field goal.

On Washington’s next possession, they would avert disaster on a fumble which gave them positive yards, but on the very next play, Cousins would dial up his famous “throw to the team in another color” as Ryan Shazier picked off his pass, and returned it down to the 10-yard line.

Unfortunately a penalty brought that athletic play back to the Steelers 25, but it didn’t prevent the Ben-to-Brown connection from striking again, this time for a 26-yard TD that would end in the infamous “twerk” celebration by Brown (who was flagged, and fined, for his dance moves).

The Redskins would follow up with another decent drive, but were once again held to only three points. Pittsburgh would punt on their next possession and the Redskins would close the score to 24-16 Pittsburgh, following a Chris Thompson TD run.

The Steelers countered with a 73-yard drive which ate up 7:13 and a 2:23 45-yard drive to pull away 38-16. Both drives ended in a DeAngelo Williams touchdown.

The game concluded on another Cousins interception, this time turned over by James Harrison, as the Steelers prevailed to their first victory of the season.

Other stuff that stood out

Jesse James looked pretty solid in this game. Ladarius Green was signed in the offseason to be the Steelers starter at tight end, but an injury led to James taking his place. He would catch 5 of his 7 targets in this game, for 31 yards.

Jordan Berry would only punt twice in this game, for 107 yards. (A 53.5 average.)

The Steelers played zone coverage on defense for the entirety of the game, and rarely blitzed.

Eli Rogers was the punt returner (not Antonio Brown) but only had a single fair catch.

Sammie Coates’ 42-yard catch off, of a fumbled snap picked up by Big Ben, started a streak of 40-plus yard receptions at the start of the season.

DeAngelo Williams carried the ball 26 times for 143 yards and 2 touchdowns, while adding 6 more catches for 28.

Play of the game

There were many, but this touchdown pass by Ben Roethlisberger on 4th-and-1, kick-started a lead the Steelers would never look back from.

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