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Feats of Strength/Airing of Grievances: Second-half defensive dominance, WR contributions keep Steelers unbeaten
We’ve all been saying that the Pittsburgh Steelers (3-0) can’t keep counting on scoring in the teens and relying on the defense to win games.
On Sunday, though, they could’ve again as the Steelers held a third straight opponent to 10 points or fewer, beating the Los Angeles Chargers (2-1) by a final score of 20-10 at Acrisure Stadium.
At least reaching the 20-point threshold on offense was a nice change of pace along the way.
With that in mind, let’s bask in what went right, and let’s bemoan what went wrong in our weekly “Feats of Strength” and “Airing of Grievances” as the Steelers stay unbeaten through the first three games.
FEATS OF STRENGTH
Timely response: The Steelers’ first touchdown drive was an uncommon example of the offense responding on behalf of the defense.
The first Los Angeles scoring drive resulted in a touchdown late in the first quarter. It came against a Steelers defense that had a rare bad effort during the drive (more on that later).
Fortunately for the Steelers, though, the offense countered and got the score even on the next possession.
Quarterback Justin Fields and company marched 70 yards over 13 plays and 7 minutes, 29 seconds. Fields completed all four of his passes on the possession and capped it with a short touchdown run.
.@justnfields for six‼️???? Stream on NFL+: https://t.co/COxKRnr6Mc pic.twitter.com/DfTKdGmFlC
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) September 22, 2024
“It was huge. The offense did a great job responding. We knew what kind of game it was going to be. I was proud of the guys for responding the way that we did after they scored that first touchdown,” Fields said.
Credit Scotty Miller for a clutch 20-yard catch on a third-down snap to move the chains and advance the drive.
About time: As predicted, the Steelers receivers aside from George Pickens were anemic through the first two weeks. But that wasn’t the case Sunday, even though the other starter at the position, Van Jefferson, left the game in the first half with an eye injury and missed most of the action.
Miller had that crucial catch on the first scoring drive. Then Calvin Austin accounted for the biggest play of the game when he scampered for a 55-yard touchdown.
.@justnfields ➡️ @CalvinAustinIII for the 55-yard TD ???????? Stream on NFL+: https://t.co/COxKRnr6Mc pic.twitter.com/2dF7ZEPifv
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) September 22, 2024
“They like to throw out a variety of coverages to give different looks,” Austin said. “But when you throw out crazy two and crazy three coverages like that, there are holes that open up in those types of defenses. We had good execution all around to target those areas.”
For Austin, he ended up with 95 yards receiving on four catches
Steadying the ship: After a few spotty moments in the first half, the defense settled in and controlled the game. Coordinator Teryl Austin’s unit pitched a second-half shutout, holding the Chargers to just 61 yards rushing on the day. Los Angeles was the second-best rushing team in the NFL at 197 yards per game. Running back J.K. Dobbins, the NFL’s leading rusher through two weeks (266 yards), ended up with just 44 yards on 15 attempts.
Collectively, the Chargers netted a minus-5 in the total yardage column for the second half and walked away with only 168 on the afternoon.
The Steelers also racked up five sacks. With a team that runs as often as the Chargers do, and with two good tackles in Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt, that’s a pretty impressive total.
Nick Herbig had two sacks in a relief role after Alex Highsmith left the game with a groin injury.
“The way we bond, we have a tight group. We play off of each other,” Herbig said. “Guys bring energy. Having (Patrick Queen) is big time. He brings a lot of energy to the group. We just all love to play the game of football together.”
Slater was reported to have a pectoral injury shortly after he was beaten on Herbig’s first sack. T.J. Watt, Cameron Heyward and Elandon Roberts had the other sacks. Queen led the team with eight tackles.
Fields of Gold: Fields ended the day 25 of 32 for 245 yards, a touchdown, an interception and two sacks. That was good for a passer rating of 96.0 en route to a third straight win.
We keep hearing that the Steelers are really intrigued by Fields. He has done little to dissuade that suggestion, including how he performed in the first half. He was 11 for 11 to start the game. Yet, at that point, he only had 64 yards passing.
Fields was 14 of 17 in the first half. Two of the incompletions were catchable passes that Pat Freiermuth and Pickens couldn’t secure.
If the Steelers like Fields as much as we are being told, then they have to let him loose a little bit and throw the ball downfield more often — especially early in games.
Right now it looks like the only priority for the Steelers with Fields in the first half of games is to avoid turnovers. That’s how they handled Kenny Pickett.
If the organization feels there is more to Fields’ game than Pickett’s, then they should let him show it. They definitely need to if he starts again next week.
AIRING OF GRIEVANCES
Defensive dud: The Chargers’ first touchdown drive came during a sloppy sequence from the Steelers defense.
During the drive, the Steelers played a snap with just 10 men on the field. There were a few plays when it looked like there were some late substitutions from defenders going on and off the field. Then Quentin Johnson looked completely uncovered on the scoring throw from Herbert.
wide open???? | @nfloncbs pic.twitter.com/6eQQmsmU4e
— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) September 22, 2024
Porter insisted that was just a well-timed play call to beat the Steelers defense.
In the end, the drive covered 59 yards. The Chargers wound up with only 168 on the day.
In a rush?: The Steelers need to get the ground game going on offense. In the final box score, it totaled 114 yards on 31 attempts. That’s not bad. But it’s still just a 3.7-yard average.
Plus, a significant chunk of that yardage came as the Steelers were grinding down the clock with a 10-point lead. Early in the fourth quarter, the Steelers only had 34 yards rushing on 20 attempts.
Granted, the Chargers came into the game with the sixth-best rush defense in football, allowing only 80.5 yards per game. That was one slot behind the Steelers, who were fifth at 76.5.
However, if the passing game is going to be as conservative as we outlined above, the running game needs to compensate for that.
As we discussed earlier in the week, Arthur Smith’s offense is known for being effective on the ground. The Steelers entered the week at 77 rush attempts, the most in the NFL through two weeks. But they were only averaging 3.6 yards per attempt, 29th in the NFL.
That has to get better.
Injury bug bites: Some bad injury luck for the Steelers began during the practice week when Troy Fautanu was put on injured reserve with a knee injury.
Things got worse during the game as Highsmith (groin), Jefferson (eye) and Cory Trice (hamstring) were lost.
Jefferson eventually returned, but Jaylen Warren was pulled from the game for undisclosed reasons.
“It didn’t look like he was running smoothly. We’ll evaluate him,” Tomlin said of Warren.
Warren only had 5 yards on three carries. He has been dealing with a hamstring injury since the end of the preseason.
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