Steelers eschew deferring of coin toss, get rewarded with opening-drive TD

The overwhelming trend for NFL teams that win the coin toss in recent years is to defer to the second half.

The Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday bucked that trend, and it helped them buck another long-running trend.

Serving as the captain before Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger told referee Shawn Hochuli the Steelers wanted to receive. Nine minutes and 18 seconds of game time later, the Steelers had their first touchdown on an opening possession in almost 22 months.

It set the early tone in a 27-24 Steelers’ victory.

“I came into this game, and I told coach (Mike) Tomlin, ‘We’re going to take the ball. We’re not going to defer,’” Roethlisberger said in a postgame video conference call.

The strategy was put into place for two reasons: the Steelers felt confident about their 10 “scripted” plays ready to open the game with, and they wanted to make sure the run-heavy Titans wouldn’t be able to get into their comfort zone of playing with a lead.

“We told the guys (Saturday), ‘This is what we are going to do. Let’s get the ball, and let’s drive down the field,’ ” Roethlisberger said. “We knew our (script) obviously was going to be a lot of throws, and we went down the field and put together a pretty complete drive there on that first drive.”

It was a drive that accumulated 100 yards of offense — a 75-yard drive that overcame 25 yards of penalties — and resulted in a Diontae Johnson 11-yard touchdown catch on its 16th play.

The Steelers hadn’t scored a touchdown on their opening possession in the past 23 games, dating to a Dec. 16, 2018 home victory against the New England Patriots.

After a one-game reprieve of sorts, the Pittsburgh Steelers offense last week was back to its ineffective ways during its first possession of a game.https://t.co/NM08i0FROY

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) October 16, 2020

Although the Steelers had gotten some field goals during their first drives this season, the TD futility streak had become an increasingly prominent topic of conversation in recent weeks.

“We wanted to answer all questions from you guys (in the media) about how we start the game,” Tomlin said, “and so we took the ball, we went down the field and scored a touchdown. So now you guys can stop asking me about it.”

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