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Tim Benz: 'Airing of Grievances' plenty deep despite 'Feats of Strength' as Steelers edge Cowboys | TribLIVE.com
Steelers/NFL

Tim Benz: 'Airing of Grievances' plenty deep despite 'Feats of Strength' as Steelers edge Cowboys

Tim Benz
Tim Benz

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Dallas Cowboys quarterback Garrett Gilbert fights off a tackle attempt by Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Henry Mondeaux before running the ball for a long gain in the first half of a game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday.

Not gonna lie. I loved that result from the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dallas on Sunday.

It was a jagged 24-19 victory over a forlorn Dallas team that sits at 2-7. The Steelers couldn’t have looked much worse in the process. Yet, Mike Tomlin’s team won anyway to improve to 8-0.

As a media guy, I’ve been given the perfect gift. The fan base is irate over how poorly the team played, but we don’t lose the hype of an unbeaten season.

It’s like Christmas came early. And I didn’t even have to sit on Santa’s lap.

So let’s stay excited about the continuing quest for a perfect 2020 in Pittsburgh as we look at our “Feats of Strength.”

And let’s begin a week’s worth of worry and angst in our “Airing of Grievances.”

FEATS OF STRENGTH

Thirty-Minute Men: Remember those “60-Minute Men” t-shirts the Steelers defense marketed in the 1990s?

How about “30-Minute Men” shirts for this team?

I mean, how often can they keep doing this? Aside from the 38-7 win over the Browns, the Steelers can’t seem to string 60 solid minutes together. They constantly seem to outlast their tragic play in one half with a superior 30 minutes in the other half.

They did so again against Dallas, keeping a perfect season on the books. During the last two weeks, we’ve seen rotten starts outweighed by strong finishes.

You thought the first half was bad in Baltimore? Well, at least the Ravens are a good team. The Cowboys were 2-6 coming into this contest, and the Steelers couldn’t do anything against them in the first half.

Dallas looked as if it had regenerated the “Doomsday Defense” of the 1970s. Coach Mike McCarthy’s club was allowing 33.3 points per game. Yet, the score was 13-9 Dallas at halftime.

The Steelers were 3-9 in the first half on third downs. They failed on their only fourth-down conversion. The Steelers only had 31 yards rushing in the first 30 minutes.

The offensive line got zero push in the first half, running the ball against a Cowboys defense that allowed a league-worst 170 yards rushing per game.

The run game stats never changed in the second half. They finished with 46 yards. But quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw for 197 and two touchdowns over the final 30 minutes.

A gem from JuJu: Roethlisberger struggled for much of the game to find a rhythm with Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson and Eric Ebron.

By the game’s end, though, they all had at least one big play, as did James Washington who snared the Steelers’ lone first-half touchdown.

But Big Ben and JuJu Smith-Schuster were in sync. Smith-Schuster caught six passes on seven targets for 93 yards and a touchdown.

And they came when little else was going right for the Steelers.

Fitzpatrick finds it: Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick had been struggling to find his turnover magic from last year.

But he forced a fumble last week on a fourth-down stop versus the Baltimore Ravens. And he does have that pick-6 to his credit against Cleveland.

On Sunday, he came up with two important turnovers. One came on a fumble recovery at the end of the first half on a strip by Cam Sutton.

The other was an interception in the end zone, down 19-15 in the third quarter.

Then, much like last weekend in Baltimore, Fitzpatrick helped break up the game-ending pass into the end zone.

Timely defense: Against a dramatically flawed Dallas offense, the normally dominant Steelers defense looked spotty for a second straight week.

The ‘Boys had a meager 142 and 265 yards in their last two losses to Washington and the Philadelphia Eagles.

Yet, they rolled up 364 against coordinator Keith Butler’s unit.

In some clutch moments, though, the stars came up big. We mentioned Fitzpatrick already. And on the previous possession, Joe Haden made a much-needed third-down tackle of Ezekiel Elliott after a miracle pass from Gilbert under pressure. If Haden doesn’t get Elliott down on the jumbled play, he may still be running.

On the next snap, Cameron Heyward and T.J. Watt combined to sack Gilbert and get the ball back.

AIRING OF GRIEVANCES

The Steelers still are the Steelers: They might be 8-0, but they still might lose any game to any team out of nowhere.

That “bad Mike Tomlin road loss” thing is real and capable of happening at any time.

Dallas quarterback Garrett Gilbert almost became the next Bruce Gradkowski. Terrelle Pryor. Mike Glennon. Matt Cassel. Ryan Mallett. Brady Quinn.

Or Tim Tebow.

That not-quite-so-elite group of forgettable quarterbacks upset the Steelers when they were heavily favored in the past. And Gilbert came close with this wretched edition of the Cowboys.

Dallas’ fourth-string quarterback was 21 of 38 for 243 yards and a touchdown. And he was throwing into the end zone with a chance to win the game on the last possession just like Lamar Jackson and Ryan Tannehill the last two weeks.

He had previously thrown six NFL passes and was a product of the defunct AAF.

Yet, the Steelers couldn’t harass Gilbert enough to make him feel uncomfortable until midway through the second half. And when they did get in his grill, Gilbert made throws to receivers who were far too open.

He was only intercepted once and sacked twice.

Deep trouble: This is the first game when the Steelers’ inability to hit the deep ball with consistency really hindered the offense.

They seemed to force it early and often in this game. Roethlisberger misfired deep twice on the opening drive. Once on a toss to Johnson. Then Claypool probably was a victim of pass interference that wasn’t called. But he also could have hauled in what was a 50-50 catchable ball.

In the second quarter, Roethlisberger overshot Claypool down the middle of the field. Again, no pass interference was called. But he missed the 6-foot-4 rookie receiver by enough to make the officials believe the ball was uncatchable.

Or…something.

But whatever the case, the team’s difficulty connecting on deep passes may be its biggest problem to correct as this season moves along.

Where are those “in the dirt” plays?: It took a bit for Roethlisberger and company to come up with any offensive sequencing that worked. Either improvised from Big Ben or the sideline. There wasn’t a play of 20 yards or more until JuJu Smith-Schuster’s catch-and-run to open the second drive of the third quarter.

Whether it was in the air or on the ground, the play selection questionable.

No sequence stands out more than Benny Snell getting stuffed on a fourth-and-1 in the first half. That was more a matter of bad execution than a bad play call. But why run speed back Anthony McFarland up the middle on the previous third-and-1?

On the ensuing possession, Dallas marched down the field and scored a touchdown to make it 10-0.

Especially bad special teams: The special teams were atrocious. And I say that knowing that Chris Boswell hit a 59-yard field goal at the end of the first half.

But he only got to try that 59-yarder because the team committed a false start on a 55-yarder that Boswell missed. So they re-kicked.

Furthermore, Boswell missed one extra point and had another blocked by Tyrone Crawford.

We haven’t even gotten to the kick-coverage game yet. Rico Dowdle went for 64 yards on a kick return when the Steelers got tricky and tried to directionally pooch the ball because the Cowboys had committed a penalty on Smith-Schuster’s touchdown.

And the Cowboys caught the Steelers napping on a trick punt return that went for 83 yards on a lateral across the field from Cedrick Wilson to C.J. Goodwin.

The field goal unit was so bad, Tomlin didn’t feel comfortable trotting it on the field up by five points with 43 seconds on the clock from the Dallas 19.

That decision eventually led to the final Hail Mary chance into the end zone from Gilbert at the end of the game.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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