Steelers Dominate Panthers 27-3

It was two nights before Christmas and all through the stadium, the Steelers were scoring, making the game far from boring.  The Steelers flat out dominated the overmatched Panthers.  The air attack that was Big Ben to Wallace and Miller was second to none. Big Ben threw for 320 yards and a TD and had another TD overturned as well. Wallace put up 4 catches for over 100 yards and Miller posted 5 catches for 73 yards. We had mentioned that Miller should and would be a key to the game and he was. That’s important as he can make up for whta seems to be lacking in the run game. Mendenhall had 18 carries for 65 yards. That’s not terrible, BUT, 35 of those yards were on one carry.  Those numbers must improve as the Steelers head to the playoffs.  The O line is still not creating the wholes for the speedy Mendenhall to breakthrough. We see this as a big concern, clearly. 

Defensively the Steelers dominated again, only allowing three points. Ryan Mundy, better known as Troy’s replacement, posted 8 tackes to lead the team. Collectively the Steelers had 4 sacks and a pick. They do need to improve the bend but don’t break D they have been playing though. You may be saying what the hell are you talking about? Well, let me tell you. They seem to give up a lot of yards on several occasions before they finally put the clamps on and force the opposing team to punt. As you may have noticed the past two weeks, this play, while not allwoing opposing points, has pinned the Steelers deep in their own end zone. With a porous line, the offense is struggling, then punting deep from their own zone and the cycle continues. We’d like to see the D force more 3 and outs.

We felt that oveall it was a complete game and a game that they had to win to stay in front of the dirty purple crows in Baltimore.  Tomlin should have pulled Ben and the starters and the special teams coverage is still weak, but overall they got the job done against the worst team in football.

11-4, next up: Cleveland