The Steelers Come Out of Their Bye Week With A Much Needed Win

Going into the bye week the weakness of the Steelers was clearly the rushing attack and the defense. Coming out of the bye week and into the game against the Eagles at Heinz Field on Sunday it was pretty evident the Steelers put a lot of work into both units over the last two weeks.  The end result, a 16-14 Steeler victory in what I deemed a must win game. 

The improvement in the running game and on defense was not without the addition of a few old friends.  Rashard Mendenhall was back this week and made an immediate impact. The Steelers were averaging less than 3 yards per carry coming into the week.  Mendenhall was given 14 carries and he put up 81 yards and TD on those carries.  That’s a 5.8 yards per carry average.  Coming into the week in the preview I stated that we needed to look more at the yards per carry Mendenhall averaged rather than the total yards he gained on what I expected and turned out to be, a small amount of carries. Basically doubling what the team had been averaging in the first three weeks told me all I needed to know. Mendenhall is the guy again, he had is power running up the gut and his burst of speed to the outside of the tackles. He’s going to be a big asset to this offense.

On a day where Big Ben was more pedestrian than usual, 21 of 37 for 207 yards, no TD’s and no turnovers, Mendenhall made the difference.  Mendenhall carried a good load throughout the day and Ben was allowed to lead the comeback at the end of the game.   

While Roethlisberger may not have had an enormous day statistically; he proved once again his favorite target is Antonio Brown. Brown put up another 7 catches for 86 yards, followed by Heath Miller’s 4 catches for 41 yards and then Emmanuel Sanders had 3 catches for 22 yards.  All in all Ben hit 8 receivers on the day.  Lost in the mix was Mike Wallace who only produced 2 catches for 17 yards.  While his first 3 games were pretty solid, I felt he needed to be a much bigger factor in the pass attack against the Eagles.  We’ll see how that plays out moving forward.

Defensively the return of Troy Polamalu and James Harrison had an intangible effect.  The D rose to the occasion, they picked up 3 sacks of Michael Vick, they hit him 8 more times and they forced him to fumble 3 times, 2 resulted in turnovers.  While Harrison only had 2 tackles, he brings a fear to opposing offenses. His ability to rush the QB and frighten running backs is hard to replace. Polamalu only had 2 tackles as well before leaving the game in the 2^nd quarter when he re injured his calf.  The team also lost LaMarr Woodley to a hamstring injury. Woodley’s injury ironically showed us all that Harrison looks to be back at full strength from his injury. Harrison was supposed to get some rest and take snaps off but once Woodley went down, he played nearly the entire way. 

It was evident the defense was not happy with their first three weeks and Lawrence Timmons in particular broke out vs. the Eagles. He led the way, as I think he should probably do just about every week (he’s that good) with 9 tackles, followed by the old vet Larry Foote with 8.  Timmons was a monster making play after play and was a big reason why the Eagles high flying offense stayed grounded on this day.

The main issue on this day was once again the penalties. The Steelers logged 9 more penalties for 106 yards.  One of them, holding on Willie Colon, wiped out a 24 yard gain by Mendenhall.  He’d have been over 100 yards on the day if not for that.  The team needs to get it together and while it was evident the coaches worked on a several items over the bye week, this was one that did not appear they put too much emphasis on. They can’t continue to log several penalties each week and expect to win.  The team must work on their discipline, immediately.

Overall the black and gold did what they had to do on both sides of the ball and most importantly they got the win to even up their record at 2-2 on a day when the Ravens still won but the Bengals lost.  They will now have to come back on a short week and visit the struggling Tennessee Titans on Thursday night. It’s a great chance to keep things moving in the right direction if they can pick up 2 wins in 4 days and then get another long week off before they play again.

NEWS, NOTES and SUPERLATIVES:

Players(s) of the Game:  Rashard Mendenhall-He stepped up when the team needed a running attack most. His 14 carries for 81 yards were by far and away the best performance by a running back all year.

                                           Lawrence Timmons-He had been rather quiet all year and he delivered today, leading the team in tackles with 9 and causing havoc everywhere.

Injuries that will linger into Thursday: Troy Polamalu and LaMarr Woodley-Don’t expect them to play on Thursday night, possibly longer.

Pipe Down-Any of you who want Troy to retire.  He’s still a massive factor on this team, they need him.  Yes, he’s been injured this year but I’ll pose this question to you, do you want him injured now or towards the playoffs.  Troy may decide to retire after the year but we all need to hope and pray he doesn’t. He still has some good football left in him.

2-2 up next, at Tennessee on Thursday Night.