POV: You watched the Steelers score touchdowns on four-straight drives for the first time since 2018

Leading into Monday night, it had not been a good week for Pittsburgh sports. The Pitt men’s basketball team got slaughtered by Villanova. The Penguins only got three points from four games, blowing incredulous third-period leads in three of the games and dropping to 1-9 in games that go beyond regulation. TJ Watt was hospitalized mid-week due to a collapsed lung resulting from a dry needling complication, and was subsequently ruled out for the Steelers’ Monday Night Football game against the Miami Dolphins.

Forgive me if I was not the most optimistic person heading into last night’s game given what had transpired over the course of the past week—not that I am usually a confident person anyways. 

This pessimism was furthered by a few things: the Dolphins had been playing good football entering the matchup, winning their last four games to vault themselves from a basement-dwelling 2-7 record to the middle of the pack in the AFC. De’Von Achane, Miami’s star running back, accumulated an incredible 629 total yards in those four victories, making him a cause for concern against an ailing Steelers’ defense with an inability to consistently stop the run. The Steelers also had not won consecutive games since their triumph over Cleveland on October 12th, a two-plus month drought. 

The only elements that gave me a shred of confidence were Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s history of poor performances in games where the temperature was below 40°F (0-5 record entering the evening) and Aaron Rodgers’ excellent performance in his last game against Baltimore. 

The game last night was, again, a tale of two halves. However, the script was flipped compared to how the season has played out for the Steelers thus far. 21 of Pittsburgh’s 28 points were scored in the second half, the part of the game where they generally falter. 220 of their 336 total yards came in the final thirty minutes, including 108 of their 135 rushing yards. 

Rodgers played another solid game, but box score watchers will tell you he played better than he actually did. He completed 23 of 27 passes for 224 yards and two touchdowns and amassed a very respectable 125.9 passer rating, but an important detail is that only 50 of those yards came through the air. The pass catchers’ 174 yards-after-catch heavily inflated Rodgers’ yardage total. 

Now, I am not saying that that is a bad thing. Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and Rodgers clearly decided that taking what the defense gives you is an effective strategy—and it allowed them to score touchdowns on four consecutive drives for the first time since I was in high school. My point is more to illustrate the often-misleading nature of box scores. 

This is further evidenced by the final score. The Steelers dominated this game for a large chunk of time. Their lead reached 28-3 with 13:07 left in the game before the defense decided they were done trying, thus deciding to give up two fourth-quarter touchdowns to make the score look more respectable (the game ended 28-15). 

The Steelers are now 8-6. Their remaining three games are road trips to Detroit and Cleveland before hosting Baltimore to end the season. Theoretically, they only need to beat the Ravens to win the division. However, it would be nice to not have to rely on that game for a playoff berth. 

I do not expect much from them against the Lions, but if the Steelers can beat the Browns and the Ravens lose to the Patriots and/or Packers, that last game may not have much significance.