It is not often that one feels worse about a team after they win a game. However, yesterday’s 21-14 triumph over New England by the Steelers was such a pathetic performance—at least from an offensive perspective—that it left me devoid of almost any remaining confidence in this year’s team.
The amazing thing is that the offense started off great yesterday. Arthur Smith’s unit scored touchdowns on its first two drives of the game—a 54-yard drive capped off by a 1-yard Kenneth Gainwell rushing touchdown and a 90-yard drive that ended with a 12-yard DK Metcalf receiving touchdown. The Steelers accumulated 144 yards of net offense on their first two drives. They followed those drives with a 3-and-out, an interception thrown by Aaron Rodgers, a punt after losing 2 yards due to a holding penalty, another 3-and-out, a punt from the New England 43 (the only first down on that drive being gained by a pass interference penalty), and finally a 62-yard touchdown drive capped off by Calvin Austin’s game-winning 17-yard touchdown reception.
Between Pittsburgh’s second and third touchdown drives, they amassed a total of 27 yards of offense, including net yardage from penalties. That is a span from 13:49 remaining in the second quarter to 7:41 remaining in the fourth quarter. Over the course of 36:18 of game time, the Steelers moved the ball 27 yards. That is an egregious total.
The Patriots dominated every offensive category. They held the ball for 33:20, compared to 26:40 for the Steelers. They out-gained the Steelers by 166 yards, 111 yards of that difference through the air. The Patriots gained nine more first downs than the Steelers as well. However, there were two deciding factors that somehow allowed the black and gold: Drake Maye was sacked five times, while Aaron Rodgers was not tackled for a loss, and the Patriots turned the ball over five times, while the Steelers only did so once.
Two of the Patriots’ turnovers occurred deep in the red zone, with Drake Maye throwing an interception late in the second quarter from the Steelers’ two yard-line and Rhamondre Stevenson fumbling early in the third quarter right before he crossed the goal line for what would have been a game-tying touchdown.
While the defense was opportunistic—getting five sacks and five turnovers—they were still shredded by a mediocre (at best) offense. New England gained 369 yards in the game. When combining 3rd- and 4th-down conversion attempts, they were 10-18, as the Steelers proved time and again to be incapable of getting teams off the field.
One positive in this game was 2025 first-round pick Derrick Harmon’s debut. When he was on the field, he made an impact. He had a sack and three pressures from his interior defensive line position, and the defense only allowed 2.2 yards per rush when he was on the field (they allowed 4.1 yards per rush for the whole game). Another positive was TJ Watt finally stuffing the stat sheet, recording five total tackles, two tackles for loss, two sacks, and a forced fumble.
TJ and Harmon were more or less the only positives in a game from which the Steelers somehow escaped with a win. This should be a concern heading into Sunday’s game in Dublin against a Minnesota Vikings team that just beat the Cincinnati Bengals 48-3. I do not care if the Bengals were without Joe Burrow—that margin of victory is impressive nonetheless. We will be 2-2 by 12:30PM eastern on the 28th. I suppose both losses being against the NFC is not the worst thing, though.