Win, lose, or tie, that was going to accompany any analysis
of what happened here last night, but it’s always much more palatable for the
players and coaches when the caveat is being used to temper enthusiasm instead
of as a salve for a defeat. Not that the Steelers played a perfect 60 minutes
or anything, not that their performance wasn’t rife with things that will
provide teaching points for their final few days at Saint Vincent College.
But in a 31-14 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, the
Steelers played a cleaner game than the defending Super Bowl champions, and in
a preseason opener that’s about as good as it gets.
The Steelers finished plus-2 in turnover ratio, they were
assessed fewer penalties than the Eagles, 8-11, for fewer yards, 42-72, and
didn’t run afoul of the new leading-with-the-helmet rule while the Eagles were
flagged for that twice. The most knucklehead thing the Steelers did in the
penalty column was get called twice for lining up over the long-snapper on
conversion attempts, and they also were flagged once for being offside on a
kickoff, which is nearly impossible to do now that players aren’t permitted to
get a running start in coverage.
The Eagles were not as poised in this area, and the Steelers
twice took advantage of Philadelphia transgressions to stick the ball into the
end zone.
The Steelers took a 7-0 lead on a play that began with
Landry Jones using a hard count to draw an Eagles defensive lineman offside
before throwing up a rainbow down the left sideline that ended with JuJu
Smith-Schuster making a combat catch and then running away from cornerback
Rasul Douglas to complete a 71-yard touchdown play.
On another touchdown drive, an 11-play, 75-yard march that
answered the Eagles first touchdown and returned the lead to the Steelers,
critical penalties at critical moments committed by Philadelphia defenders
allowed the possession to continue. On a third-and-4 from the Steelers 31-yard
line, Josh Dobbs completed a pass to Damoun Patterson that gained only 2 yards,
but it became a first down when cornerback Sidney Jones drew a 15-yard penalty
for leading with his helmet on the tackle.
The Steelers have work very hard to adjust the helmet
penalty. But the Steelers never know until they get into a stadium environment.
It was good tonight however the Steelers won’t relax. They’ll will keep the
focus because those are significant penalties. One of the Steelers scoring
drives was kept alive because of penalties in that regard. So it’s just an
interesting point, a significant point to make to the Steelers, whether it
involves them as the ones who got penalized or not.
So, instead of a punt, the Steelers had a fresh set of
downs, and instead of settling for a red zone field many plays later they got a
fresh set of downs when Eagles defensive end Josh Sweat roughed Dobbs after he
threw incomplete to James Washington on a third-and-goal from the Philadelphia
4-yard line. Fitz Toussaint stuck the ball in the end zone on the next play.
Speaking of that Toussaint touchdown, another promising
aspect of the Steelers performance against the Eagles was the way the team
responded with a touchdown each time Philadelphia scored a touchdown. The
ability to answer an opponent’s score with one of your own is a trait good
teams have, and for one night at least these Steelers had it.
These Steelers also displayed some not-great run defense,
with Jay Ajayi once putting together a 22-yard run because he slipped attempted
tackles by four different defenders. But mitigating some of those lapses were
some tackles for loss that followed and caused the Eagles to come away with no
points to show for their rushing statistics. One Philadelphia possession
covered 53 yards and included three first downs but still ended with a punt, while
another covered 64 yards and included four first downs but ended with a
turnover on downs.
Another factor that allowed the Steelers to negate the 106
yards rushing the Eagles managed while averaging 4.4 per attempt were their
three takeaways. There were interceptions by Coty Sensabaugh and Cam Sutton in
the first half, and a fumble recovery by Keion Adams following a strip-sack by
Ola Adeniyi on the opening possession of the third quarter.
It’s was great to get the win Whenever the Steelers step
into a stadium, regardless of the circumstance, that is their singular focus
and then the evaluation of the play comes after that. The Steelers want to
focus on some really fundamental things tonight: putting our conditioning on
display, trying to play clean football from a technical standpoint, to minimize
penalties, and to win the possession of the ball – to take better care of it on
offense and to hunt it on defense. And largely those things happened throughout
the game. Of course there will be a lot to learn from this video, as there
always is, but generally I was pleased with the fundamental things that the
Steelers all collectively focused on as a group … A lot of good effort out
there.”
But it’s only a preseason game.
No comments:
Post a Comment