Steelers Now
It wouldn’t be a Sunday in the fall if the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t give all of their fans, both domestic and international, a heart attack to begin their afternoon, with a 24-21 win over the Minnesota Vikings in Dublin, Ireland oN Sunday morning.
On a positive note, Mike Tomlin’s club dominated this game on both sides of the football for about 56 minutes before things went sideways down the stretch. Still, we learned a lot about this team in their trip to Ireland, with an offense that may have found an identity against a tough opponent and a defense that is trending towards being the unit we expected to see coming into the season.
As always, let’s talk through some winners and losers from today’s game.
Jaylen Warren was a late addition to the injury report this week and an unexpected scratch after his pre-game warmup went awry, but Gainwell stepped up in a big way. The run game was humming, with the free agent pickup finishing with a whopping 68% rushing success rate. For context, the Dallas Cowboys currently lead the NFL in this metric at 52%. The game plan early was to spread the Vikings’ defense out with quick hitters underneath in the passing game and complement that with perimeter runs, which was a weakness of their opponents coming into the week.
Gainwell accumulated 99 yards, the most of his professional career, and notched his first ever multi-touchdown performance in the NFL. But he certainly didn’t do it alone. The offensive line stepped up and really controlled the trenches throughout. There were a handful of unsung heroes that deserve some recognition in this one as well. Darnell Washington led tight ends in usage this week, and unsurprisingly, the Steelers’ run game looked better because of it. Ben Skowronek did some dirty work in a variety of ways: pulling across the formation, sticking his nose in the fan, and even drawing a couple of penalties by being a pest. Pittsburgh rolled out their jumbo set with six offensive linemen, inserting Spencer Anderson into the fold on 19 plays from scrimmage. This was an inspired game plan that led to an encouraging performance against a great defense.
The 34-year-old Slay was tagged with allowing 134 yards on the initial viewing, according to PFF, most notably the blown coverage that resulted in an 81-yard Jordan Addison reception late in the fourth quarter. We should get clarity through the All-22 and player interviews, but it looked like the Steelers were playing quarters coverage, and in that case, he would be responsible for the #1 receiver running vertical. He was also one of the defenders late to respond to the motion in the red zone on Carson Wentz’s first touchdown toss of the day. This isn’t the first time this season where he’s been the culprit of a blown coverage, which is concerning since he was brought in to provide stability...
