ClutchPoints
Week 9 in the NFL was a bit of a wild one, with close finishes up and down the slate on Sunday. Unfortunately, the prime time games were duds, with the Ravens, Seahawks and Cardinals all dominating in front of a national audience.
Now that the season is at the halfway point, all focus shifted to the trade deadline, where there was plenty of action from contenders across the league. The Jets stole the show with a crazy fire sale, trading away both Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams in monster deals.
Before some of these new-look teams take center stage and the calendar flips to Week 10, let’s look back at the biggest winners from Week 9 of the NFL slate.
For years and years, the conversation around the Steelers was this: just give them a competent offense, and this team could compete in the AFC. Mike Tomlin has fielded a very good defense over the last five years since Ben Roethlisberger retired, but the offense consistently lagged behind due to poor quarterback play.
This year, Aaron Rodgers has given the Steelers solid play at the game’s most important position, but the defense was anchoring the team down. Pittsburgh’s veteran-laden unit on that side of the ball couldn’t stop anybody during the first half of the season, which was an ominous trend right before playing the red-hot Colts offense.
As it turns out, maybe a high-profile matchup like that was exactly what these Steelers needed. Pittsburgh forced six turnovers — yes, six — in a 27-20 win over the best team in the AFC so far this season to get to 5-3 on the season.
The Steelers defense posted the fourth-best EPA per play allowed for the week, and the best mark in that department against the pass in Week 9. Whether they are starting to turn a corner on that side of the ball remains to be seen, but this was certainly a great sign against an elite offense for a unit that was in need of a reset. If Pittsburgh is going to hold off the Ravens in the AFC North, it will need this to be a trend and not a blip.
The Seahawks have been one of the surprises of the season so far. Sam Darnold is playing MVP-level ball, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is having a historic season so far, and Mike Macdonald has this defense playing at a very high level despite some key injuries.
However, there were still some questions about Seattle’s viability as a team at the top of the NFC. Was this a real contender, or was it just a playoff-caliber team? On Sunday night, those questions were answered with a dominate 38-14 win over the Washington Commanders.
Darnold completed his first 16 passes and the Seahawks jumped out to a 28-0 lead in a blink. They were never threatened on a national stage and easily closed out the...
