Steel City Blitz
Hey Steelers Fans. Welcome to Victory Monday.
Pardon my French but… Ho-Lee Shit. What a fourth quarter. What a final four minutes. What a final two minutes. What a final play! As you know, the Steelers hung on to defeat the Detroit Lions 29-24 but it wasn’t without controversy. The Lions had scored but a pick/screen by Isaac TeSlaa negated that. And then came the final play. Amon Ra St. Brown clearly pushed off on Jalen Ramsey to create space for himself to catch the ball, which he did. But he never broke the plane of the goal line as Ramsey and Joey Porter, Jr stopped him short. As they drove him further backwards, they started to disengage. St. Brown flipped the ball to Jared Goff who rumbled into the end zone. During the referee’s explanation, he said it was a touchdown. I firmly believe it was not. I believe the crew panicked and said it was knowing the offensive interference would nullify it. Had the flags not been thrown, replay would have shown the whistles had blown and the game would have been over either way. Ultimately, it was a great game for spectators but it also revealed some both good and bad things about the Steelers.
The running game picked up 230 yards spearheaded by Jaylen Warren’s 143 yards and two scores. Kenneth Gainwell picked up 50 yards on nine carries and another 78 yards receiving including one of the greatest catches you’ll ever see. Aaron Rodgers had another solid outing and the patchwork offensive line largely held its own.
Rodgers would be the first to tell us that his unit left points on the field. They had a TD taken off the board for a penalty and then Darnell Washington’s fumble inside the Red Zone could have been a killer too.
Dylan Cook has been far from perfect at left tackle but my goodness, this guy was a college quarterback! He’s playing really well for a third-string tackle and now he’ll face his biggest challenge with Myles Garrett. We don’t talk enough about Zach Frazier. He’s been really good all season long at center. He’s everything the Steelers could have wanted.
Sadly, the fourth quarter erased what had been one of the team’s better defensive performances of the season. Don’t get me wrong, it was still pretty damn good. Anytime you limit Detroit like that you’re doing something right. I firmly believe they ran out of gas.
The return of Derrick Harmon was huge because he allowed for more substituting and he happens to be pretty damn good (he was given a game ball after winning in his hometown). The Steelers held Detroit’s running attack to just 15 total yards which is quite frankly, unthinkable but they did it. Cam Heyward is playing at a high level and Keeanu Benton may have had his best overall game as well.
On the back end, the secondary got a huge...
