Steelers Now
CHARLOTTE — If there’s one thing you don’t want to happen in a preseason game, it’s to have a key player suffer a major injury. If there’s another thing you don’t want to happen, it’s a bunch of sloppy and preventable mistakes that make your own team’s play nearly impossible to evaluate.
For the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday night, they went 0 for 2. But they did win, coming back for a 19-10 victory over the Panthers to close the preseason with a 2-1 record.
First-round draft pick Derrick Harmon left the game in the first quarter when he was carted off the playing surface at Bank of America Stadium after a knee injury. The big defensive tackle was injured rushing the quarterback on a play that became a James Pierre interception. He was quickly ruled out and did not return.
The rest of the early portion of the game was marred by penalties and other errors by the Steelers. Pittsburgh was penalized on the opening kickoff and three of the first six plays of the game. Another play on the opening offensive series was a fumble by starting Steelers running back Jaylen Warren. Mason Rudolph had his second interception in as many games. The Steelers went on to be penalized 13 times for 104 yards.
That came on the heels of a loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Saturday that head coach Mike Tomlin said was the result of “self-inflicted wounds.”
This time, it didn’t cost them the game thanks to a few big plays of their own, though the victory came in a game where the Steelers played most of their starters, and the Panthers — who finished 5-12 last season — rested most of theirs.
Carolina opened the scoring with a first-drive field goal — aided significantly by a Jalen Ramsey personal foul penalty.
Skylar Thompson turned Pierre’s interception in one end zone into points in the other with a 25-yard strike to Lance McCutcheon.
The Panthers answered the Steelers’ score with a pass from Jack Plummer to James Mitchell, on a play where the nearest Steelers defender to Mitchell may have been one of the numerous black and gold-clad fans in the stands.
The Steelers tied the game at the end of the first half when Thompson unleashed a bomb for Scotty Miller, who continued his stellar preseason with a 53-yard reception that set up the first of four Ben Sauls field goals.
Thompson again finished as the team’s top passer, going 11 of 13 for 152 yards and a touchdown for a 141 passer rating. Trey Sermon was the team’s top rusher, with four carries for 39 yards. Miller finished with three catches for 82 yards.
Defensively, Yahya Black was the breakout star after Harmon’s injury He finished with a team-high five tackles, including his first pro sack and a pressure that set up a Julius Welschof strip sack.
The Steelers will have two straight weekends off before they re-convene...
