Needing a big-time bounce-back performance and finding themselves up against the high-flying Indianapolis Colts in Week 9 at Acrisure Stadium, the Pittsburgh Steelers rose to the challenge and rolled to a 27-20 win that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.
The Steelers’ defense, under fire after back-to-back dreadful performances in Weeks 7 and 8, showed up in a major way Sunday, forcing five turnovers in the win. The pass rush was ferocious against Daniel Jones and the Colts, and Pittsburgh put the clamps on NFL MVP candidate Jonathan Taylor in the run game.
The Steelers made the Colts one-dimensional, which allowed them to hunt in the pass rush. In turn, they forced turnovers in shocking fashion, helping Pittsburgh cruise.
Despite the impressive win over the NFL’s best team, ESPN’s Domonique Foxworth isn’t buying that the win was all that good for the Steelers.
“I know that this did not feel as great as I think it should. If I’m watching the Steelers, like this is the second time that they’ve had an enormous turnover margin. So they had the turnover margin by five, they won by seven,” Foxworth said Monday, according to video via Get Up on ESPN. “I think if you go back to 2020, the average you win by is 23. Then they had that New England game earlier in the season, won the turnover battle by four. They had five turnovers in that game, won it by seven. I’m not optimistic about this team.
“They can pull it together and things break their way sometimes and they can win. But this, I don’t leave this game feeling like, ‘Oh, Steelers back on track.’ It feels a little bit different than that.”
Yes, the final score was just a seven-point margin in favor of the Steelers, but that’s just simply box score watching from Foxworth.
In the fourth quarter, following a 46-yard Chris Boswell field goal, it was a 27-10 game with 6:51 remaining. The Colts’ final 10 points came in garbage time. Jones hit wide receiver Josh Downs for a 4-yard touchdown with 4:30 remaining, and after a bad Roman Wilson fumble with the Steelers trying to drain the clock, Indianapolis tacked on a 53-yard field goal with nine seconds left.
This game just wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.
Pittsburgh forced the six turnovers and did so with some dominant play.
T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith each had a strip-sacks. Payton Wilson had the best game of his Steelers career with an interception and a batted pass that led to rookie Jack Sawyer’s first NFL interception. Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. picked off his first pass of the season, too.
Even special teams got in on the mix, too, with Downs muffing a punt and the Steelers recovering.
Granted, the offense could have been much better in this one, though it did turn the takeaways into points consistently, scoring 21 points off turnovers. There was still some sloppiness on that side of the football though, which could factor into why Foxworth feels the way he does coming out of the Steelers’ win.
But it’s hard to sit here and think that the win wasn’t good enough just because of the margin of victory. The Colts scored 10 garbage-time points and were thoroughly outplayed. The Steelers stepped up to the challenge this week and made a statement.
Now, they have to build on it.
Recommended for you