The Steelers look to be hitting on all cylinders right now after they completely demolished the Carolina Panthers, putting up 52 points and playing tough defense.
Ben Roethlisberger had his best game of the year with a “bombs away” offense. Connecting with JuJu Smith-Schuster on a 75-Yard Touchdown on the first play from scrimmage. He also hit Antonio Brown on a 53-yarder that put the game all but out of reach in the first half. Roethlisberger, finished with 328 Yards passing, hit nine different receivers, five for touchdowns and had the magic 158.3 quarterback rating.
The offensive line did another terrific job protecting Ben Roethlisberger and opening holes for running lanes. They kept the Panthers on their heels from the first play and never let up. The running game was used to open up the passing game and it worked. Dave DeCastro had one of the statement plays of the night as he came out and almost lit up Eric Reid after his questionable hit on Roethlisberger.
JuJu Smith-Schuster and Antonio Brown had very productive nights combining for 186 yards as did Vance McDonald who chipped in with four catches for 44 yards. Jaylen Samuels had his first receiving touchdown of the year on a nice catch and run and Jesse James had one catch for a touchdown.
The defense, after getting torched on the first drive, played their most complete game of the season. The game plan was edge pressure, trap Cam Newton and take away the long ball, which they did perfectly. They decked Cam Newton seven times and sacked him five times. Steelhead Hewyard led the team with two sacks and was all over Newton. T.J. Watt had a big sack and should have had a safety, when Newton was trying to ground a pass that was picked off by Vince Williams.
The secondary kept Newton in check all day and he never had a completion longer than 15 yards. The coverage was solid all night and the Panthers were not able to stretch the field.
EVEN the Special Teams played well! Little Bos hit a 50+ Fields goal, Roosevelt Nix forced a fumble and there wasn’t a Jordan Berry sighting until the 4th quarter!
The coaching staff had a great game plan in a short week coming out of a very physical football game. Of course Tomlin said it best, “…we’re probably not that good..” They are never to high and never to low, that’s the sign of a great coach.
BEER WE GO STEELERS, BEER WE GO!
My “GAME BEER” goes to: Ben Roethlisberger, who put together a monster performance. Also Considered: Cam Heyward and the entire Offensive Line.
Where I watched the game: This is interesting this week. It was a “Jets” day for me as I got to meet up with one of the good guys in football NY Jet great Marty Lyons and in the evening I watched the first quarter with Tony Richardson and Nick Mangold from the Jets. I watched quarter two and three with Johnny “The Hitman” Hernandez and my buddy Brian in the back of an UBER on a tablet which was awesome and listened to the majority of the fourth quarter on the radio finishing up in bed with KGB for the last two minutes. Very cool night! I texted with KGB and my buddy Bill the whole time and for the first time in a long time the texts with Bill were not actually littered with f-bombs!
My Stat of the week: 158.3 x 4! The amount of times Ben Roethlisberger has had a perfect Quarterback Rating and he still remains the only player in the NFL to do it twice in one season (07)!
My Thoughts on next week: After a long week now, the Steelers will get revenge down in Jacksonville.
This week’s Jersey: No jersey this week because it was a short week and I was at a business function. I did rock my BWGSTEELERS 92 T-shirt the night before that KGB made and yesterday wore my Steelers tie and gold pocket silk!
He may be a Jet and he may have broken your heart if you love Penn State but he is all good in my book!
Please consider donating to the Marty Lyons Foundation:
https://martylyonsfoundation.org