Pittsburgh Steelers get much-needed victory vs Indianapolis Colts | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

Pittsburgh Steelers get much-needed victory vs Indianapolis Colts | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

And you never know what’s going to happen in Pittsburgh, you know, in hindsight. Yeah. I think I may have ignored the pasta and meatballs. But but what I so hard sometimes when reality looks like crap. Something’s changed. Like something’s changed. Being at the game last Sunday night had a profound effect on me because I had never seen a Steelers home game like that where it felt like a neutral sight game where fans just show up with their cheese heads and their Packers jerseys and it’s like a Lambeau Field party and it’s like where are the Steelers fans? What’s going on here? What’s happening to this team? And then Mike Tomlin seems completely chill and unbothered by what’s happening. What’s going on with the Pittsburgh Steelers? Yeah, past years that would have been a classic game where the Steelers go in and take care of business against a team that’s record has been fattened up and they’re not as good as seven and one and this is a day to smack them down. But I felt like this year something’s different. They don’t have the horses to do it. And it turned out they did and they won the game 27 to 20. It felt like it was worse than 27 to 20. Some garbage time points for the Colts. Regardless, all that matters is the Steelers got the win, a muchneeded win, and they forced six turnovers. The Colts had four all year in eight games. Yeah, they had six yesterday against the Steelers. That’s the kind of game that the Steelers need. That’s the formula. That’s the blueprint for them to win, to create havoc, to create turnovers, get short fields, score points, and that’s how you win. And now they’re five and three. Definitely, it’s what we expected, right? It was somewhat efficient on the offensive side of the ball. It’s not wowing or sexy, but Rogers, you know, hits the throws he’s supposed to. They control the ball a little that way. Okay, they score a few points and then, hey, the defense makes a few plays certainly. And that’s what we’ve been missing. I mean, it was and and you heard me say last week that the two playmakers are the two edge guys. It’s TJ Watt, Alex Smith, and then Nick Herbig might be the the third big best playmaker, but yesterday Pton Wilson got involved in the mix, too. I mean, the interception, he has the tip pass that goes into Jack Sawyer’s hands for an interception as well. And that’s what’s different. You heard me in the viewing room yesterday, right, early on in the game. You know, you know, I know some people in football and all that. I got the sense by texting some people in Pittsburgh during the week, and you heard me say this, I think, right, that they were going to change their approach on defense a little bit. They were doing cover two right out of the gate. That’s what I didn’t know what it was going to be, but I got the sense in text that they were like, “Hey, we’re we’re going to change the way.” And and you might have heard me saying I was I don’t know if that means they’re going to blitz more or what, but I got the sense that they were like, “No, no, what we’ve been doing, we we got to tinker with and change.” And the big thing what they did was they played more zone than any other game in the in this season this to this point. They played what 70% zone snaps right now. I don’t know. Yeah, we saw cover two. We saw that. I saw a lot of single safety zones as well. And I think that probably caught the Indianapolis Colts by surprise. But the thing that it does there, you got zone, eyes are on the ball. They got a lot of instinctive players. So the quarterback, you react, you rally, you tackle, no man-to-man, so guys aren’t just running by people for big plays like we saw Jordan Love do to them the week before. So that was big as well. And then, hey, sometimes when you’re in zone and if you play it the right way, what happens? Oh, I drop back. Instead, it’s manto man. Oh, I got a back shoulder. I got a go route. Oh, I got a slant route. He beat him right away. Boom. Oh, wait. What coverage is this? Hold on. Let me pat the ball. Oh. Oh, was that TJ Watt that just hit me? And that’s what happened yesterday. So, that was what was big to see for Pittsburgh, their change of a style on the defensive side of the ball. And we’ll see if that benefits him going forward. Well, and something lit a fire and that was another factor last week that caused us both, I think, to believe the Colts would win the game. There seemed to be no fire, right? Mike Tomlin didn’t seem to be upset and we do the show me something draft on Friday. I said, “Hey, TJ Watt and the Steelers defense. It’s time to show us something.” TJ Watt got that contract better than Miles Garrett. Garrett’s playing like defensive player of the year. TJ Watt’s been on a milk carton most of the year. So, he stepped up. The defense stepped up. The Steelers are back. It changes everything, especially as they felt the Ravens beginning to breathe on the backs of their necks. That was huge for the Steelers to show up, reestablish themselves, beat the Colts. It’s a confidence builder and it’s a boost and it it reintroduces the Steelers to the conversation because it felt like they were in the process of falling. Yeah, you’re right. That that’s exactly right. It it it makes you go, “Okay, wait, wait. Okay, there is hope for this football team. Maybe maybe they can figure out some of these things on the defensive’s side of the ball.” I can’t remember who was announcing that game yesterday. It was but JJ Watt. Oh, yeah. that he did say during the game that the the defense was like first off disgusted by their performance over the last few weeks, but also disgusted and mad and angry about what the national media was saying about him. I’m sure what they heard me. I hate I hate that. Wait, I know you do. Steelers Steelers, it’s your own fault. Don’t get mad that we noticed that you stink. Stop stinking. It’s not our fault that we pointed out what was happening. I hate that. I hate that. How dare you point out that we’re not any good this year? I I hear you though. I hate that. That’s we’re we’re in that world right now. But it’s just it’s I mean it’s I got mad at somebody on the highway today. They cut me off and they got off the highway. He was mad that I got mad at him for breaking the law and I was Yeah. Like how dare you? Right. That’s the world we are. Stop texting. Stop texting while driving holding his phone. Like I say that all the time. You can see you look in the rearview mirror and you can see the They never even look up from their phone. How do they drive? I I I don’t know. Anyway, anyway, still I love you. Second favorite team according to him. But it’s not our fault that we noticed that you got outclassed by the Packers, that your fans got shamed by Packers fans, that it felt like a neutral sight game, that you had the ugliest uniforms we’ve ever seen. It’s not our fault that we noticed those things. I hear I think that I think the thing that that JJ said was they were bothered by are they washed? Are they too old? Right? Which again, of course, was a fair question with the way they look. Certainly, but hey, they get back to playing the way they did yesterday. They do that on a consistent basis. We won’t have any of those questions. When you’re covered in soap, suds, you may be washed. Exactly. Right. Right. So, the the game was the game fell right for them. And let’s let’s talk about the game a little bit. First off, the Colts go right down the field on the first drive of the game and it’s like bing bang boom boom boom and you’re like, “Oh, hey, the Steelers defense it still sucks. Sorry, Liverpool.” Right? I mean, it was it was right away. Then they stop Pittsburgh and they’re about to get the ball back and you’re going, “Oh man.” I mean, the way they made it look like you could feel the anxiousness in the stadium and that became the the Josh Downs fumbled punt and I know the Steelers didn’t score on that on that drive. They got stopped on fourth and goal, but either way, it can change the dynamic of the football game to where you felt like the Colts were like, “Oh gosh, here they go. They’re wrong and the Steelers start to feel like a Steelers game when something like that happens.” That’s one of the Steelers moves. Oh, their formula’s in place today. Exactly. Right. So, they do that. Okay, great. They don’t score, but then I think it was the next drive or the drive after that. I think it was the next drive, they get the strip sack and that causes a short field and they get a touchdown not long after that and that kind of got everything rolling. And they never let Jonathan Taylor in the run game get going. Uh, and again, I think a little bit of that is the zone defenses because you got eyes at the everybody’s looking, right? You’re not you’re oh, I’m not worried about my man, right? and he ran this way as a receiver or tight end. Oh, wait. They ran the ball kind of right where I was supposed to be, but I was in man, so, you know, they did this or whatever else. There’s a little bit of that. And that’s a great point, though. When you’re covering a man, you’re covering the man. When you’re in a zone, you can pay more attention to what’s going on in front game. And especially this day and age with like the RPOS’s and stuff, right? You’ll see them run the ball and the tight end might run to the flat. And then the guy that’s supposed to maybe have the D gap, he’s going, “Wait, I’m running. I got to cover a manto man. You want me to help out in the run?” But you also told me to play manto man. So that’s the hard thing about man-to-man at times and that’s where you can get tricked and certainly uh confused and I think they took a a better approach there alto together and certainly seemed like they flustered the unstoppable machine of Daniel Jones and Shane Stiken which we hadn’t seen and we hadn’t seen anybody bottle up Jonathan Taylor like that. And I think the other aspect is that when you get a lead and your defense causes some turnovers yeah it caused the Colts to get away from the run game. And that’s where, you know, I think we all look at it and go, “Oo, you know, if if the Steelers can get a little lead and then it becomes, uhoh, here comes T TJ Watt, Alex Highmith, and they can bring a creative blitz that Terrell Austin does from time to time and splash that in there.” That’s where you give them hope going into the future, but we got to see it more consistently. Uh, and hopefully they can capitalize off of yesterday. 14 carries, 45 yards for Jonathan Taylor, 3.2 yards per carry with a long run of nine. That is a huge performance by a Steelers defense that got shredded on the ground against the Bengals. Yeah. I mean, in a Colts offensive line, that’s been perfect. I mean, Colts offensive tackles, right? I mean, a big blue wall. I mean, their tackles have been phenomenal this year. And to watch them get beat the way they did a few times in the game yesterday by by all those guys. Yeah, that was that was shocking. It certainly was. But yeah, the the the Steelers defense made some plays and gave that stadium some energy which it needed because if you just look at the offensive performance now you get some short fields but it wasn’t like it was a it wasn’t like it was and so you know some games the offense shows up the defense doesn’t they lose far better if the defense shows up and the offense is kind of there and they win every once in a while they put both ends hey it was five turnovers in the game and the game was 24-10 and we were like I mean it’s five turnovers to none and and it’s this is scary. You still were like, uhoh, the Colts might go down here and score and make it 2417. And I think they got one more strip sack and got a shorts field goal and that made it 27-10. But there was a lot of instances in this game, even though when making the plays, you were going, “Well, here go the Colts. They’re about the drive. Here they come. Oh, damn. Turnover. Well, they were kind of in fringe field goal territory. They were about to do something there.” So timely there. But yes, there’s a part of me too that wants to go. Is it sustainable to expect that on a week- toeek basis? and I’m not ready to say yes yet. You got to do that and show me that your defense could create havoc more than one game before I start to go, “Okay, the Steelers are back on D.” Right? We got to see this three, two, three more times and start to go, “No, no, this is a thing now. They’ve got it. They figured it out.” And I’m not ready to say that yet about the Steelers. Here’s coach Mike Tomlin on the difference between last week and this week. It’s a fine line between drinking wine and squashing grapes in this business. Um it’s nothing dramatic, you know. Um it’s really not. Um and and that’s why we respect it so much. Um couple plays here and there that might have been different last week. We don’t give up the 59 yard ball to 33 yard ball. We don’t let them convert on fourth and one in the flat, for example, in the third quarter. Um that’s that’s football at this level. Um it’s a it’s a limited number of plays or sequences that can really change the trajectory of an outcome. We’re still the same group that stunk it up last week. Um that’s football. He’s so right. There’s like five plays in a game, five moments in a game. Whether it’s you make the play, they make the play, it’s a bad call, it’s a weird bounce, or my guy is a freak and he makes a play. Yes. And that’s why you look at it and you go, “Yeah, the league is as close as ever. These games are nailbiters.” Even when it’s like, “Hey, this is supposed to be the best team in football and this is the worst team in football.” It it doesn’t matter. And that’s why this is to me where the you’re we’re back to the Eagles. They’ve mastered this. Like, hey, hey, we got all this other stuff, but but in big moments, you need some players to make some plays. The the the game’s too close. this what we’re seeing. It cut too many of the games and big games we’ve seen the last few years. It didn’t come down to oh this team perfectly executed. You go whoa this guy made a play in a big moment. That’s what happens right. So it’s not always about the X’s and O’s. It’s about the Jimmies and the Joe’s. And yeah, yesterday last week they we know the game was very competitive. They blew a few situational plays and it blew the doors wide open for the Green Bay offense. So, we’ll see where this goes. But, yeah, you got to have some guys that can go above and beyond what is called or what was drawn up in the playbook. And I think that’s what, you know, maybe one thing we question about the Pittsburgh Steelers. And we’ll see if they can continue on the plays they made yesterday. Oh, by the way, we’ll see them Sunday night against the Chargers in LA. Yeah. against Jim Harbaugh, who once was the Colts quarterback in a game that I attended in the first row of the upper deck looking down into the end zone where Harbaugh almost completed the Hail Mary that would have sent the Colts to the Super Bowl that year. That was a hell of a game. It was a hell of Garrett and I were talking about that yesterday. Super Bowl 30 it would have been, right? That was because that I mentioned last week. I was at that game and when Ernie Mills caught a long pass to set the Steelers up for the go-ahhead touchdown, the stadium shook to the point where it crossed my mind that maybe the upper deck is going to collapse onto the lower deck. That’s how much you would think that I’m front row this roller coaster. New stadium. I felt it shaking. Can stadium handle loud noises? No. The stadium shook. I had never experienced that before. Dr. Doom. Will the stadium collapse? We score a touchdown and we all die. I definitely didn’t experience it last week at Aquasher Stadium. There was no risk of anything collapsing due to the sound waves in Pittsburgh. Hi, it’s Mike Fuio. Thanks for watching PFT on YouTube. Hit subscribe for the latest news and analysis from Pro Football

The Steelers got a much-needed win in Pittsburgh, limiting the Colts’ high-flying offense to boost their confidence. #NBCSports #NFL #ProFootballTalk
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Pittsburgh Steelers get much-needed victory vs Indianapolis Colts | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC https://www.youtube.com/NFLonNBC