PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) - It wasn't pretty, but the Pittsburgh Steelers are 2-0 in the preseason in a 16-15 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars Saturday night.
Kenny Pickett continued to make a case for himself to be the starter of the Steelers. He went 6/7 for 67 yards and one touchdown pass. He found Benny Snell for an 11 yard score to give the Steelers a 7-6 lead. Pickett finished with just two drives in the time he saw the field.
"That was all that I had planned to play him," said Mike Tomlin. "I would have liked to possess the ball more in the first half and thus have a bigger body of work. Some things are out of your control. We got to get first downs first in order for that to happen."
Pickett is now 19/22 for 171 yards and 3 touchdowns in the preseason.
"We'll address depth chart related things over the next couple of days. I don't make knee jerk reactions or statements following a performance," said Tomlin.
Mitch Trubisky started the game but wasn't able to do too much offensively because of the struggles the offensive line had in the game. He finished 5/8 for 60 yards and was sacked once. But it could have been a lot more the way the pass rush continued to get to him.
"I thought Mitch played well. I thought he created and extended some things when there wasn't much there. We got to do a better job protecting him and having some semblance of a run game if you want a fair evaluation and I'm just being bluntly honest," said Tomlin.
After the Jaguars gained 51 yards on a pass play that the Steelers missed four tackles on, Justin Layne came up with a huge interception at the Steelers 14 yard line and returned it all the way to the Steelers 48. From there, Mason Rudolph put together a six play drive and capped it off with a fourth and goal touchdown pass to Tyler Snead in the corner of the end zone to give the Steelers a 16-15 lead.
"I thought he looked like a Varsity guy in a JV game. It was reminiscent of when we had Charlie Batch and Byron Leftwich as backups. When you have a veteran guy like that late in a preseason game at the quarterback position, he should be the best player on the field, it should show, and I thought he did," said Tomlin.
Jacksonville had one more drive left with just under 2 minutes to play in the game and drove the football into Steelers territory. They got the ball to the 38 yard line with 3 seconds left and attempted a 56 yard field goal which sailed way off to end the game.