The Steelers are off to their best start in their 87-year history, but it wasn’t pretty…it was downright ugly in Dallas.
The Steelers are 8-0 but have yet to put a full 60-minute game together. The past three weeks, the team played a solid first or second half, but against the Cowboys, they played 15 minutes of decent football.
Going into the third quarter, the Steelers were down 19-9 but outscored Dallas 15-0 in the fourth to win the game.
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has over 300 yards passing with 306 and 3 touchdown passes, but late in the second quarter, all of Pittsburgh collectively held its breath after Roethlisberger’s knee was banging up taking a hit after a completion.
The 17-year veteran, who is tough as nails no matter what anyone says, was able to march (or limp) the Steelers down the field to score their first points of the game.
Big Ben, then immediately went into the locker room to be evaluated, but returned and looked fine in the second half.
Dallas with the worst defense in the league was able stop the Steelers run game. James Conner had nine carries for just 22 yards and Roethlisberger was the team’s second leading rusher with 1 carry for eight yards.
The Steelers receivers were clutch for Pittsburgh in the win. JuJu Smith-Schuster had six catches for 93 yards and one touchdown.
Diontae Johnson has six for 77 yards and Chase Claypool has eight for 69 yards.
Receiver James Washington and Eric Ebron had the Steelers other two TDS.
Dallas quarterback Garrett Gilbert, their 4th string QB, went 21/38 with 243 yards and one touchdown. He also gave up an interception to Minkah Fitzpatrick.
The Steelers secondary continued to give up a few big plays, which kept Dallas in the game but ultimately, while it wasn’t their best performance, it got the job done.
The Steelers defense also recorded another couple sacks.
That makes 65 straight games with a least one sack, that is the second longest streak in NFL history and the longest current streak.
The record of 69 straight games is held by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
While it was ugly, the Steelers got it done. Many considered this to be one of the Steelers infamous “trap games” where they play down to a less opponent and lose, but this season, so far, that has not rung true for Pittsburgh.
The Steelers now prepare for the 2-5-1 Bengals who are coming off a bye week after beating the Tennessee Titans.