PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Since their franchise quarterback suffered a season-ending ankle injury in a win over the Giants, Dallas has scored one touchdown in three games and they don’t know who their starting quarterback will be Sunday against the Steelers.
A pair of the Steelers captains promise they won’t take this team lightly.
“Playing a team this week that is opportunistic and turning the ball over,” said quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. “I know their record may not speak to that, but if you look at the film and look at what they’ve done the last few weeks, they are playing good football.”
“It was one game,” said captain Cam Heyward of the win at Baltimore. “The great thing is I think we play with great emotion every game. We have a lot more games and for us to get too high or get too low would be ill will because I feel like there’s a lot more football to be played.”
“If we don’t play up to our standard, we are setting ourselves up for failure.”
There is a perception that the Steelers often lose to inferior opponents. In games that Roethlisberger started, they lost by a touchdown at Denver and a field goal at Oakland in 2018. An overtime loss at the Bears in 2017 in the game where the team was affected before the snap with the national anthem issues. They also lost 34-3 at 7-win Philadelphia in 2016. Had no losses to losing teams in 2015.
That’s 4 losses to bad teams in games Ben has started since 2014. Is there really a trend there?
Where the Steelers did have issues losing to bad teams was in 2014, they won 11 games, but struggled in losing to Mike Glennon and the 2-win Bucs, Brian Hoyer and the Browns and Michael Vick and the 4-win Jets. That was coming off a pair of 8 loss seasons, so you can understand why fans were tuned into bad losses.
There really hasn’t been an issue since then.
One immediate issue is trying to stop Cowboys tailback Ezekiel Elliott, who in his rookie year had 200 combined yards against the Steelers.
“We are dealing with a heck of a back this week,” Heyward said. “Zeke is that guy. He is the premiere running back in our league. We have to make sure guys tackle well, were in our gaps. When one guy misses, we have another three guys ready to attack.”
Rushing yards were a concern last week, giving up 265 to Baltimore. Heyward said they didn’t stay sound in their gap integrity against the Ravens.
“We have to understand to be patient with our defense, sometimes when things aren’t going right we get impatient, sacrifice the gap integrity,” Heyward said. “Need to trust each other more.”
Steelers will add a piece to that run defense in three-time 100+ season tackler Avery Williamson. The 28-year-old won’t be able to join the team in person until Saturday, but Heyward believes they will find a way to incorporate him even as he said Robert Spillane has been playing well.
“It takes a whole team from here on out, all have to do their 1/11th ,” Heyward said.