Coaches in all sports and at all levels talk about adversity. They tell their teams they will face it and they train them how to deal with it as well as they can. The Pittsburgh Steelers will likely face greater adversity this season at some point but the win over Cincinnati today proved they can handle it.
The weather was ugly from the get-go. It rained and it stopped and then it rained some more and neither team seemed in a hurry to test the elements as both teams stuck to the ground early.
Both defenses were good today. Any time you take two of the top five best receivers in the game out of one you’re doing something right. Antonio Brown had just four receptions on the day as he was doubled throughout.
The guy with the task of getting him the ball, Ben Roethlisberger, wasn’t at his finest today either but football is the ultimate team game and when some guys aren’t making plays, others have to. From Jesse James to Xavier Grimble, the Steelers benefited from the play of guys who aren’t normally relied on to such degrees. These are the earmarks of decent teams becoming good teams.
Those weren’t the only performances that helped the Steelers win today. Punter Jordan Berry was excellent with his punts. He consistently kept the Bengals inside their ten yard line preventing them from flipping the field. Out of eight punts, five of them were inside the 20 yard line.
Ross Cockrell locked on Green most of the day and surrendered just two receptions. Not bad for a guy who is often the “forgotten one” amongst the Steelers’ corners.
Make no mistake, the Steelers can’t be great without top performances from their superstars but today’s win proved that they can rely on others and still be successful despite the adversity.
4 comments
While I was happy for the Steelers there was something that bothered me and that was the ref’s continuing to ignore PI call against the Bengals, not to mention they called 2 BS PI calls on Steeler CB’s where replayed showed that neither of those passes had a chance of being caught. Make no mistake I’m glad they won cause Cincy showed without AJ Green catching a lot of passes the Bengals offense is not capable enough of finding a way to win.
Lot of pressure on the officials to call this game a certain way because of recent history. I thought the PI calls or missed ones were all pretty questionable.
This is a really good team with late season focus, the skies the limit. KEEP GOING STEELERS!!!
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