Home 2013 Regular Season Steelers’ Win Sets Up Huge Thursday Night Game With Ravens

Steelers’ Win Sets Up Huge Thursday Night Game With Ravens

by Steeldad

Troy Polamalu returns the Steelers lineup SundayThe Cleveland Browns ran more plays than the Pittsburgh Steelers did. They had more total yards than the Steelers did too and they also had more first downs as well.

Unfortunately for them, they also led in the turnover department as the Browns turned it over four times while the Steelers didn’t do so at all.

Once again, turnovers proved to be the story as the Steelers earned a very important win by the score of 27-11 in Cleveland. Troy Polamalu had a forced fumble and two recoveries while William Gay forced a fumble a returned a Brandon Weeden interception to the house for a pick-six.

Outside linebacker Jason Worilds did not record a sack but he had six hits on Cleveland quarterbacks and was easily one of the Steelers’ most impressive players on either side of the ball.

Offensively, Ben Roethlisberger had two touchdown passes, one to Antonio Brown and another to Emmanuel Sanders, while taking care of the ball and staying pretty clean as well. Roethlisberger was not sacked once by a Browns’ team that came in with 31 sacks on the season.

What the win does is set up one of the most important games I can recall between teams with records below .500. Pittsburgh and Baltimore are both 5-6 and will hook up Thanksgiving night in Baltimore. The winner has the potential to be tied for the final wild-card spot while the loser would need tremendous help to make the playoffs.

Mike Tomlin and his staff are to be commended for getting things seemingly on the right track following the 0-4 start. The team has since won four of their last six but there is much work to be done. Cleveland’s Josh Gordon abused the Steelers’ secondary by getting a score and over 200 yards receiving. About half that total was achieved when the Steelers already had a 27-3 lead, but he still proved to be very effective against them.

Now the quick turnaround begins. Thursday night games are typically not played well and the pressure to be prepared for your rival will be immense especially considering what is at stake. The Steelers have shown some moxie and with a win followed by a bit of a bye week can position themselves nicely for a run at the playoffs.

Marc Uhlmann writes for and co-owns www.steelcityblitz.com. Follow him on Twitter @steeldad and follow the website at @SCBlitz. He can be heard Mondays on Trib-Live Radio at 630pm ET talking Steelers and is a blogger for ESPN 970 in Pittsburgh.

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