The Steelers bolted out to a 30-10 halftime lead on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Monday night at Raymond James Stadium, then held on for a 30-27 victory that was their first of the season.
As well as they played in the first half of this game, things got a little dicey down the stretch, not that it was all that surprising. After all, Tampa Bay had entered this game with the league's No. 1 offense and a red-hot quarterback in Ryan Fitzpatrick.
The Steelers? They have Ben Roethlisberger. It's kind of like having the Hulk in reserve.
Roethlisberger was downright masterful, at times, in this game. I say 'at times' because there were a few occasions when he held the ball much longer than he needed, leading to his one interception in the game and some sacks that could have led to a disaster for the Steelers had they lost this game.
But overall, when your quarterback completes 30 of 38 passes for 353 yards, three touchdowns and one interception and is taking a knee at the end of a game, you've had a pretty good day at the office.
Fitzpatrick, who completed 30 of 50 for 411 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions, was good. Roethlisberger was better.
And so was the Steelers defense. Sure, I know they gave up 27 points and that's going to continue to be too many for the old-school fans who want a return of the Steel Curtain.
But that's just not what today's NFL is. Witness the multiple roughing the passer penalties called in this game.
The formula for wins for this team is going to be the offense putting up a bunch of points and the defense being opportunistic, as it was Monday night, forcing four turnovers.
The other key was that while Tampa Bay put together three scoring drives in the second half, the Bucs only had the ball for four possessions. The Bucs had a 14-play field goal drive to open the second half, driving to the Pittsburgh 10 before faltering.
Then, after the Steelers went 46 yards on 11 plays to set up a missed field goal by Chris Boswell -- more on that later -- Tampa Bay had touchdown drives of 12 and nine plays.
The Bucs, even though they were scoring, were eating up clock.
“It didn’t feel like we had the ball much in the second half, three possessions maybe," said Roethlisberger. "We need to do better at putting it away. Obviously, we did at the end of the game, we had the ball, we take a knee; it’s the best play in football for an offense, but we had a couple drives before that that we had a chance to end it. That’s what we want to do, we want to end it with the ball in our hand and not make our defense go out and step up like they did.”
They need a balance of big plays both offensively and defensively.
• Boswell has now missed two PAT attempts and three of his four field goal attempts this season. All three field goal misses have come from beyond 40 yards, which is not an easy kick. But they are ones that NFL kickers are expected to make.
It's not time to panic about him just yet. After all, he came into this season as a 90 percent kicker over the course of his career.
But it does cause some pause. And it should if the Steelers get into a situation where they are playing for a field goal. Get him in as close as possible. Don't settle for a 49-yard field goal in the rain as the Steelers did in Cleveland when he missed what would have been a game-winner.
• Some will look at the stats from this game and say the Steelers defense performed poorly. But three sacks, three interceptions, a fumble forced and recovered is the kind of game this team needs.
You're not going to get that kind of effort every week. But more importantly, the Steelers had 13 quarterback hurries and 10 passes defended.
Those are the kind of things that are going to show up from week to week if you are consistent in them. And that's what was missing last week against Kansas City.
Bud Dupree and Stephon Tuitt each had three hurries, while Joe Haden had three of the passes defended.
You're not always going to get to the quarterback, but if you can let him know you're there -- a lot -- he's going to make mistakes.
• Those quarterback hurries don't even count the one that Daniel McCullers had on Fitzpatrick in the end zone. That one didn't show up on the stat sheet for some reason -- it will probably come when the coaches look at this game again -- but it was very impactful.
It led to Fitzpatrick throwing a ball directly to Dupree, who caught it inside the 10 and scored.
Impact plays.
• Artie Burns and Coty Sensabaugh rotated at cornerback opposite Haden and each had their moments. But both also had some issues.
Burns has talent. I've seen it on display when he's matching up man-to-man on Antonio Brown. But he just seems to lose focus at times.
The Steelers tried to light a fire under him by rotating him in this game. But I don't believe they have given up on him just yet.
Keith Butler simplified the defense in this game and tried to limit his exotic play calls. Perhaps the Steelers should do more of allowing Burns to do what he does best -- play more press man coverage. He gets lost in zones.
• The personal-foul flags for roughing the quarterback were flying fast and furious in this game, with Pete Morelli's crew calling them seemingly any time someone got near a quarterback.
Even Roethlisberger -- who benefitted from two -- thought it was too much.
"There’s a lot of them," Roethlisberger admitted. "I don’t want to criticize the officiating, especially when you’re talking about a penalty that helps the quarterback out. I was surprised at the first one. The second one I thought was legit – he hit me in the helmet. It was kind of like hearing that loud ring when your helmet gets hit. There’s sure a lot of them. I can’t imagine the fans at home are enjoying it too much.”
Here, here.
• The Steelers finished with a respectable 78 yards rushing on just 22 carries, but didn't run the ball well for much of this game. In fact, they entered the fourth quarter with 31 yards on 12 carries.
But James Conner got them some big yards when they needed them.
"We just had to be patient with it," Conner told me. "The runs weren't there early in the game, but the line did a good job and we were able to hit some runs late."
That was critical. You have to be able to run the ball when you're trying to close out a game.
Conner seemed to have some issues with footing early on, slipping in the backfield several times. Stevan Ridley, however, did not. He was more decisive and had three carries for 18 yards just taking the ball and hitting the hole.
• Roethlisberger has to find a happy medium between making a play and being loose with the ball.
His interception early was vintage, as he escaped a sack but then threw into coverage. He needs to remember he can throw the ball away in those situations, especially with these receivers.
He also held the ball too long on a sack in the fourth quarter that resulted in a fumble.
But then you see him do things like make this throw to JuJu Smith-Schuster and say, 'eh, that's Ben.' You take the good and you take the bad.
That throw essentially ended the game.
• Now you can see why the Steelers were patient with Vance McDonald. He's a big-time playmaker at the tight end position, as evidenced by this catch-and-run that kind of set the tone for the rest of the first half:
That's Rob Grokowski-type stuff there.
That's not to say McDonald is as good as Gronkowski. But he's a lot closer to him than Jesse James, no offense to the much-improved James.
• The Steelers head into a Sunday night game with Baltimore at home next week at 1-1-1. If they handle the Ravens, they'll be 2-1-1 and right back where they need to be with a game against the Bengals upcoming.
That's why nobody in the team's locker room was panicking over the 0-1-1 start, despite fans doing so.
"We always say winning cures a lot of things but I still think the biggest issue, if you will, was outside the locker room, people perceiving different things," Roethlisberger said. "Not saying we don’t have issues, all teams have issues and there’s different things going on, but I think it was a little bigger than it really is – was.”
That's not to say the Steelers weren't happy to get this win. Tampa Bay had been playing really well. And the Steelers had not the first two weeks.
But it's a long season. There's ebb and flow. But when you have a largely veteran group that has been through a lot together, it's not going to simply fall apart. It just isn't.