Steelers Throwback Thursday: Steelers bounce back big following 34-3 loss to the Eagles

Steel City Underground presents “Steelers Throwback Thursday” featuring plays from recent seasons which you may have forgotten about! Now we’re “bringing them back!”

The Pittsburgh Steelers are no strangers to adversity.

Just a few seasons ago, back in Week 3 of the 2016 campaign, the Steelers suffered their worst loss in decades when they were stymied on the road by the Philadelphia Eagles 34-3.

That game shares a lot of parallels with the Steelers recent 33-3 loss at New England. Aside from the score, the Steelers offense similarly failed to put up meaningful drives on offense while also getting beat with short passes and a solid running game by the Eagles.

Heading into the very next game, it was all doom and gloom Pittsburgh hosted a hot Kansas City Chiefs team that would no doubt test them on Sunday Night Football… except, that’s not quite how it played out.

The Steelers shot out of a cannon in front of their home crowd, looking to put the embarrassing loss behind them. Pittsburgh would climb to a 29-0 halftime lead, before putting the exclamation point on the game with this 30-yard Ben Roethlisberger pass to Markus Wheaton.

The parallels further defy coincidence, as Wheaton dropped several passes a week earlier in the blowout loss to Philadelphia, but rebounded with this big catch to put the Steelers up 36-0, in a game that Pittsburgh would eventually win by a final score of 43-14.

Bonus Time: Want a few more bits of irony here?

A week earlier the Steelers abandoned the running game. DeAngelo Williams rushed 8 times for 21 yards and caught 4 passes for 23.

On Sunday, James Conner ran 10 times for 21 yards, with 4 receptions for 41.

The Chiefs game marked the return of Le’Veon Bell, who the Steelers went to on the ground 18 times to the tune of 144 rushing yards. Bell would add 5 catches for 34 yards for a grand total of 178 yards from scrimmage.

Ben Roethlisberger also had a 62.4 QB rating against the Eagles before throwing for 5 touchdowns and a nearly perfect 152.5 rating against the Chiefs. (Ben had a 65.6 rating last Sunday.)

In addition, Wheaton had caught 1 pass on 5 targets for only 2 yards against the Eagles before landing this 30-yard catch and toe-tap TD.

Like Wheaton, Donte Moncrief also wears uniform number 11!


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