Photo: steelers.com
Steel City Underground takes a look at some of the unexpected twists and turns from the Pittsburgh Steelers’ latest game.
Week 1 is often good for a few surprises, and Sunday’s 20-13 Steelers win over the Atlanta Falcons certainly provided its share.
Some were good. Some were bad. Others were downright strange.
From T.J. Watt finding a new way to take over a football game to an unexpected pecking order at wide receiver and some bizarre adventures in the kicking game, here are the biggest surprises from Pittsburgh’s season-opening victory.
There’s nothing surprising about T.J. Watt making plays. At this point, it would probably be more surprising if he didn’t: but a pick-six?
Watt has made a career out of terrorizing quarterbacks, forcing fumbles and finding ways to get his hands on the football. On Sunday, he added something new to the resume by intercepting Cooper Rush and returning it 35 yards for his first career pick-six.
The timing couldn’t have been much better. Pittsburgh led only 13-10 when Watt stepped in front of a pass intended for Bijan Robinson just 55 seconds into the fourth quarter. Suddenly, a game Atlanta had a chance to take the lead in became a 20-10 Steelers advantage.
And that wasn’t Watt’s entire afternoon. He also finished with two sacks, three tackles for loss and two quarterback hits. Even by Watt’s standards, finding yet another way to single-handedly alter a game qualifies as a surprise.
There was plenty of anticipation surrounding DK Metcalf entering the season, but his Week 1 performance probably wasn’t what anyone envisioned. Aaron Rodgers targeted Metcalf a team-high 10 times, yet the veteran receiver finished with only four receptions for 40 yards.
There were opportunities for considerably more, too. Metcalf had trouble securing some catchable passes and was also flagged twice for offensive pass interference, although one was declined.
The costly penalty came late in the first half. Rodgers connected with Metcalf for what would’ve been a 19-yard gain on third-and-12, moving Pittsburgh into Atlanta territory. Instead, Metcalf was called for offensive pass interference, wiping out the completion and putting the Steelers in third-and-22. Pittsburgh eventually ended up attempting a fake field goal on that possession.
It wasn’t all bad for Metcalf either, as Atlanta’s physical defensive backs got away with at least one uncalled pass interference flag.
One of those occurred on the Steelers first series of the game, on a third-and-6, with a deep pass falling to the turf in front of Metcalf after his jersey was tugged. Another was later in the game, another third-and-6 that would’ve flipped the field in a 13-7 game. Falcons CB AJ Terrell grabbed Metcalf’s right forearm just as the latter was reaching to catch the football: basically one-handed.
The referees stayed silent, but Terrell was shaken up on the play due to having to dive to grab Metcalf.
Still, Metcalf was on the field for 64 of Pittsburgh’s 67 offensive snaps, so there certainly wasn’t any question about his role. The surprise was how little production came from all of those opportunities.
One of the more interesting questions entering Week 1 was how the Steelers would divide their wide receiver snaps behind Metcalf and Michael Pittman Jr. The answer was surprising.
Roman Wilson played 37 offensive snaps, accounting for 55 percent of Pittsburgh’s offensive plays.
Rookie Germie Bernard? He played three. (That’s only four percent of the offensive snaps for Bernard.)
Wilson was targeted six times, catching three passes for 26 yards, including a 20-yard reception. He was clearly part of the offensive game plan, with Rodgers targeting him on deep throws several times, including one which drew a pass interreference call.
On the other hand, Bernard wasn’t targeted at all.
It’s only one game, and that distribution could change as the season progresses. However, the gap between Wilson and Bernard was far larger than anyone anticipated entering the opener.
Yes, there’s an enormous qualifier attached to this one: Atlanta was starting third-string quarterback Cooper Rush. Still, the lack of production from the Falcons’ primary receiving weapons was staggering.
Drake London caught two passes for 29 yards on four targets. Jahan Dotson caught one pass for 19 yards on three targets. Kyle Pitts was targeted once and didn’t catch a pass.
That’s three catches for 48 yards combined between London, Dotson and Pitts.
Instead, Atlanta’s passing offense essentially became the Bijan Robinson show. Robinson caught eight passes for 90 yards and a touchdown, accounting for eight of Rush’s 12 completions and nearly two-thirds of his 143 passing yards.
The Steelers have invested heavily in their secondary, and keeping Atlanta’s wide receivers and tight ends from becoming factors was an encouraging result regardless of who was throwing the football.
This one may have flown under the radar because the Falcons still scored 13 points and Robinson piled up 173 yards from scrimmage.
Atlanta never reached the Steelers’ red zone. Not once.
The Falcons officially finished with zero red-zone opportunities. Even their only touchdown came from outside of it, when Rush found Robinson for a 23-yard score following Jaylen Warren‘s fumble. (Atlanta’s two other scoring possessions ended with field goals from 51 and 43 yards.)
That’s a pretty remarkable result considering Robinson’s production and the fact that Pittsburgh’s offense didn’t exactly dominate time of possession or consistently give its defense long breaks.
The Falcons moved the football at times. They just never got particularly close to Pittsburgh’s goal line.
Maybe we need to start talking about the closed end of Acrisure Stadium?
Steelers fans probably don’t need reminded of Tyler Loop’s missed 44-yard field goal at that end of the stadium in last season’s Week 18 finale against Baltimore, which allowed Pittsburgh to escape with the AFC North championship.
Sunday brought more kicking adventures at Acrisure Stadium, as Atlanta’s Nick Folk missed from 54 yards and later from 45, while Chris Boswell missed a 56-yard attempt for Pittsburgh.
All three misses sailed wide right.
Then there was perhaps the strangest special teams moment of the afternoon. Late in the second quarter, Pittsburgh faced fourth-and-13 from Atlanta’s 44-yard line. A field goal from there would’ve been approximately 62 yards, certainly a long attempt even for Boswell.
The Steelers initially lined up for the kick but instead tried some trickery… or did they?
Holder Cameron Johnston took the snap, got up, rolled to his left, and attempted a “pass” that fell incomplete. He then stared around as did the other ten players on the field.
No one ran a passing route, and the best suggestion as to what happened is that the snap was early, so Boswell’s timing was off. Johnston aborted the play, but no one else recognized the situation to support him.
It was an ugly end to a possession that had already gone sideways after Metcalf’s offensive pass interference penalty erased a first down.
There will be plenty for Mike McCarthy and his staff to sort through after their first regular-season game together.
Metcalf will have better afternoons. The Wilson-Bernard snap distribution will be worth watching. The kicking game produced enough weirdness for an entire season, let alone one afternoon, but there were positive surprises, too.
Pittsburgh’s defense kept Atlanta out of the red zone entirely and essentially erased the Falcons’ receivers and tight ends. And when the Steelers needed a game-changing play, Watt somehow reached into his bag and pulled out something we hadn’t seen before.
There are worse ways to start a season. Here we go Steelers Nation: 1-0!
