Photo: steelers.com
The Pittsburgh Steelers entered Sunday’s game against Indianapolis with several fairly obvious ideas about how they could win. Stop Jonathan Taylor, pressure Daniel Jones into mistakes, get DK Metcalf involved and hope an offense that had been inconsistent through four games could finally put together a more complete performance.
They got the result they wanted, but the path to a 34-22 victory didn’t follow that script nearly as closely as expected. Pittsburgh didn’t force a single turnover, barely got to Jones and received almost no statistical production from Metcalf. None of it mattered because several other players and parts of the offense stepped forward in ways we haven’t seen much of this season.
That’s where this week’s surprises begin, because the Steelers found some different ways to win while improving to 3-2.
After watching Aaron Rodgers and DK Metcalf finally connect on some big plays during the fourth-quarter comeback in Cleveland, it felt like that relationship might become a much bigger part of the offense against Indianapolis. Instead, Metcalf caught only three passes for 12 yards on four targets and never really became a factor in the passing game.
Normally, getting 12 receiving yards from your No. 1 receiver would be a pretty good indication that something went terribly wrong. The surprise was how little it seemed to matter. Rodgers simply went elsewhere with the football, spreading his 22 completions among seven different receivers while Pittsburgh still managed to score four touchdowns.
Metcalf did contribute an 11-yard run in the first quarter and drew attention from an Indianapolis secondary that couldn’t simply ignore him. He was also instrumental in Jaylen Warren‘s 80-yard touchdown run, blocking not one, but two Indy defenders during the play.
However, Pittsburgh also didn’t spend the afternoon trying to force touches his way just to get him involved. Considering how dependent this offense appeared capable of becoming on Metcalf entering the season, scoring 34 points on a day when he had only 23 yards from scrimmage was an encouraging development.
If Metcalf wasn’t going to carry the passing game, somebody else had to take advantage. Germie Bernard did exactly that, finishing with six receptions for 80 yards and providing several important plays throughout the afternoon.
Bernard’s contributions weren’t limited to easy throws underneath. He caught a 21-yard pass during Pittsburgh’s two-minute drive before halftime and later produced one of the biggest conversions of the fourth quarter. Facing third-and-two from the Steelers’ 44 with Pittsburgh protecting a 24-22 lead, Rodgers found Bernard for 25 yards to move the offense deep into Indianapolis territory.
That drive eventually ended with Pat Freiermuth‘s second touchdown and gave Pittsburgh a nine-point advantage. Bernard also added a 13-yard reception on the Steelers’ first touchdown drive and finished tied with Jaylen Warren for the team lead with six catches.
The Steelers have spent the first month of the season trying to figure out where consistent production beyond Metcalf would come from. Roman Wilson had started providing some of those answers before leaving Sunday’s game, but Bernard stepping into a larger role and immediately producing was not something Pittsburgh could necessarily count on entering the afternoon.
Daniel Jones entered Sunday having turned the football over seven times through Indianapolis’ first four games, while the Colts carried a minus-six turnover differential into Pittsburgh. On the other side, the Steelers had already generated eight takeaways and seemed to have an obvious opportunity to create a few more.
They didn’t get any: Jones threw 44 passes without an interception, Indianapolis didn’t lose a fumble and Pittsburgh finished the afternoon without a takeaway for the first time this season.
Even the pass rush, which figured to be an important part of forcing Jones into mistakes, produced only one sack when Cameron Heyward got him for a one-yard loss in the fourth quarter.
Yet the defense still managed to keep Indianapolis to 22 points because it found another way to end drives. The Colts were only 4-of-15 on third down, converted three of five fourth downs and repeatedly stalled once they reached scoring range. Instead of giving Pittsburgh the football with turnovers, Indianapolis kept sending Spencer Shrader onto the field to kick field goals.
That’s probably not the defensive formula the Steelers would’ve drawn up before the game. Still, winning by 12 without Watt and company producing sacks or takeaways shows Pittsburgh didn’t need to rely on splash plays to survive.
Jonathan Taylor looked like one of the worst possible matchups for Pittsburgh coming into Sunday. The Steelers had just spent a week answering questions about missed tackles, while Taylor arrived with six rushing touchdowns and a reputation for turning one mistake into a huge gain.
Instead, Pittsburgh made him look surprisingly ordinary for most of the afternoon.
Taylor carried 15 times for only 45 yards, with 20 of those yards coming on one fourth-quarter run. Remove that play and the Steelers held him to 25 yards on his other 14 attempts.
What made the result even more surprising was that Indianapolis remained competitive throughout the game without ever establishing Taylor. The Colts ran 69 offensive plays and possessed the football for 32 minutes, yet Jones attempted 44 passes compared with only 15 Taylor carries. Pittsburgh essentially took away the part of Indianapolis’ offense that appeared most capable of exploiting its biggest defensive problem from Cleveland.
The Steelers weren’t perfect defensively, particularly when defending some of the Colts’ intermediate and explosive passes. But if Pittsburgh’s goal was to make Jones carry the offense instead of allowing Taylor to dictate the game, it worked almost exactly as planned.
There was nothing surprising about Jaylen Warren being heavily involved in Pittsburgh’s offense. What nobody could reasonably expect was for him to produce two plays of at least 50 yards in the same game, especially after the Steelers had struggled to generate explosive offense consistently through the first month.
His 80-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter was Pittsburgh’s longest play of the season and completely changed the early feel of the game. Indianapolis had opened with a field goal, and Pittsburgh’s first possession had gone backward before ending in a punt. Warren erased that ugly start with one touch, taking a short Rodgers pass the distance and putting the Steelers ahead.
Then came the 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. Indianapolis had just pulled within one point and appeared to be gaining momentum, but Warren broke through the middle and outran the defense to restore Pittsburgh’s advantage. He finished with 188 yards from scrimmage, and 130 of them came on those two touchdowns.
The Steelers have spent plenty of time talking about creating explosive plays without consistently producing them. On Sunday, Warren provided two by himself, and both came at moments when Indianapolis was threatening to take control of the game.
Maybe this shouldn’t qualify as a surprise, but after some of Pittsburgh’s uneven performances through the first four games, the way Sunday’s game ended deserves some attention. Indianapolis’ fifth field goal made it 24-22 with 11:42 remaining, putting the Steelers in a position where one bad possession could have handed the Colts an opportunity to take the lead.
Pittsburgh responded with a 10-play, 64-yard touchdown drive that consumed more than five minutes.
The Steelers converted a third down and a fourth down along the way before Rodgers found Freiermuth for a 17-yard touchdown. The defense followed with a fourth-down stop, and Chris Boswell‘s 54-yard field goal turned what had been a two-point game into a 34-22 advantage.
Indianapolis got two more possessions after pulling within two points and came away empty both times.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, scored 10 points and then used Warren to drain the remaining clock after the Colts’ final turnover on downs.
There were still imperfections, and the Steelers certainly didn’t dominate every category on the stat sheet. What they did was respond every time Indianapolis threatened them, whether it was Warren answering field goals with explosive touchdowns or the offense putting together its best drive of the fourth quarter when the lead was at its smallest.
For a team that spent the previous week talking about consistency, details and learning how to put everything together, perhaps the biggest surprise was that Pittsburgh finally looked like the team that knew how to finish the job.
