It’s a battle of mediocrity on Monday Night Football, with two teams about whom everyone around the National Football League says, “Meh, they’re okay.”
As the Pittsburgh Steelers prepare to defend their 8-0 mark at Heinz Field under the Monday night lights, they are a team that is much in need of an identity. On paper, they should be a solid running team as they are 5th in the league in rushing and Le’Veon Bell is 2nd in the league in yards from scrimmage, but they are scaring anybody as a rushing team because they are not consistent with the running game. They’re 6th in the league in passing and Antonio Brown is among the leaders in the AFC in receiving yardage, but the team is simply not scoring enough points for all of the yards they are collecting. They are 23rd in the NFL in scoring and 31st in red zone percentage, which tells me this: they can move the ball at will on their opponent until they get down in the red zone and that simply must change.
On defense, the Steelers are middle of the road, or “soft” according to former head coach Bill Cowher (God love him). Troy Polamalu and Brett Keisel are playing well, as is Cam Heyward, but the Steelers have only been able to come up with 6 takeaways on the season and they have allowed at least 24 points against an opponent in all but two of their games (they held Carolina to 19 and Jacksonville to 9). They have had to play the last 3 games without two of their starting linebackers in Jarvis Jones and rookie Ryan Shazier, and Cleveland was able to move the ball at will on the Steelers defense after the first quarter in last weeks game.
The Texans, meanwhile, are a team looking to regain the spark that led them two their 3-1 start. Coming off consecutive tough losses to Dallas and Indianapolis, Houston looks to equal the success that they had against Pittsburgh in their last meeting, which was a 17-10 victory back in 2011. Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick will be making his 4th career start against the Steelers with a 3rd different team. He’s 0-3 against the Black and Gold so far, but the teams he was with before were the Bengals in 2008 and the Bills in 2010. Perhaps not the best sample.
While the Texans rank 28th in defense against the pass and 26th against the run, they are the 4th best unit in points allowed. They bend, but, unlike the Steelers, they don’t break. J.J. Watt is in the midst of a career season, including a rather unique statistic. He’s the only player in the NFL this season to have a receiving touchdown, a fumble recovery for a touchdown, and an interception returned for a touchdown. He also has 7 passes batted down and 4 sacks.
The offense, which ranks 28th in passing, is probably going to be leaning heavily on star running back Arian Foster and star receiver Andre Johnson. Johnson needs just 10 more yards to surpass Steve Largeant for 14th place on the all time receiving list. Meanwhile, Foster is averaging 110 rushing yards per game, good for 2nd in the NFL, and he rushed for 155 in the last meeting with Pittsburgh.
This has the makings for a very interesting football game. The Steelers will be looking to continue their trend of alternating wins with losses and the Texans will be looking to bounce back and avoid a three game losing streak. One of these teams may be in panic mode after this game is over.
No matter what Ben Roethlisberger says.
piratesandsteelerstalk 