Now that was more like it and a very nice and commanding win against one of the NFL’s best scoring defenses.  The Steelers opened up with a 21-3 half-time lead and never looked back.  The Steelers run defense started out slow allowing Johnson an opening 20+ yd run but stiffened to only allow Johnson 14 carries for 51 yds, an excellent job by the run stuffers.  The Steelers did allow for more passing yds this week (262 yds) but overall a very good overall defensive effort considering Harrison, Hampton, and Smith were out of the line-up.  Without further ado, I give you my take on the Good, not so Good, the Hero, and the Goat for Week 5.

The Good: 

I believe the OL played their best game of the season and that is saying something since we started a “new” LT in Starks, Bronco played LG and made some very nice pull blocks, and Gilbert and Pouncey lost playing time with injury.  The OL only allowed one sack and opened up some nice running lanes helping the Steelers rush for 174 yds.  Hopefully the injuries are not too severe and this group can finally start to gel a little more.  Congrats OL you played an excellent game against a pretty good defense.  

Well hello Mr. Dwyer, who would have thought that our first 100 yd rusher for the season would be Dwyer?  Hopefully BA takes notice that running the football effectively is important as we kept the Titan’s defense on their heels for most of the game.

I also liked that 3-3-5 wrinkle that we incorporated on defense from time to time.  I thought that scheme was a good change that was probably not prepared for by the Titans.  Hopefully we can see that more as the season progresses. 

I have to give a shout out to Farrior as I believe he played a sound game and led the team in tackles and seemed to be around the ball all game with 9 tkls and 4 asts.  Along with Farrior, Woodley finally showed up today with 1.5 sacks and the teams first INT of the season.

The Not So Good:

It is hard to find one area that we did not play too well at today but considering we gave up a on-side kick and allowed a punt to be blocked that would be the only area that struggled today but considering we executed a fake punt and Brown’s 52 yd kick-off return I will call it a wash on the “splash” effect. 

The Hero:

How can I not put Dwyer here considering that long run he had that really catapulted our running game and offense but Ben throwing for 5 TD’s takes the cake.  It wasn’t pretty but Ben did throw the ball well and thankfully was not holding the ball too long.  I was glad to see Ben not afraid to take the check down and underneath patterns.  Hopefully BA took notice of this as it we do not have to go for homerun passes all the time.  Methodically moving the ball down the field with the short underneath and middle of the field works just as well and helps in keeping our defense on the sideline resting.

The Goat:

None this week, good job men!