Seattle (6-5) finally got the better of a top quarterback after losing to Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Carson Palmer and Andy Dalton earlier in the season.
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Portland won the first leg 3-1 at home en route to a 5-3 victory in the two-game series. The other things are just extra. And even a relative nobody like defensive tackle Ahtyba Rubin, reacting to the thrill of his rare fat-guy interception of a quarterbacking legend like Ben Roethlisberger, can’t help but get caught up in the swagger. Roethlisberger’s concussion was not as easy to spot as Keenum’s, given that most fans were unsure why he left the game late. Rawls, who rushed for 209 yards the previous week against San Francisco (second on the all-time Seattle single-game list), carried 21 times for 81 yards and a score against the Steelers.
“You could see in his eyes he had the killer instinct – ‘I am going to go out there and do what I’ve got to do, ‘ ” Baldwin said. We had some loose coverages today, some holes in the coverage.
Tomlin had no update on Roethlisberger after the game. Or against the Dallas Cowboys, when the offense struggled to move the ball effectively either on the ground or in the air, but the defense kept the Cowboys out of the end zone from start to finish in a 13-12 win. Jimmy Graham has been targeted sporadically this season, with some games leaving fans scratching their heads as to why Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevell doesn’t make the star more of a featured threat. Not a bad way to end a game.
Willson immediately hauled in the next Russell Wilson pass for 12-yards.
“It’s heartbreaking, because he works so hard”, said Baldwin.
“I have to figure it out”, Wilson said.
While Wilson had a more efficient day, Roethlisberger was fantastic in his own right on Sunday. The final one, on a crossing pattern that turned into an 80-yard romp down the sideline, iced it for the Seahawks.
The other five in that group are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Barry Sanders, Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson and Emmitt Smith.
-WR Markus Wheaton had nine receptions for a season-high 201 yards Sunday. He became especially important after Jimmy Graham was lost due to injury, and will remain especially important if Graham is out for an extended period of time. He said it was the latest he’d seen a pass he’s caught in his National Football League career. So many challenges back and forth for both teams. With five games remaining that may or may not change. “He is as accomplished as anybody, in terms of having the ability to hurt you in as many ways as anybody we have faced this year, in terms of the mobile guys”.
Wilson found a way Sunday, and the Seahawks might have found their way, too.
-Seattle was pretty good in the red zone, huh? The Steelers attempted just 14 rushes, five of those coming from Roethlisberger.
“We feel like we can run it, we feel like we can throw it. Obviously we felt like the opportunities were there today in the pass game and they were”. They need to generate more heat on the quarterback to continue to win games this year.
While the Steelers’ special teams committed the turnover that set up Seattle’s first touchdown, the kickoff return following the Seahawks first touchdown. The Legion of Boom and company have been bailing out the offense for some time now, so it’s only fair that the favor get returned every once in a while. Richard and his defense are definitely deserving of some criticism as a result of what has been an inconsistent season on that side of the ball so far, but surely not as much as he would be receiving right now had this gone into the loss column.
And all of a sudden, the Seahawks are back in the playoffs. If the playoffs were to start tomorrow, they would hold the number six seed, and would travel to take on next week’s regular season opponent, the Minnesota Vikings, in the divisional round.
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ABOUT THE STEELERS (6-4): After being held to 23 points in back-to-back defeats to Kansas City and Cincinnati, Pittsburgh erupted for 68 points in consecutive wins over Oakland and Cleveland prior to its bye. With the head-to-head tie breaker belonging to the Bengals, it’s really a three game margin.
