But for those watching Monday night’s Pittsburgh-Washington tilt, there was a fairly prevailing question when it came to the Redskins’ defensive strategy that arose from all levels of the Monday morning quarterback crowd. There were a lot of problems for Washington.
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One stat stood out in the passing game Monday: Cousins completed 8 of 15 passes for 64 yards and an interception inside the Steelers’ 30-yard line.
More than anything, Cousins left the door open for the juggernaut Steelers offense to wake up.
Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Chris Lewis-Harris (37) against the Pittsburgh Steelers during a AFC Wild Card playoff football game at Paul Brown Stadium.
Tomlin doesn’t consider the call gutsy.
The Bengals took punch after punch from the New York Jets in Sunday’s season opener and emerged victorious with a 23-22 decision. Before the snap, safety DeAngelo Hall motioned to the linebackers and dropped into what seems like inside coverage on Brown.
The Steelers neither sought to have Brown covered by Norman nor tried to avoid such matchups basef on what they did schematically.
As usual, Brown won.
“I remember when I asked Tom Brady after the game previous year, ‘When did it click for you?’ In a sense, I asked him, ‘When were you no longer a work-in-progress?’ And his answer was what I would echo here: ‘It’s still clicking.’ You’ve never figured it out”.
Roethlisberger believes the Steelers will refrain from at least starting anything this week. Against Pittsburgh, the team struggled to get much pressure on Ben Roethlisberger. There’s no way to know whether it would have made a difference, but I’m guessing that decision to let a #2 corner cover the #1 receiver in football might be revisited if Washington had the opportunity to do so. Uzomah will be relied upon to pick up the slack at the tight end position.
“That would insinuate retaliation”, Roethlisberger said Wednesday morning, “and that’s not who we are”.
The Steelers play the Cincinnati Bengals in four days, and all’s quiet on the Twitter front. The Bengals’ defense got run over during a season-opening win over the Jets, and there’s an terrible lot to fix heading into a matchup against a team that’s been known to run all over them. That came when a pass intended for Coates smacked off Coates’ right to Rogers’ facemask before he cradled it in his arms. It has been a series marked of late by name-calling, cheap-shots, pre-game brawls and even hair-pulling. Roethlisberger’s Gerrit Cole-like fastball ricocheted squarely off his chest and into Rogers’ head.
That was seemingly the only time Rogers slipped up.
And how’s that to transition into one that clearly isn’t over?
He was the featured runner. That’s good for the Steelers, as Shazier dominated Washington’s running backs and wide receivers.
There is nothing from Bengals cornerback Pacman Jones, who dropped five F-bombs and one S-bomb on – OK, not Twitter – Instagram after his penalty helped the Steelers pull out an improbable playoff victory in Cincinnati in January.
HOPPING HOPKINS: Washington kicker Dustin Hopkins made all three of his field-goal attempts, connecting from 31, 40 and 34 yards.
Many teams would enjoy that kind of production when their All-Pro running back is on the shelf for failing and missing drug tests.
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However, Roethlisberger directed a 13-play, 73-yard touchdown drive that took 7:13 off the clock.
