The improbable run of the Pittsburgh Steelers continued on Sunday as they pulled on a 23-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals. Nothing is certain but for right now the Steelers are the hottest team in football and look like the last team anyone wants to play right now. Here are our big takeaways from the win.
A confident Duck is a dangerous Duck
Over the course of his three starts, we’ve seen the confidence of Devlin Hodges go up each week. We saw the Steelers’ coaches open up the playbook a little more for Hodges this week and he responded. His physical gifts have never been in question but seeing him so at ease running the offense gives us confidence he can face off against teams like the Bills and Ravens down the stretch.
This defense isn’t slowing down (but it did)
We got to see the absolute best of the Steelers defense on Sunday. When this unit is rolling and operating with confidence they are constantly on the attack. This is what Kyler Murray discovered as he threw three interceptions. But we also saw the Cardinals use tempo to wear down the Steelers pass rush, exposing the team’s biggest weakness. Depth at defensive line and outside linebacker.
Clean football wins
When you take care of the football and don’t have unforced errors, good things happen. The Steelers had two turnovers on Sunday, both fumbles and either one could have been disastrous. But thankfully the Steelers defense was better in creating turnovers to negating some of the harm from sloppy football. Pittsburgh also only had four penalties. If you remember this team last season, undisciplined football equalling penalties as an all too common occurrence.
