It is finally time. Week Three of the NFL preseason is the most important of all for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Head coach Mike Tomlin typically trots out the greatest number of starters in the third preseason game. This time around the Steelers will go on the road for the first time this preseason to take on the Tennessee Titans.
Here’s what to watch this week.
How much Ben Roethlisberger?
Despite the fact the Steelers will take on the New England Patriots on Week One, this does not seem to change Tomlin’s philosophy of only playing Roethlisberger in one preseason game. What we want to see is if Tomlin keeps Roethlisberger on the field a little longer than normal. He’s got lots of new receivers to throw to and they need to knock the rust off before the start of the regular season.
Blitz fest part 2
Last week we saw the Steelers defense blitz on a majority of pass plays. This is very out of character for any NFL team in the preseason. We can speculate all we like about why defensive coordinator Keith Butler chose to go so far past vanilla with the defensive scheme but we are more interested to see if there’s a repeat.
Kicking competition coming to a close
Kicker Chris Boswell has had an impressive offseason and seems to have gotten healthy and is back on track mentally to be the kicker of this team. The Steelers have been alternating between Boswell and Matthew Wright on kicking duties but we want to see if they could just hand the whole game to Boswell and see what he can do.
Contending with Marcus Mariota
Playing against Mariota will be an excellent test for the Steelers defense. Mariota is highly mobile and does well making plays on the run with his arm and his feet. Four games the Steelers will play this season will be against Baker Mayfield and Lamar Jackson who are able to make similar types of plays.
