By Mason Sousa
Alright let’s lick our wounds, knock the dust off, and get on to Pittsburgh.
The bad news: The Patriots start the season 0-1 and the offense didn’t look to hot.
The good news: Mac Jones escaped serious injury and T.J. Watt won’t be trying to put him on his back this Sunday.
Reigning defensive player of the year T.J. Watt being out with a pectoral injury is as big a break you can get for the offensive line and Mac Jones who’s dealing with a minor back injury. Jones said he’s fine, he’s “taken bigger hits and will take bigger hits in the future.” The Steelers sacked Joe Burrow 7 times in their Week 1 OT win so here’s hoping the latter half of Jones’ statement won’t ring true in Week 2.
GAME PLAN
Get back to basics and pound the rock!
I’m envisioning the two-headed monster of Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson being the majority of the Patriots focus on Sunday.
The Patriots can try to bounce outside with Nelson Agholor and HOPEFULLY Kendrick Bourne jet sweeps.
Even though the Steelers are down their best player and arguably the league’s best pass rusher, I believe its wise to limit Mac’s dropbacks in this one. Not just because Mac Jones took some unblocked wallops in Week 1 but because the Steelers secondary played out of their minds against the Bengals.
It was truly all phases of that Steelers defense that impressed by sacking Joe Burrow seven times and forcing five turnovers on the AFC Champions of a year ago. Four of those 5 turnovers took place in the first 19 minutes of the game!
Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick may have been the most impressive defender in all of Week 1 accounting for a Pick-6, 14 tackles, and a clutch blocked PAT at the end of regulation in one of the wackiest Week 1 games of recent memory.
It’s probably in everyone’s best interest to try and limit the amount of balls going in Fitzpatrick’s area of the field.
3rd year LB Alex Highsmith has tallied 6 sacks in his last 4 games dating back to last year obviously including 3 of them this past week. Also Myles Jack is in his 1st year with the Steelers coming over from Jacksonville and in charge of stopping the run in which he and his defense did for the most part on Joe Mixon. I liked how Damien Harris specifically ran against the Dolphins and will need to be be successful on the ground if the Patriots are going to win.
BATTLE IN THE TRENCHES
Defensive Tackle Cam Heyward is in his 12th year and still looking like a force and a nightmare for opposing offensive interior linemen. Heyward and Aaron Donald were the only defensive tackles to rack up 10 or more sacks last year. The 33-year old Steelers lifer started this season continuing where he left off with a sack, tackle for loss, and fumble recovery in the win over Cincinnati. David Andrews will try to lead the charge to keep Mac Jones’ pocket clean from Cam Heyward.
As mentioned earlier, it is beyond HUGE for the Patriots that won’t be facing reigning Defensive Player of the Year T.J. Watt. An offensive line that had some baffling miscommunication issues allowing free rushers from the Miami Dolphins to tee off on Mac Jones doesn’t need the best defender in the game the next week. I’m sure Mac’s back is grateful of that fact.
Tackle Trent Brown needs to be better and so does Mac as well identifying the rushers and calling for blitz pickup presnap if they don’t want another disastrous play like the “strip-six” from last week.
Workhorse running back Najee Harris has been banged up since training camp with a lisfranc sprain. He left his Week 1 game late in the 4th Quarter with a foot believed to be related to that injury. He won’t be 100% even though the team says he “should be good to go”. The Patriots run defense was very good against Miami allowing only 65 yards on 23 attempts. So “forcing Mitchell Tribusky to beat you” by making the Steelers one-dimensional in shutting down a banged up Harris would be a great advantage for the Pats D.
As well as the Steelers defense played last week, one would think that Pittsburgh ran away with the game rather than it going a full maximum limit of 70 minutes. The reason for that was that the Steelers offense wasn’t efficient and couldn’t capitalize on all of those turnovers and that’s thanks to 55% completion and 5.1 yards per attempt for Mitchell Tribusky. The QB is truly the Achilles’ heel of the Steelers postseason aspirations.
At the same time, Pittsburgh has been a wide receiver factory for the better part of the 21st century and the trio of Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool, and promising rookie George Pickens are formidable opponents for the Patriots secondary. The only thing holding that receiving corps back is the quarterback getting them the ball. Matthew Judon and Deatrich Wise will be instrumental in slowing down Tribusky even more than he slows down himself.
I feel like this will be a slugfest with both defenses showing out.
I would not be surprised if the winning team has less than 20 points in this one.
Bold Prediction: A defensive or special teams touchdown will be scored in this game and the team that scores that way will win the game.
Game Prediction: Whether Patriots fans want to admit it or not there are a lot of issues this team needs to fix and it’s unlikely they will all be resolved in one week. This September truly looks to be “an extension of the preseason” which is unfortunate because I feel a good portion of the AFC will be clicking by October.
I do see the Patriots defense improving slightly in Week 2 and if the offense is dedicated to the run they can find some success and it’ll come down to punching it in at the goalline, but that Steelers defense might be the best in the league when it’s all said and done.
Steelers 17 Patriots 13