The Pittsburgh Steelers took care of business against the Miami Dolphins on Monday Night Football. Here are my takeaways from the game.
In a game that many fans expected to see a Steelers blowout from the start, the Miami Dolphins got off to an early 14-0 lead over Pittsburgh on Monday Night Football. Ultimately, the experts still made the right decision to go with the Steelers.
From the second quarter until the end of the game, Pittsburgh went on a 27-0 run against the Dolphins, and the game was out of reach early in the fourth quarter. While Pittsburgh got the win they were hoping for, it was far from a perfect performance.
Here are my takeaways from the Steelers win over the Miami Dolphins:
Mason Rudolph has some accuracy issues
This isn’t something that is new. If you watched any of his game film from Oklahoma State, you see a quarterback who has what I like to call ‘general’ accuracy, not ‘pinpoint’ accuracy.
Many of Rudolph’s throws on Monday night got away from him and he had several interceptable passes. He will need to clean things up if he wants to prove that he can be Ben Roethlisberger’s successor.
Rudolph is fearless
Though I don’t think Mason Rudolph possesses elite accuracy or velocity, you have to admire his confidence. Rudolph continues to impress with his ability to hang in a collapsing pocket and deliver the ball down the field.
The second-year quarterback likes to look to the sticks, and he showed the ability to make a number of big plays against the Dolphins. He has a short memory after a poor decision or a bad throw, and I love that about him.
T.J. Watt is as good as they come
I was very high on T.J. Watt coming out of Wisconsin in 2017, but nobody could have predicted this. Not halfway through his third NFL season, Watt has become one of the very best edge defenders (and overall defensive players) in the entire National Football League.
Watt was dominant against both the run and the pass vs. Miami, and his strip-sack fumble recovery shows the type of effort he puts into each play. The Steelers got themselves a cornerstone player to build a defense around for years to come.
The offense is still concerning
The story of the offense was much different for the Steelers in the second half of the game against the Dolphins, as the effortlessly began to move the ball down the field. Still, I’m not yet convinced that all their woes are suddenly gone.
While it was good to see the Steelers methodically drive the ball down the field, they were doing so against a very weak Miami Dolphins defense that was missing a few of their best players. We will need to see more of Mason Rudolph and the young skill players in the future before we say that the offense is fixed.
There many things to note from this game. While the first quarter didn’t exactly go as planned, things were looking very positive after that. A lot is riding on Mason Rudolph and whether or not he can continue to make improvements in the coming weeks.