Steelers vs Giants: Roller coaster ride that ended in victory

The Steelers earned a hard-fought victory in the season opener on the road against the New York Giants

I will repeat what I stated in a previous article:  Wow, what a game!  Although the Steelers defeated the Giants by a margin of 10 points, 26-16, the game could have easily gone the other way with us ending up on the wrong side of that 10 point margin.

Despite a muffed punt that resulted in a FG for the Giants, despite a missed extra point that would have tied the game at 10-10, despite a kickoff that went out of bounds, and despite some lapses on both sides of the ball, the Steelers hung in there and secured a won in the season opener.

We were rusty, to be sure, on offense, on defense, and on special teams.  Aside from the aforementioned miscues on special teams, the offense took what seemed like an eternity to get rolling, but once it did get rolling, the Steelers put the Giants in our rearview mirror. The defense looked very shaky at the outset of the game but made big plays when we absolutely needed them to be made.

Our franchise QB returned to action after having missed 14 games last season and looked ‘no worse for wear’, as I stated in a previous article.  Once the Steelers took a 16-10 lead, we never looked back and the Giants never really had a chance to come back, despite a late TD that made the score look more respectable at 26-16.

So let’s take a look at how the Steelers fared on the offensive side of the ball.