The Pittsburgh Steelers vs the Broncos: A trap the Steelers escaped

I knew coming into the Broncos game that it had the potential to be a trap game. It almost was for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Pittsburgh Steelers were facing off against a Denver team and I knew a few things were going to happen. Shelby Harris and Jurrell Casey are both elite. The fact that they lined up with Alexander Johnson and Bradley Chubb meant running the ball would be difficult against them. For most of the day, it was.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well both Dotson and Okorafor played considering the talent level on this Broncos front 7. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a much better performance than I had expected on the right side of the line.

The Broncos, even with their injuries, still had talent in the secondary. While we got some big plays against Denver’s rookie Michael Ojemudia, don’t forget he dropped an interception in the endzone early in the first half. Justin Simmons, who I mentioned in my “4 things to know about the Broncos match up” piece, came out with 1 interception, 8 tackles including 1 for loss, and 2 passes defended per ESPN. He is a beast.

I was surprised to see the Broncos fail to get the ball to Noah Fant in the first half. Considering the inability Pittsburgh has had to cover elite tight ends in the past, I thought Fant was in line for a monster game. He came away with 4 receptions for 57 yards and 1 touchdown. To be honest, I would not have been surprised to see Fant end with 120 yards and 2 or 3 touchdowns. He is that talented.

Melvin Gordon meanwhile is still one of the best receiving backs in the league. This was evident in his one touchdown grab, and the fact that the Steelers held him to only two catches showed that Terrell Edmunds and Devin Bush can cover running backs. They were very solid in staying close on routes underneath and that could have been trouble had Gordon been allowed to get going in the passing game.

Drew Lock left with an injury. At first, I thought that the game would be over. I had forgotten about Jeff Driskel. This guy had limited work with his new offense as a backup in a preseason where he didn’t have any preseason games to build chemistry with his team. I believe it was a blessing in disguise for the Broncos. I had forgotten he had started weeks 11-16 for the Bengals in 2018. He isn’t a starter but he is possibly the best backup quarterback any team could have asked for in this week 2 matchup.

In those 6 starts in 2018, he compiled a respectable 919 yards passing, 90 yards rushing (yes he showed some mobility), 6 passing touchdowns, and ended with a 58.57% completion percentage per ProFootballReference. He only threw for 2 interceptions in that span.

While he doesn’t have the arm talent, he played a respectable close game in week 16 in which he and the Bengals nearly killed the Pittsburgh Steelers playoff hopes themselves in 2018 losing to us 16-13. For those of you who don’t remember this is the game that Antonio Brown left at half time after not practicing most of the week and getting benched in the must-win. He didn’t see the same defense in 2020 that he did in 2018.

However, his work with the Bengals in 2018 preparing with the team to face the Steelers twice that season definitely gave him more of a familiarity with the Steelers blitz schemes coming into this game. I was surprised at first to see him stay as poised as he did considering he got sacked 6 times himself. But he didn’t make big mistakes and his lone interception came on a dropped pass that should have been caught by Sutton. It is fair to say he would have been more prepared to face the Steelers coming in than starter Drew Lock, even though Lock is absolutely the more talented player. There was not going to be a huge drop off in production between the two.

All in all, it looked messy, there isn’t a Vic Vangio coached team that gives up when they have surrendered a lead. It was a scrappy performance from the Broncos and they showed that they had a lot of talent on that roster even after injuries to starters like Von Miller, Aj Bouye, Courtland Sutton (who left the game early with injury), Phillip Lindsay, and Drew Lock.

It was a good test for the Pittsburgh Steelers and their ability to handle talented teams. If the Broncos can keep this team together and stay healthy, they will be a super bowl contender in a year or two. That is how talented they are now, and unhealthy they were entering week 2. While the Steelers will have tougher teams this year it is good to see they can pull out wins against teams with stars all over their line up.