What we learned from Pittsburgh Steelers win against Texans

The Steelers displayed ‘guts’ and determination by coming back to beat the Houston Texans. Here’s what we learned from the win.

Admittedly, I had a bad feeling about this game.   As I stated in a previous article, the NFL is a week-to-week league.  The Steelers, like every team, are only as good as how we performed against our current opponent and will be judged solely on how we perform against our next opponent.

Despite how I felt about the game, the Steelers showed a tremendous amount of resolve in coming back from an 11-point deficit to earn their third consecutive win of the 2020 NFL season.  Early on, it looked as if we would suffer our first defeat of the year, but we rallied to win the game.

So what did we learn from our win against the Texans?  Let’s take a look, shall we?

The running game propels the Steelers to victory

According to the official website of the NFL, the Steelers amassed 169 yards rushing, of which, James Conner, our fourth-year RB out of Pitt, accounted for 109 of those yards.  As I have stated more times than I can remember when the Steelers get the running game going, it generally leads to a win, against the Texans that was certainly true.

The passing game was effective as well, as Ben Roethlisberger threw for 237 yards and 2 TDs on 23 completions. Big Ben was sacked twice, something that I think we need to shore up as we progress through the season.  The offense will be viable as long as Roethlisberger is healthy. I don’t think that’s an earth-shattering proclamation.

What I really liked was the fact that we were able to possess the ball to the point of essentially ‘salting away’ the game. The Steelers enjoyed an almost 13-minute advantage in time of possession. I believe that was one of the leading factors in this win.

The Steelers defense got it together and played ‘shut down’ football in the second half

So before we knew it, we were trailing the Texans at home by 11 points.  It really looked like the defense was going to disappoint us, but, fortunately, that did not come to fruition. It truly took a team effort to ‘right the ship’ and to shut down the Texans in the second half.

The Steelers ‘D’ held the Texans to 29 yards rushing, 264 passing, was able to generate 5 sacks on a mobile QB, and managed to snag one INT. To be fair, there were lapses in coverage, which, honestly, has been an issue through the first three weeks of the season.

The Steelers played ‘complementary football’ to earn a third straight victory

I know that I consistently use the term ‘complementary football’.  What that means to me is this: the offense scores enough points to put us in a position to win the game; the defense does enough to prevent the opposition from scoring enough points to beat us.

What transpired against the Texans was a team that was not able to get much going early on either side of the ball but did more than enough at the end to win the game.  That, to me, is the epitome of a team win and that is what we will need going forward as the Steelers progress through what is shaping up to be an intriguing 2020 NFL season.