The Pittsburgh Steelers are set to face off against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 9
The Pittsburgh Steelers are traveling to Dallas for their Week 9 Matchup. After the toughest stretch of their schedule behind them, they have a friendlier Matchup in the 2-6 Cowboys. I am not saying that it will be a walk in the park for our Steelers by any means. However, this is the first non-playoff team they are playing in since Week 5 of the 2020 season. The Eagles have the worst record of those playoff teams, yet they are at the top of their division while the Browns and Ravens both have wild card spots that are theirs to lose, and Tennessee is the favorite for their division as well.
The Cowboys are still an NFL team. That means they are one of the 32 best teams in the world in this sport. They still have some great players even with a battered o-line and a weaker secondary. Pittsburgh should be able to win this one, even with the key injuries they are dealing with to the likes of Cam Heyward, Tyson Alualu, and Mike Hilton on the defensive side of the ball. Pittsburgh is going to be fielding the entirety of their offense, and Diontae Johnson should be getting even healthier. This can only bode well for the Pittsburgh Steelers when facing a team that has relatively underperformed on the defensive side of the ball throughout the season.
Without further ado, this is what you must know going into the Week 9 matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys.
Ezekiel Elliott is again one of the best in the league at the RB spot.
At some point, people really have to marvel at the fact that Pittsburgh has been facing every top running back in the AFC. When the star running back was injured, the backup was or is a former star. Pittsburgh opened their season against Saquon Barkley. They had to deal with Melvin Gordon, as Phillip Lindsay was injured. They played against Miles Sanders who is one of the better backs in the AFC this year when he is healthy. They faced off against the 2017 leader of the NFL in rushing when they played against Kareem Hunt, and their starter Nick Chubb was injured. Then they faced Derrick Henry, before playing against the team that broke the all-time record for rushing yards in a season in 2019, the Baltimore Ravens. Now they are facing Ezekiel Elliott.
Zeke has led the league in rushing twice once in 2016 and once in 2018. He is a beast, and when your starting QB and your backup QB are both out you have to lean on him. What makes this even more plausible of a strategy is that Pittsburgh will more than likely be without Tyson Alualu who is dealing with an MCL sprain. Mike Hilton is a question mark with his shoulder injury and Cam Heyward may play but will probably be limited in his snaps due to his quad injury. Pittsburgh will be without a lot of their key pieces when it comes to stopping the run and that will make it a bit tougher on defense. I don’t expect Zeke to have a 200-yard rushing performance in Week 9. However, the Cowboys will look for a combination of him and Tony Pollard to be the featured pieces in this offense while trying to make things easy for Garrett Gilbert.
Even with the hamstring injury, Zeke will almost definitely play. Tony Pollard had a rough start to the season, but he is no slouch. Pollard is a great compliment to Elliott and if Pittsburgh isn’t prepared for both of them, then you will see another rough day defending the run.
The offense will want to start off on a good note this week.
The Pittsburgh Steelers offense will have to help their defense with defending the run. They will more than likely want the ball first, and they will want to jump out to an early lead. If they want to make the defense’s job easy, then they have to make Dallas play from behind. If they jump up to a 2 possession lead in the first quarter, then Dallas will have to rely on Garrett Gilbert to win the game for them. I am not going to dismiss the Cowboys passing attack just yet. They still have a plethora of wide receivers to throw to and this includes the rookie star, CeeDee Lamb.
I would still rather take my chances against the Cowboys by making them throw the ball. You have a guy who entered the NFL in 2014 and has been in and out of it for the majority of his career. He wasn’t even on a team in 2015-2017 and has only played in 6 games in his entire career, none of them were starts. That is the quarterback they are choosing to field in this game. Maybe, they are seeing something we haven’t been able to see yet. However, if I am the Steelers I would rather force him to have to throw the ball then let them hang around in the game with one of the premier rushers in the entire league.
Pittsburgh has to start off this game as they did in Week 7 against the Titans. If they get the lead quick, then they can really get after an inexperienced quarterback behind a battered offensive line that is filled with injuries. Pittsburgh should look to get a 2-possession lead quickly, then control the time of possession and keep their defense fresh throughout this game. If they can do that, then it should be an easy win for the Steelers the whole way through. Even if they don’t finish in the endzone on every drive if they can possess it for at least 7 minutes a time and end it in field goals after the original lead is established they will keep the running game in Dallas’ back pocket.
If the game looks in hand for the Steelers many will call for Ben and other crucial starters to be pulled
I understand the value of wanting to keep some of your key players healthy. However, Ben will more than likely play this entire game. Mike Tomlin is smart, and he knows that there is a valid way for the 2-6 Cowboys to win this game. Pittsburgh wants that playoff bye week. After having to play 13 games in a row, the bye would mean the most to Pittsburgh come January. Pittsburgh is on the verge of the best start in franchise history and if they beat this Dallas team it will be the first team the black and gold has ever started 8-0.
More importantly, you rarely see starters sat in today’s games for any other reason but performance. It would take an astronomical lead for the Steelers to consider sitting anyone at halftime. Crazy things can happen in the league. There have been multiple 25+ point comebacks in the NFL that started in the second half. The league is that competitive. With Pittsburgh only a half a game ahead of the Chiefs for that #1 seed they have to seal the deal before they consider bringing in reserves to play out the game.
The lead that it would take for them to sit Ben, among other veterans to keep them healthy would have to be something like the Browns game. They had a 38-7 lead in the 4th quarter with just over 5 minutes left before they decided to put in Mason Rudolph in that game. On Mason’s first drive they went 3 and out and then he came out again just to kneel the ball at the end of the game. With Mason not being able to do remotely anything in that situation it isn’t likely they would feel comfortable putting him in unless they were 100% sure that they were going to win.
This game isn’t a guaranteed win by any means. If Pittsburgh was completely healthy on defense I would feel a lot more confident against Dallas in the game. However, the Steelers should still win this game by two possessions.