3 winners and 3 losers from Steelers 24-19 win vs. Cowboys

Losers: The Coaches

Arguably the Steelers’ weakest point on Sunday was their coaching. On defense, the Steelers had linebackers covering receivers and zone instead of man coverage. This led to constant struggles on defense despite playing an offense led by Garrett Gilbert. What had been the Steelers’ strength almost turned into a loss, as the unit as a whole struggled in every facet.

Worse yet were the calls on the offense. The Steelers abandoned the run far too early in the game. Yes, they went down early on the scoreboard, but that doesn’t mean that as a team you can just abandon the run like that and become one-sided on offense. Considering how bad the Dallas defense had been against the run, giving up and becoming a passing only team could have been far more disastrous than it turned out to be.

The absolute worst coaching call had to be opting to go for it on fourth down despite being well within the range of a field goal. While the special teams’ unit had been suspect to that point, opting to not attempt the chip shot field goal and go up by eight points is a silly mistake and one that nearly cost the Steelers the game. You need to keep the faith in your kicker, especially when he nailed a 59-yard field goal earlier. Overall, the play calling and decisions made in this game were crucial in it coming down to the wire.