The Pittsburgh Steelers have now won four games in a row. Here are my biggest takeaways from their Week 9 win over the Chicago Bears.
It happened. For the first time since becoming the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin was able to defeat the Chicago Bears — a team he was 0-3 against prior to this past Monday Night Football matchup in Week 9.
Unfortunately, this one felt dirty. There were several things that happened in this game that had us scratching our heads and questioning the integrity of the game. Here are my four biggest takeaways from Pittsburgh’s 29-27 over Chicago:
The officiating wasn’t good
Let’s address the elephant in the room. As Steelers fans, we never like to admit that the officiating was greatly in our favor for a prime time contest like this, but there was really no denying it. Though the Bears did shoot themselves in the foot at times — specifically with multiple offsides calls — there were a few others that really helped shape the outcome of this game.
The first was when a Chicago offensive lineman was penalized for a low block on T.J. Watt. The problem was, he never connected with Watt. He also wasn’t outside of the tight end box, so this penalty shouldn’t have been called. Why was this significant? The Bears scored a touchdown on this play, but it was wiped away and they would settle for a field goal.
There was also a very questionable taunting call on former Steelers edge defender, Cassius Marsh. After coming up with a huge third-down stop, Marsh was called for taunting — a penalty that the Monday Night Crew as well as many viewers from home had a hard time figuring out. This penalty gave Pittsburgh a new set of downs when they would have been forced to punt.
There were some iffy calls the other way as well, but 12 penalties for 115 yards on the Bears almost seems fishy. The officiating in this game was just plain awful.