The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football in a thriller, but it shouldn’t have been that close.
On Monday, the Pittsburgh Steelers won their fourth-consecutive game— a 29-27 victory over the Chicago Bears. They are now 5-3 and sit second in the AFC North, and that’s what’s most important.
A less important note is that this game was closer than it should have been. While Pittsburgh hasn’t been the most dominant team this season, the Bears have been pretty mediocre, and the Steelers should have been able to secure a comfortable victory. Instead, it was a two-point game that came down to field goals and poor officiating.
Beneath yet another close victory were several mistakes by the Steelers that kept them from putting this game away. While it is great to see that the team still has the grit, ingrained in the Steel City, to grind out close games, Pittsburgh must clean up these mistakes as they begin to play tougher competition.
Here are three reasons why the Bears game was closer than it should have been:
1. Steelers kept getting behind on down & distance
Pittsburgh’s offense receives a lot of criticism weekly, but yesterday was one of their better games. The offense scored 29 points, didn’t have any turnovers, and was able to drive for the game-winning kick. Even still, they could have been better.
The biggest problem that stalled this offense on Monday was getting behind on down and distance. The Steelers punted five times in the game, on three of those drives, the offense either gave up a sack or had a holding penalty that put them at 2nd-and-15 or greater.
This offense isn’t explosive enough to handle being behind on the sticks, so a sack or holding penalty effectively ends Pittsburgh’s drives. It’s understood that the offensive line is gradually improving, but the Steelers have to avoid these big loss-of-yardage plays at all costs. The more of them they allow, the more chances they give opponents to hang around in the game.
On a day where the offense was moving the ball, those drives could’ve easily been turned into points without the self-sabotaging mistakes. Roethlisberger and the offensive line must correct this moving forward.