Cowboys down Steelers in after-dark affair

As the Dallas Cowboys came to Pittsburgh last Sunday night and handed the Steelers a deflating 20-17 loss, the game was competitive, and it could have gone either way.

I don’t believe the Steelers beat themselves as they did in Indianapolis a week ago, rather Dallas simply played better football. It certainly didn’t help that the Cowboys converted on nine of 15 third down conversation attempts and converted a fourth down as well. In comparison, the Steelers were dreadful on third down only converting three times in 12 attempts. Pittsburgh did convert on two fourth down conversions.

Listening to ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike show on Monday, Chris Canty questioned how long Justin Fields would remain a starter. I said last week that I believed he had earned and won the job. While he did not throw an interception on Sunday, he did fumble once, he was able to recover the ball preventing Dallas from recovering. Still his numbers pale in comparison to prior weeks with just 131 yards passing but his rating was 93.3. 

Fields again proved how dangerous he is as a runner picking up 27 yards on six carries for a 4.5 yards per rush average. I get this weird feeling though that once Russell Wilson is declared 100% Mike Tomlin is in fact going to make him the starter, something that Tomlin did prior to the start of the season. Before opening day, Wilson was QB1 and Tomlin has refused to remove that label.

As ESPN pointed out, at the end of last season, Steelers owner Art Rooney II declared that the Steelers need better quarterback play. The one and out playoff result was not good enough. So, the question now is whether Justin Fields can lead the offense well enough with having an extraordinarily strong defense to get to the playoffs and then win a game? Russell Wilson is a proven winner whereas Fields did not fair so well in Chicago.

Facing Dallas, the Steelers’ running game was held in check with Najee Harris picking up some tough yards but only managed 42 in total. The receiving game has great weapons, but they are not being used as they should be. #1 receiver George Pickens had just three receptions and only 26 yards. 21 of those came on one catch. We were supposed to see a lot more of Pat Freiermuth this season, yet he too only caught the ball three times for only 22 yards and his long was 19. 

Pickens was targeted seven times and most of those misses were to be blamed on Fields’ throws. As a team, receivers were targeted 26 times but there were only 16 receptions. On defense, they failed in the end to hold a 17-13 lead with time ticking down and Dak Prescott made the final drive look easy. You can say the defense faltered there but you can also say Prescott and Jalen Tolbert did an impressive job of making that final score. 

The Steelers also had no answer for Rico Dowdle as he rushed for 87 yards and a per-carry average of 4.4 but he also caught the ball twice for 27 yards and a touchdown. Even with two interceptions of Prescott, it wasn’t good enough to keep the Cowboys off the scoreboard. Pittsburgh’s defense sacked Prescott twice as well. 

Pittsburgh’s defense was on the field too long for most of the game, spending 32:29 facing the Dallas offense while Justin Fields and Kyle Allen (who did a respectable job throwing a first down pass and relieving Fields for two plays) spent 27:31 on the field.

Back on the Steelers’ offense, there were just 17 first downs to Dallas’s 25. The Cowboys had 75 offensive plays while Pittsburgh only got 57. The penalties on both teams were out of control. The Cowboys committed 11 losing 87 yards in the process and Pittsburgh eight for 50 yards. The loss drops Pittsburgh to a record of 3-2 now tied with the Baltimore Ravens for first place in the AFC North. It appears this will be a two-team race between the Ravens and Pittsburgh as both the Bengals and Browns lost last Sunday sharing the North basement with 1-4 records.

Baltimore has now win three straight and the Steelers have lost two straight as both teams are headed in opposite directions. In week six Pittsburgh travels west to Las Vegas in a game in which they should defeat the Raiders. That will mark two successive games against old bitter rivals. First it was Dallas and now the Raiders a team the Steelers were playing during the “Immaculate Reception” that began a hatred that lasted throughout the 1970s between Oakland and Pittsburgh.

The hot Washington Commanders will bring their star rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels to Baltimore to play the Ravens next Sunday. The Commanders are 4-1 and Baltimore as shown is 3-2. This will be a stern test for Washington to see if they are for real or not. Cincinnati is in New Jersey to face the Giants. The hapless Browns who will start Deshaun Watson again or so they say will be in Philadelphia to face the Eagles and another loss there would put Cleveland in a very deep hole. 

As for how they stack up against the league after five weeks, the Steelers are 21st in passing yards. They are in the 20th position for passing touchdowns. On a positive note, Justin Fields has thrown just one interception with is tied for second in the NFL with Buffalo’s Josh Allen yet to toss a pick. As for yards per attempt, Pittsburgh is 16th across the board with a mark of 7.2. San Francisco is on top at 8.8.

What we thought was going to be an offense built around the run, the Steelers do find themselves in 10th place with 606 yards but that is nearly half of what Baltimore has run for leading the NFL with 1,056 yards far ahead of the second place Commanders who enter next week with 892. Baltimore has newly acquired Derrick Henry to thank for most of that yardage. Pittsburgh is third in attempts with 164. 

Pittsburgh has had just three rushing touchdowns while Washington is at the top with 13. When it comes to scoring touchdowns, the Steelers obviously MUST improve on that because they’ve reached the end zone just eight times, which is 28th among the other teams. Baltimore in comparison has scored 18 times. 

On defense the Steelers have the seventh best mark for rushing yards allowed with 456 as Kansas City, New Orleans, Los Angeles Chargers, Detroit, Minnesota, and Baltimore are ahead of the Steelers in that order. Pittsburgh has allowed six rushing touchdowns which ranks about halfway down the pack of 32 teams. With six interceptions thus far, the Steelers are in the fifth position as Minnesota leads all teams with 11. 

In the kicking game, Chris Boswell is near the top with 12 successful three pointers trailing just Dallas and San Francisco by two. From 50 yards or further Boswell has been perfect on five attempts. His longest kick of the season has been for 57 yards. Boswell has certainly been the highlight in offensive scoring. But that’s not going to work in the long run.

The Steelers are not built right now to get into a scoring warfare. The defense as it was last year was counted on to keep the lackluster offense in the game. Now with a new offensive coordinator in Arthur Smith it appears we are headed down that same road. Funny (or maybe not so humorous) is the fact that in Ben Roethlisberger’s reign, Pittsburgh was not faced with these issues. 

Obviously, the Steelers are lacking an elite quarterback. While Justin Fields has been efficient, while he has been under center the offense is lacking in firepower and scoring. This can’t be. Would Russell Wilson be effective? We won’t know that until he takes some snaps in a live game. Mike Tomlin will have an exceedingly difficult decision when it comes time to declare that Russell Wilson is healthy. 

As ESPN was discussing this morning, if you bench Justin Fields and start Russ, what does that do to the confidence of Fields? What if Wilson bombs and they Fields comes back in? Would he be the same player? Would he improve of get worse? It may be time to start looking ahead to next year’s draft as well. Whether Justin Fields gets us to the playoffs or Wilson does, neither may finish the season as the future at quarterback. 



If the Steelers lose to the Raiders next weekend and Fields is calling the signals, the writing will be on the wall that it’s Russell Wilson time. The curious thing about all this is that Wilson has had that injured calf for over six weeks and I’m sure it doesn’t take that long to heal. I believe he is ready to go now but because of the success of Fields, Tomlin is making him wait before he pulls the trigger.