The Pittsburgh Steelers rallied when it mattered the most on Saturday night's 16-15 preseason win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Steelers played well enough to get the win, but it's back to the drawing board on Monday. There's quite a few areas the Steelers need to improve in before the regular season gets underway, but one part of the game that they have excelled in during both preseason games are two-minute drill situations.
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QB Kenny Pickett shined in more "varsity-like action" on Saturday night, especially at the end of the first half. Pickett finished the night completing 6 of his 7 passes for 76 yards and a touchdown; his only incompletion coming from a spiked ball to stop the clock. We would have loved to see more of Pickett, but that wasn't the plan that Steelers head coach, Mike Tomlin had in place for the night.
"That is all I planned to play him," said Tomlin via Steelers.com. "I would like to possess the ball more in the first half and thus have a bigger body of work. But some things are outside of your control. We've got to get first downs in order for that to happen. Oftentimes, when you're not possessing the ball enough, there's not enough snaps to go around for everyone, so it can be said for some of the offensive people that we wanted to take a look at. A lack of conversions limits some of that."
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Pickett came up huge when it mattered the most at the end of the first half. The Steelers got the ball back with 1:05 remaining in the second quarter. He methodically drove the offense down the field for a 63-yard touchdown drive in just :42 seconds. It was eventually capped off with a touchdown pass from Pickett to RB Benny Snell. Pickett wasn't the only quarterback that came up clutch when it mattered the most.
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He may not be getting as many first-team reps as he had hoped, but QB Mason Rudolph came up in the clutch on Saturday night as well to give the Steelers the 16-15 lead in the final minutes of the game. Rudolph finished the night completing 17 of his 21 passes for 127 yards and 1 touchdown. Rudolph methodically drove the offense down and eventually hit WR Tyler Snead for the game-winning touchdown with 1:56 remaining in the game.
Not only did Rudolph and Pickett come up big in the clutch, the Steelers defense, with a lot of players fighting for a roster spot on the field, came up huge after Rudolph and company took the lead at the end of the night.
Tomlin was pleased with the team's ability to execute what they've put an emphasis on in practice this past week, but that might have been the only part of the game the Steelers head coach was happy about.
"We functioned in two-minute offense and it was great because we put an extra emphasis on two-minute offense in preparation for this game," stated Tomlin. "It's good to see time spent pay off. Seven shot football won the game for us, fourth down at the end and we're appreciative of that.""Down in and down out, not good enough by any stretch, but it's good to learn with a W," Tomlin continued. "Football is our game, our business is winning. And we got to find ways to win even when we played poorly. And make no mistake, we won because we won the weighty downs. They won significantly more downs than we did. It's good to learn with a W and hopefully we'll do so, but obviously we got some correcting and some things to do based on that performance."
Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end DeMarvin Leal (98) during a preseason game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Jacksonville Jaguars, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022 in Jacksonville, FL. (Karl Roser/ Pittsburgh Steelers)
The Steelers defense took on the familiar "bend, but don't break" mentality on the final drive of the game. Jacksonville started their final drive from their own 23-yard line. Rookie DL DeMarvin Leal came up with a huge sack to start that final drive and rookie LB Mark Robinson laid out for a booming hit to help closeout the game. The Steelers defense went into "7 shots" mode as the Jaguars inched into Black and Gold territory. They forced Jacksonville's kicker, Ryan Santoso, to attempt a long 57-yard field goal for the win, but it went wide right and the Steelers claimed victory!
What are yinz thoughts on the Steelers playing well on "weighty downs" against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday night? Sound off in the comment section below, or on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram!
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