There’s something about the Pittsburgh Steelers that drives many of their fans to become amateur scouts of sorts, seemingly more than most teams, at least in my experience. They record the games and re-watch them on their own so that they can be informed with first-hand accounts of player performances.
From what I’ve gathered, however, many simply deleted the Philadelphia Eagles game from their DVRs without ever watching it again, assuming that it was just that bad.
That’s not an entirely untrue statement. There were some players who did stick out positively, such as Jason Worilds, though even he had his issues, such as being called offside and losing contain on the same play for a long cutback run. But there was more than enough in his performance to be encouraged about.
Overall, Worilds had a good day against the Eagles’ right tackle, Allen Barbre, registering several pressures and getting good push. His pass rush on third and 15 helped end Philadelphia’s first drive by forcing Nick Foles to step up in the pocket.
Worilds got around Barbre again on the Eagles’ second drive, this time getting a piece of Foles’ arm as he threw and forcing an incompletion. After planting his shoulder, he was able to turn the corner easily using his speed.
Later on during the same drive, the fifth-year edge rusher turned to his spin move to get to the quarterback. It is a move that he has long had in his repertoire, but had only begun to put together last season. On his rush, he windmilled around Barbre and found himself on a clear path to Foles, who nonetheless still got the throw off in time.
Worilds not only made strides in his pass rushing last year, however, he also improved his run defense, and we saw glimpses of that last week as well. It wasn’t much of a problem for him to slip past tight end Brent Celek on this play to make the tackle after just a one-yard gain.
Toward the middle of the third quarter, he helped come up with a big stop on third and one along with rookie Stephon Tuitt, wrapping his arms around Matthew Tucker and wrenching him to the ground for no gain after the Eagles left the back side unblocked.
Then there was his last play of the night, a much-deserved sack that wasn’t really a sack, which ended up not being a sack anyway after it was nullified by a penalty.
Thanks to Jarvis Jones crashing the pocket on the other side, the two outside linebackers were able to pen in Mark Sanchez, and he fell to the ground as Worilds pursued. The play would have been credited as a sack to Worilds had there been no penalty.
