Winners and losers from the Pittsburgh Steelers 23-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals Sunday evening.
WINNERS
Diontae Johnson: The best game of his career after last week, which was his worst. Johnson showed the dynamic traits that got him drafted on his 85 yard punt return, a dazzling run back, had an insane YAC play on a screen that led to the first offensive score of the game, a two yard TD by none other than himself. Awesome performance and bounce back game.
Joe Haden: Haden made a great read and drive in his flat zone to pick off Kyler Murray in the second half. A second INT sealed the deal. Defense continues to make splash plays. His tackling was solid, as usual, too.
TJ Watt: Watt did similar. Not quite as much an impact as a pass rusher, the Cardinals’ offense makes it hard on edge rushers, but he picked off Murray on 4th and goal in the fourth quarter to thwart another scoring attempt. Making every kind of splash play this season.
Minkah Fitzpatrick: Fitzpatrick didn’t have the splash the others did but his read and tackle on Murray on a 2nd and goal read option was a huge play and held the Cardinals to a field goal on that drive. His tackling and overall consistency has been just as impressive as all the picks he’s had.
Devlin Hodges: Hodges didn’t have an elite day but a really good one. Smart with the football, great zip and placement on his throws, and took care of the ball. A couple poor reads, we’ll look at those later in the week, but really solid performance overall.
Bud Dupree: Again, tough for OLBs against this team. But very solid day for Bud. Five tackles, 2 TFL, two sacks, a QB hit. Nice contain on some of Murray’s read plays.
LOSERS
Jordan Berry/Danny Smith: I am at a loss for words as to what happened on the, er, “fake” punt Berry “ran” in the fourth quarter. Complete communication breakdown. The only person who thought there was a fake coming was Berry. No idea what exactly went wrong but blanket blame here. Hopefully we’ll get an answer soon.
Kameron Kelly: Tyler Matakevich missed a tackle on Cardinals’ RB Chase Edmunds’ fake punt but at least Matakevich can say he was being blocked. Kelly was virtually untouched, fell down, and whiffed. He had a solid last couple of weeks on kick coverage but that was a forgettable moment.
Benny Snell: To his credit, Snell ran hard but that fumble was a doozy. Tough play, it happens, but resulted in points for Arizona. Got them a little confidence after Pittsburgh raced out to a 10-0 start.
Terrell Edmunds: He was actually having a pretty decent day until another terrible misjudgment of Murray’s TD to David Johnson. There’s a reason why he has as many INTs as Trey Edmunds. Ball skills just aren’t there.
