Winners and losers from the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-15 win over the Buffalo Bills on Saturday night.
Winners
Steelers Offense – Is this a fever dream? Am I about to wake up? I could break down each individual player who made plays tonight but the whole offense deserves some love. This group has been everything it wasn’t a year ago. Explosive plays. Avoiding negativity. Using all areas of the field. I know it’s preseason, but Buffalo played their starting defense tonight.
RB Jaylen Warren showed a second gear on his 62-yard touchdown run (and WR Diontae Johnson threw a key block, a big moment even if he didn’t catch a pass). QB Kenny Pickett threw a beautiful ball to TE Pat Freiermuth for a 25-yard score. Perfect placement. WR Calvin Austin III sewed up the punt return job with a 54-yard runback.
Through two games, the starting offense has three drives. They have three touchdowns. It’s not always going to feel this good but right now, it’s going exactly as planned.
Matt Canada – As much crap as Canada has taken in his two years as Steelers offensive coordinator, plenty of it justified, you have to give him credit right now. The offense has opened things up, the concepts have been better, and obviously, the production is where it needs to be. Like with the players, whether or not this carries over into the regular season remains to be seen, but props where it’s earned.
Joey Porter Jr. – I know Matt Barkley threw it right at him, but an interception is an interception. And it was a nice job to squeeze the No. 1 receiver, get depth in his zone coverage, feel the route behind him, squeeze the throw, and finish the play. This rookie class has been productive.
Nick Herbig – Add Herbig to that impressive rookie class list. All the guy does is make plays. In the opener, a 1.5 sack performance. Tonight, a fantastic cross chop to force a strip-sack-fumble on QB Matt Barkley that was recovered by LB Tanner Muse. Herbig showed great ability to bend the edge on that rep. Earlier, he had a pressure with a solid bull rush on Bills starting LT Dion Dawkins (a talented player, if you didn’t know). Herbig is forcing his way to see serious playing time as a rotational EDGE piece.
Elijah Riley and Chandon Sullivan – Two slot corners battling for a spot but both have good odds of making the 53. Sullivan had a great tip and pick on an attempted Bills RPO. Riley picked off a LB Cole Holcomb tipped pass in the end zone and then batted down a pass in the second half. They’re two different players, Sullivan more coverage, Riley more run defense, but they’re useful pieces in Pittsburgh’s defense.
Miles Killebrew and Miles Boykin – Showing some love to the Steelers’ special teams. Killebrew had a partial punt block and Boykin dove to down a Pressley Harvin III punt inside the 10. That’s why these guys are hanging around. Quality special teamers. Pittsburgh always has a couple of them on their roster.
Tanner Muse – Let’s throw one less-obvious name into the mix in Muse. A recovered fumble, a good run stuff, and a hard hit to force an incompletion over the middle late in the fourth quarter. LB Nick Kwiatkoski did not play due to a shoulder injury and Muse put on a good showing, perhaps locking in his spot on the 53-man roster.
Losers
Le’Raven Clark – There aren’t many of them tonight. While we’ll have to comb through the All-22 to evaluate his performance more specifically, but he ran as a third-string left tackle today. In fairness, if the goal was to work him at left tackle, then it’s expected he’d come in behind Dan Moore Jr. and Broderick Jones, but Clark has been losing ground throughout camp. Dylan Cook worked as second-team right tackle in this game.
Kendrick Green – I was hopeful Green could show something tonight. Some of his recent practice work legitimately looked good. But, sigh, it just doesn’t happen inside games. Or any 11v11 environment. Green got run back into the pocket on one pass rep and early in the fourth quarter, had miscommunication with QB Mason Rudolph that led to a fumbled snap, the second in as many weeks. Buffalo recovered and scored the next play.
It’s hard to say for sure if that was Green or Rudolph’s fault but when Green is around, things just seem to go south. Nate Herbig has to be the team’s backup center or the team must venture outside the organization to find one.
Hakeem Butler – I normally do not include injured players on “losers” list, adding insult to injury, but Butler missed a prime chance to contribute tonight. It’s unclear why he didn’t play but he’s coming off a disappointing camp and now missed one of the team’s three preseason games. It’s hard to see him making the team in any capacity.
