Colin Cowherd and former NFL scout John Middlekauff broke down the Pittsburgh Steelers win over the Las Vegas Raiders on The Colin Cowherd podcast, and Cowherd continued his weeks-long crusade against the Steelers, arguing that the method they’re using to win games is unsustainable.
“There’s a complete ceiling with it, but I think this is just how Pittsburgh’s gonna win. If Matt Canada’s your OC, this is your O-line and Kenny Pickett’s your quarterback,” Cowherd said.
Cowherd said that winning games the way the Steelers do is unsustainable because the defense is going to get tired later in the games, as it did late in the fourth quarter against the Raiders.
T.J. Watt in particular talked about how tired he was at the end of the game on Sunday, but it’s not necessarily realistic to fully expect Pittsburgh’s offense to struggle to the extent that it has for a lot of this season. The run game at least showed signs of life on Sunday night, and Pickett played his best game of the season. I don’t think last night was a bad performance by the offense, but I understand where Cowherd is coming from.
If the Steelers offense continues doing just enough to win, then yeah, Cowherd is right that there’s a ceiling on just how far this team can go. Even if it’s not due to the defense getting tired, you need to have a good offense to win, and it’s way too early to say that the Steelers’ offense can be good.
But Pittsburgh built a 23-7 lead last night before things fell apart a little bit, but the offense also only got two non-kneel down possessions after the Raiders scored their second touchdown of the game. One was a disaster, a three-and-out that only took 1:06 off the clock. But the other secured a key first down and kept Pittsburgh’s drive alive and the clock rolling to give the Raiders little chance of a comeback.
Middlekauff thinks that the struggles of Najee Harris are one reason why the Steelers’ ceiling is capped.
“They drafted Najee Harris pretty high and he’s just not that good. He looks like an average, run-of-the-mill running back,” Middlekauff said.
Harris had his best game of the season, which isn’t saying much, on Sunday night, with 65 yards on the ground. He did break off a 17-yard run that help set up a Steelers touchdown, although it’s fair to criticize his performance relative to draft status, although the issue lies more with taking a running back in the first round and not necessarily with Harris. But frankly, Harris is a key piece to this Steelers team and Sunday felt like a stepping stone for him to get back on track after a slow start to the season. I don’t buy that Pittsburgh’s run game is something that’s going to hold them back going forward. Harris had a few nice runs on Sunday, and I think he’s poised to turn it around.
The Steelers have won a lot of messy, ugly games over the past few years. It’s almost become their identity, but they also haven’t done anything in the postseason, held winless when the games really matter since 2016. So you can’t totally discredit Cowherd’s point. But last night’s win felt a lot different than the win over the Cleveland Browns, and it felt as if it was just a better game out of Pittsburgh. We’ll see if it can be a launching point to better offensive output going forward and see if this team can be the group we all thought it could be after the preseason.
Watch the full episode below:
