Coming out of the Week Six bye week, the Pittsburgh Steelers are staring down a rather difficult Week Seven road trip to the West Coast to take on the Los Angeles Rams.
Though the Steelers have had a ton of success in the Mike Tomlin era coming out of a bye week, they historically struggle on the West Coast, which is rather problematic for the matchup against the Rams. Additionally, Pittsburgh will enter the Week Seven matchup against Los Angeles searching for its first-ever win against the Rams in Los Angeles as it currently sits at 0-9 all-time, a great stat pulled by Steelers Depot’s Dave Bryan.
Seems like things are stacked against Pittsburgh ahead of the matchup with the Rams at SoFi Stadium, no?
There is some good news though: even with the Rams having another star receiver for which the Steelers will have to account for, Pittsburgh has had a great deal of success against Los Angeles’ star-studded trio of head coach Sean McVay, quarterback Matthew Stafford and wide receiver Cooper Kupp.
Combined, the Steelers are 4-0 against McVay, Stafford and Kupp. They look to make it 5-0 combined on Sunday.
Steelers’ success against Matthew Stafford
In the 15-year career of 2009 No. 1 overall pick Matthew Stafford, the Steelers have rarely faced the standout quarterback. Stafford missed the 2009 matchup against the Steelers while dealing with an injury, so he’s faced the Steelers just twice in his career with both starts coming as a member of the Detroit Lions in 2013 and 2017.
On Nov. 17, 2013, the Lions made the trip to Pittsburgh take on the Steelers and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, matching two high-powered quarterbacks against each other.
That game lived up to the billing as the Stelers jumped out to a 17-3 lead thanks to two explosive passes from Roethlisberger to wide receiver Antonio Brown for touchdowns of 34 and 47 yards. Stafford and the Lions rallied as Stafford hooked up with Hall of Fame receiver Calvin Johnson for a 79-yard touchdown and later a 19-yard touchdown to give the Lions a 27-20 lead.
The Steelers stormed back though as Roethlisberger found fullback Will Johnson for a 1-yard touchdown and wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery for a 20-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter, putting the game away.
Steelers defensive end Ziggy Hood sacked Stafford on the final play of the game for the Lions, leading to Roethlisberger kneeling out the clock for the 37-27 win. In that game, Stafford was pretty good. He threw for 362 yards and two touchdowns and added 24 yards rushing on three carries. The stats were empty numbers, mostly, though as Stafford completed only 19-of-46 passing attempts, good for just a 41.3% completion percentage. He threw an interception, too, and was sacked twice.
His big day came in chunks as Johnson had that 79-yard touchdown, while tight end Brandon Pettigrew had a 31-yard catch and wide receiver Kris Durham had a 24-yarder.
The Steelers won the game though and did it by making life difficult on Stafford.
Four years later on Oct. 29, 2017, the Steelers got the better of Stafford again, this time at Ford Field on Sunday Night Football.
Though Detroit held an early 6-3 lead and later led 12-10 at the half, the Steelers pulled away in the second half while putting the clamps on Stafford and the Lions’ offense.
Pittsburgh deployed a bend-but-don’t-break mentality defensively against the Lions in the 2017 showdown. Though the Lions generated 482 yards of total offense, they never found the end zone, relying on kicker Matt Prater to put points on the board five times.
Detroit’s offense was mostly one-dimensional in that 2017 matchup too with Stafford doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Stafford competed 27-of-45 passes for 423 yards, but the Lions stalled continuously on offense, leading to the five field goals and two turnovers on downs. Additionally, Stafford was sacked twice, and the Lions lost one fumble.
Detroit had just 71 rushing yards on 22 carries, so it turned to Stafford often. He did well between the 20s, hooking up with receivers Marvin Jones, Golden Tate, and T.J. Jones, as well as tight end Eric Ebron to move the football, but they never could figure out how to find the end zone.
Pittsburgh only needed one, as Roethlisberger found JuJu Smith-Schuster for a 97-yard touchdown in the third quarter, giving the Steelers a lead that they’d never relinquish.
Stafford had a great day statistically with the 423 passing yards, but they were mostly empty stats with the Lions being one-dimensional and never finding the end zone.
Two games, two losses against the Steelers for Stafford.
Steelers’ success against Cooper Kupp
Pittsburgh has faced off against Los Angeles receiver Cooper Kupp just one time in his illustrious career, and it did something only one other team has done against Kupp in his seven-year career: hold him without a reception.
On Nov. 10, 2019, the Rams made the trip to then-Heinz Field for a post-bye week matchup against the Steelers, who were without Roethlisberger.
Just a few weeks after trading for safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, the Steelers leaned heavily on their defense and did a great job taking Kupp away.
In their 17-12 win, the Steelers held Kupp to just four targets. Going into the Week 10 matchup against the Steelers, Kupp had 58 receptions for 789 yards and five touchdowns and was coming off of a seven-catch, 220-yard performance against the Cincinnati Bengals with one touchdown prior to bye week.
Nobody to that point, outside of San Francisco, had really figured out how to stop Kupp. The Steelers did it with a secondary led by names like Fitzpatrick, Joe Haden, Terrell Edmunds and Steven Nelson. As Tomlin said afterward, the Steelers came into that game with designs on stopping Kupp. They doubled him a lot and focused on him heavily on third downs as he was the best receiver in the NFL on third downs to that point.
Then, Pittsburgh took him away.
They’ll get another shot at him on Sunday in Los Angeles now that Kupp is back healthy after a hamstring injury suffered early in training camp. In two games since his return, Kupp has been his dominant self. He had eight receptions for 118 yards against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week Five. He then had seven receptions for 148 yards and a touchdown on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals.
With rookie Puka Nacua emerging as a dominant force in Los Angeles, too, the Steelers will have their hands full. They know what works against Kupp though.
Steelers’ success against Sean McVay
Before Sean McVay became the wunderkind head coach of the Los Angeles Rams in 2017, the Steelers got a good look at him while he was a member of the then-Washington Redskins on opening night in 2016 on Monday Night Football.
On the road that game for a matchup at FedEx Field, the Steelers saw what McVay’s vision was offensively.
That night, though the Steelers won 38-16, McVay’s offense, led by quarterback Kirk Cousins, rolled up 384 total yards as Cousins threw for 329 yards. The problem was, Cousins threw two interceptions and the Washington offense gained just 55 yards rushing. Additionally, Washington was just 3-for-10 on third downs and 0-for-2 on fourth downs.
Washington’s passing game gave the Steelers some fits at times as wide receiver DeSean Jackson finished with 102 yards receiving on six receptions. Tight end Jordan Reed added 64 yards on seven receptions, while Jamison Crowder added 58 yards on six receptions and Pierre Garcon added six receptions for 51 yards. In total, Washington had four receivers with at least six catches and three receivers with at least 10 targets on the night.
That Washington offense went on to finish 12th in the league in points for (24.8 per game) that season, as well as third in the league in passing yards (4,960), second in the league in 20-plus-yard passing plays (70) and fourth in 40-plus (13).
Three years later, the Steelers saw McVay again, this time as the Rams’ head coach on that night in November 2019 when they held Kupp catch-less.
With Kupp neutralized, the Rams generated just 306 yards of offense against that great Steelers’ defense, turning the football over four times.
That was with Jared Goff at quarterback, too. Though Stafford represents a clear upgrade over Goff — at least that season’s Goff — the Steelers have had a lot of success against McVay’s offense. They’ll give up a lot underneath, but they haven’t let any of McVay’s receivers in the two matchups hit the big plays.
Robert Woods had the longest catch in the 2019 matchup, gaining 24 yards, while Jackson had the longest catch in the 2016 matchup at 33 yards.
That 2019 Rams offense was rather good, too, finishing 11th in the league in points per game (24.6), fifth in passing yards (4,669), second in 20-plus-yard passing plays (73) and was also third in rushing touchdowns that year (20).
Though the Steelers’ defense is much different from those previous two matchups against McVay, the philosophy seeming remains the same: smash the run, tackle the catch underneath and don’t give up the big plays.
We’ll see what McVay learned from the previous two matchups on Sunday.
The Steelers have his number, along with Kupp and Stafford’s. That’ll have to continue on Sunday if Pittsburgh wants to come out of the bye week with a big win on the West Coast in Los Angeles.
