The Pittsburgh Steelers outscored the Los Angeles Rams 21-8 in the second half to upset L.A. 24-17 at SoFi Stadium yesterday, and the win moved the Steelers to 4-2 on the season. Despite having one of the worst offenses in football, the Steelers are two games above .500 and have seemingly pulled wins out of thin air this season. Former Steelers quarterback Devlin Hodges, who started six games and played in eight for the Steelers in 2019, tweeted his support for Pittsburgh and head coach Mike Tomlin.
“Steelers are 4-2 this year.. 11-4 over last 15 games. Steelers are a good football team. And damnit Tomlin always gonna find a way to win,” Hodges tweeted after the game yesterday.
The season in which Hodges played for Pittsburgh, he went 3-3 en route to Pittsburgh somehow managing to finish 8-8 despite the team flip-flopping between QB Mason Rudolph and Hodges for most of the season after QB Ben Roethlisberger suffered a season-ending injury in Week Two and the team starting 0-3.
As we all know, and have heard 1,000 times by now, Tomlin has never had a losing record as a head coach. It’s an overused stat and one that isn’t a good indicator of success, especially because the Steelers haven’t won a playoff since 2016. But it is impressive how the Steelers always somehow find a way to win games. The offense looked awful for the first three quarters of the game, and then they flipped a switch as soon as the fourth quarter started. On the first play of the fourth quarter, QB Kenny Pickett and WR Diontae Johnson connected for a 39-yard gain, and the Steelers went on to outscore Los Angeles 14-0 in the final frame.
It was the best the offense has looked all season, and it came out of seemingly nowhere. But Pickett has proven himself as someone who can win in the fourth quarter and be clutch, and yesterday was the fifth time he’s led Pittsburgh to a win after a tie or deficit in the fourth quarter, per Michael Bertsch of the Steelers PR department. Pickett also went 7-of-7 for 138 yards in the quarter after throwing for just 92 through the first three quarters.
Maybe that fourth-quarter performance can be a turning point for Pickett and the offense. If they can play the way they did in the fourth quarter consistently the rest of the season, then this team should be a threat to win a playoff game, something that should really be a goal this season. It’s definitely a good performance to build off with the Jacksonville Jaguars heading to Acrisure Stadium on Sunday.
