The Pittsburgh Steelers narrowly won on Thursday Night Football against the Tennessee Titans, 20-16. For the first time this season and for just the second time in Kenny Pickett’s career, the Steelers scored a touchdown on their opening drive. It was a 10-play drive capped by a beautiful 10-yard run into the end zone by RB Najee Harris.
Those 10-play drives have been hard to come by for the Steelers this year with just 12 such drives across eight games. The Steelers won the coin toss, and elected to receive because they wanted to set the tone, and set the tone they did. They went on to have four 10-plus play drives in this game, which is by far their most this season. Because of the Steelers’ issues with starting slow on offense, the margin for error in most games has been extremely thin.
The quick start provided a buffer on that margin for error which they ended up needing to help overcome 10 accepted penalties against them, four alone on the opening defensive drive. Usually that type of negativity would be enough to seal the Steelers’ fate in any given game, but seven points early helped mitigate some of it.
That first drive started off in the red with KR Godwin Igwebuike taking the ball out of the end zone to the 22-yard line. There was also a penalty on Broderick Jones for ineligible man downfield, which cost the Steelers five yards later in the drive, but the Steelers overcame adversity and scored. Five different playmakers touched the ball that drive: Diontae Johnson, Connor Heyward, Allen Robinson II, Najee Harris, and Jaylen Warren. That is about as balanced as you can get in just 10 plays. While it feels silly to call the first drive the turning point, it really was a key component of being able to come out on top.
I am not so sure how the game would have played out if the Steelers had failed to score or were forced to settle for a field goal. Pittsburgh came out with points on all four of its red zone opportunities, but two of them stalled and resulted in three points via Chris Boswell. Obviously, the final score was 20-16, so the opening-drive score was critical to the outcome. It set the tone that the Steelers were going to be able to sustain drives, overcome negativity, and establish a balanced offense that benefitted the rushing attack over the course of the game. The Steelers had their highest output on the ground in Week Nine with 166 yards and a touchdown and that all started at the top of the game. Coach Mike Tomlin spoke to the media in his postgame press conference on what made the one-two punch in the backfield between Harris and Warren possible.
“Really, tonight was probably our first time to take a look at it because we had a more fluid start,” Tomlin said. “When you’re converting third downs, you’re getting more snap opportunities, and that usually leads to the attrition component of play, and really that’s kind of representative of the run game.”
