Steelers Nation is already showing its impact on the 2024 regular season. According to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, the Atlanta Falcons practiced their silent count throughout the week in anticipation of needing it during Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“I see a lot of these around the stadium today,” Garafolo said, holding up and referring to a Terrible Towel. “So much so that the Falcons were wise to work on the silent count in practice this week for the home game.”
The silent count is commonly used by road teams to overcome crowd noise that makes it hard to hear the quarterback’s cadence. But Atlanta doesn’t have the strongest home following while Pittsburgh is one of the NFL’s top road teams, largely due to having fans already living in those cities to begin with.
In 2022, Steelers fans took over the Falcons’ stadium. They seem poised to do so again. Here’s the scene in Atlanta today.
Entering as road underdogs, the Steelers will try to use the crowd to their advantage in this game. Atlanta will be playing their starters for essentially the first time this year after holding most of their 1’s, including new QB Kirk Cousins, out for the entire preseason. Pittsburgh is making a quarterback change, with Justin Fields getting the nod over Russell Wilson, who is out with a calf injury.
If history is any indication, Pittsburgh has the edge against Atlanta. They haven’t lost to the Falcons since 2006 and have a 15-2-1 record against them lifetime. Kickoff is set for 1 PM/EST.
