Eat your heart out, Mike Rowe. The dirtiest job in America Sunday afternoon wasn’t in a sewer or catching fish off the Alaska coast. It was in Acrisure Stadium trying to block up a rough ‘n tumble Los Angeles Chargers defense. The Pittsburgh Steelers had an apprenticeship, learning on the job and by the end, they figured it out and rode a running game to victory. Broderick Jones doesn’t care about style points. Just wins.
“Coach always says, it’s not always going to be clean,” Jones told reporters postgame via The Trib’s Chris Adamski. “Sometimes you gotta win dirty. We do what keeps us on track and stay efficient in our run game and in our pass game and as an offense.”
For the first half, running the ball was pulling teeth. By the break, Pittsburgh had nine carries for 14 yards with QB Justin Fields as the team’s “leading” rushers, responsible for eight of them and the team’s lone touchdown of the first half, a read option walk-in. It was Pittsburgh’s first rushing touchdown of 2024.
But the Steelers wore the Chargers down in the second half, especially over the final 10 minutes. RB Najee Harris created his own lanes when they weren’t there and even Cordarrelle Patterson barreled ahead after RB Jaylen Warren was unable to finish the day.
By game’s end, Pittsburgh had pulled 114 rushing yards out of its hat. Harris found a way to finish with 70 yards after being held 1 yard per carry for roughly half the game. Patterson’s numbers were pretty, averaging over 8 yards per rush.
Jones credited the defense for keeping the score down and game close until the offense pulled itself together.
“We’re leaning on our defense a little bit right now,” he said. “I just wanna be able to do the same. I want them to be able to do the same when it’s time for us to show up. We just gotta continue to get better.”
Jones himself stepped back into the starting lineup after Troy Fautanu was lost to a knee injury during Friday’s practice. While he wasn’t perfect, Jones improved in the second half like the rest of the team and was far better in the late stages of the game.
An offense that did little in Week 1 and showed promise but not results in Week 2 took another step in Week 3. They had to wait until the second half to show it, but it was a glimpse of what Pittsburgh could do when everything is rolling. It wasn’t a sewer, but the Steelers waded through a mile of filth to come out the other side.
