On paper, the Week 5 matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys was supposed to be one that favored the Pittsburgh Steelers.
After all, the Cowboys were missing Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence defensively. They also had one of the league’s worst run defenses coming into the matchup, which theoretically played right into the strength of the Steelers.
That’s why they play the games, though.
The Steelers couldn’t do much of anything offensively in the 20-17 loss, and struggled to take advantage of their upper hand in the matchup, falling to 3-2 on the season.
For former NFL head coach Rex Ryan, who appeared on ESPN’s Get Up Monday morning, the Cowboys simply beat the hell out of the Steelers, which was rather shocking.
“Dallas beat the hell out of ’em. And I know nobody’s gonna say that. No, they did. And I’ve been…nobody’s been more critical of their defense than me. But they actually had a plan. Like, it was crazy. And without your two really good pass rushers, they had a great plan. Mike Zimmer, I gotta give ’em credit, alright?” Ryan said of the Cowboys, according to video via ESPN. “Especially containing the quarterback, as well as stopping the run. I thought Pittsburgh was gonna run the ball down their throat. Never happened, and so you gotta give them credit. I think that was the most impressive thing.
“And then offensively as well, that this team man, I mean they had two to one yardage advantage. They put up a hundred extra yards over anybody that Pittsburgh’s played this year. So to me, I thought they beat the hell outta ’em. Now it doesn’t help when you turn the ball over three times, and that’s why this was a game.”
Without the three turnovers, this game might have been over long before the fourth quarter. That’s how good the Cowboys were on offense, moving the football up and down the field on the Steelers’ defense. Turnovers matter, though, and the Steelers forced three key turnovers and blocked a field goal.
Two of those turnovers came in the red zone on a T.J. Watt forced fumble and a Donte Jackson interception, keeping points off the board and giving the Steelers life.
But in the end, it didn’t matter. The Steelers couldn’t stop Dallas when they needed to most in the second half, allowing a 16-play, 90-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter and the final 15-play, 70-yard touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter for the win.
Dallas beat them up, plain and simple. The Cowboys ran the ball whenever they wanted to and made plays consistently through the air on offense. Then on defense, Mike Zimmer pulled all the right strings and levers, helping generate a ton of pressure against Justin Fields and the Steelers while bottling up the running game, too.
It was a shocking performance from the Steelers, especially after a Week 4 loss on the road to the Indianapolis Colts in which they couldn’t get stops defensively and couldn’t run the ball consistently. One is an outlier, twice is the start of a trend.
