The Pittsburgh Steelers will play their fourteenth game of the 2024 regular season on Sunday afternoon on the road against the Philadelphia Eagles. They’ll enter that contest as underdogs as well. Below are five key things that I believe the Steelers will need to do to come away with their eleventh win of the season on Sunday in Philadelphia.
No Loud Barking From Barkley – The Steelers main key in this Sunday game against the Eagles is to not let RB Saquon Barkley have a big afternoon against them. Barkley leads the NFL in rushing with 1,623 yards and is averaging 6.1 yards per carry. He also has 11 rushing touchdowns to go along with 29 receptions for 267 yards and another two touchdowns.
Limiting Barkley overall won’t be easy. After all, Barkley leads the NFL in runs of 10 yards or longer with 37. Merely not allowing Barkley to have more than one run of 10 yards or longer on Sunday would be a huge accomplishment by the Steelers defense. Barkley is also averaging 5.94 yards on first down runs and that’s a big part of why the Eagles’ offense is so successful.
In closing, limiting Barkley on first down runs in addition to not allowing many 10 yard or longer runs on Sunday would go a long way to helping the Steelers beat the Eagles in Philadelphia.
Shorten Lincoln Financial Field More Than Once – The Eagles are an exceptionally good team on both sides of the football. Their offense doesn’t turn the football over often and their defense does a fantastic job of not allowing explosive plays. On top of this, the Steelers’ offense will not have their best and most explosive playmaker in WR George Pickens due to a hamstring injury. Because of all of the above, the Steelers must provide their offense a few short fields on Sunday if the team hopes to return from Philadelphia with a win.
Shortening the field against the Eagles means gaining possession of the football on the Eagles’ side of the field. That needs to happen via a turnover, big special teams play, or a fourth down stop. Eagles QB Jalen Hurts has only thrown five interceptions this season and just one in the last ten games. The Eagles have also fumbled away the football just twice in their last nine games. Getting multiple takeaways on Sunday feels like a must if the Steelers hope to win in Philadelphia for the first time since 1965.
Try Living On The Edge – The Eagles run defense is stout, especially up the middle. The Steelers’ offense will obviously look to run the football quite a bit on Sunday and especially with Pickens missing this contest with his injury. Attacking the Eagles’ defense on the edges might be the best course of action on Sunday. Their defense has allowed an average of 5.2-yards per attempt so far this season on runs not charted as going up the middle or to right and left guard.
As much as most of us hate seeing the toss play, the Steelers might want to try a few early on Sunday against the Eagles defense. Outside zone runs as well. Any type of run that attacks the edges and forces Eagles outside linebackers and cornerbacks to defend them. Even quick screens, either by design to running backs, tight ends, or wide receivers or as part of RPOs, might be worth running early to see if positive yardage can be achieved. Boots to either side could be part of attacking the outside edges as well.
The success of the Steelers’ running game will play a big part in Sunday’s outcome and it won’t be surprising if a lot of their success in Philadelphia, either running or passing, comes on the edges of the Eagles’ defense.
Timing Could Be Everything – The best way to keep the Eagles offense at bay on Sunday in Philadelphia is to keep the unit off the field as much as possible. So far this season, the Eagles have won the time of possession portion of games a total of nine times. In one of their two losses, their offense possessed the football for just 23:43 and they ran only 56 plays in that contest.
The Steelers have done a great job of possessing the football on offense so far this season as well. In fact, only twice have the Steelers not had the football for at least 30 minutes in a game. One of the games that they were under that 30-minute was their loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Longer drives will likely be needed by the Steelers’ offense on Sunday to get scores and the byproduct of such drives could limit the number of times the Eagles’ offense possesses the football. A Steelers time of possession on Sunday of 33 minutes or more would likely play a crucial role in a Pittsburgh road win. Multiple short drives, unless they end in touchdowns, just can’t happen on Sunday.
Just Keep It Close – As improbable as a win might seem on Sunday, it’s not like the Steelers are involved in many lopsided games that they are on the wrong end of. Keeping Sunday’s game in Philadelphia against the Eagles close late in the fourth quarter could wind up boiling this particular contest down to just a few plays on both sides of the football.
Seven of the Eagles wins this season have been by eight points or fewer, one-score games. For the Steelers, all three of their losses have been five or fewer points. If the Steelers can get Sunday’s game into the second half of the fourth quarter as a one-score game, QB Russell Wilson might just be able to pull it out. Including the playoffs, Wilson is 6-0 against the Eagles all-time and 4-0 against them in Philadelphia. The road setting won’t be too big for him thanks to his years of experience. Just keep this one close.
