Steelers Win Keystone State Showdown

Rashard Medenhall makes his season rushing for 81 yards and 1 touchdown on 14 carries.

Shaun Suisham hit a 34-yard field goal as time expired to lift the Pittsburgh Steelers to a 16-14 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles earning bragging rights in the state of Pennsylvania on Sunday.  It was everything that was expected and more.  Despite a total of 14 combined penalties between the two teams, it was a very defensive game.

The defense got off to a fast start in Sunday’s game, with Lawrence Timmons being a big factor on defense racking up 7.5 tackles. They made it a rough day for Mike Vick, getting in his face almost every play and sacking him three times, forcing two fumbles.  The Steelers lost LaMarr Woodley early in the first quarter with a hamstring injury, the seriousness is unknown.  Pittsburgh also lost Troy Polamalu who re-injured his calf, which does not look good.  As it pains Steelers Nation to hear this, it looks like Troy’s days may be numbered in the NFL.

After a slow start in the game, Pittsburgh’s offense not only got on track but their run game looked like the way they use to, thanks to the return of running back Rashard Mendenhall.  After struggling on the ground during their first three games the Steelers were able to ground and pound away for 136 rushing yards.  Mendenhall ran for 81 of those rushing yards and a touchdown on 14 carries.  He looked like his old self making the Eagles’ defense miss tackles.  While the ground game looked better this week then the previous weeks, the passing game looked just as good when Ben Roethlisberger passed 21-of-37 for 207 yards.

Coming off a close, but strong win the Steelers will have a short week before starting a two game road trip.  They will need to take advantage of everyday they have until then to work on the few issues they had in Sunday’s game.  Mike Wallace and Ike Taylor had  bad games and need to work on some things.  On the offensive line everyone did their job with the exception of Willie Colon who had two holding penalties on a drive where the Steelers got five penalties called on them.

Pittsburgh (2-2) will play it’s next game Thursday night in a match-up against the Jake Locker and the Tennessee Titans (1-4).