Disappointment at its finest. Poor clock management. Undisciplined defense. 4-5. That pretty much sums up this week for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The day started well with a strip of Dak Prescott and recovery which led to a Le'Veon Bell receiving touchdown and a missed two point conversion. Towards the end of the quarter, Ben leads the team 75 yards for an Eli Rogers touchdown reception and yet another missed two point try to put the Steelers up 12-3. Starting to see a pattern here?
Not so fast, we haven't seen the splash play yet, at least for another two plays. Dak hit Zeke on a screen play that turned into 83 yards of a sloppy defense and resulted in a touchdown pass . 12-10 Steelers.
The game seemed to settle down for the second and third quarters as the teams traded two field goals a piece until the end of the third quarter when Dez Bryant burned the coverage, Dak hit him deep for another splash play, a 50 yd touchdown reception down the left side of the field to put the Cowboys up 23-18.
The fourth quarter was significantly more eventful. Bell capped off a quick 46 yard drive with a 1 yard run. Did the Steelers kick the extra point to go up 25-23? Nope. There was yet another missed two point conversion. The next big drive for Dallas was characterized by poor, undisciplined Steelers defense and yet another Zeke Elliot touchdown, and a 29-24 Cowboys lead with 1:55 left on the clock, just enough for Ben to engineer one of his classic 4th quarter comebacks. Turns out a couple completions over the middle put the Steelers on the 15 yard line with 42 second to go when Ben called for a hurry up fake spike and found Antonio Brown down the sideline for a touchdown. All we have to do is prevent the Cowboys from getting in field goal range and all ESPN talks about the next two days is how brilliant Ben's fake spike was and how his "follow me" interview earlier in the week adds to his legacy. We could be talking about how Ben turned the Steelers season around, but we aren't. Instead soft, undisciplined and a stupid penalty allowed Dak & Co. to march right down the field and score to put the Steelers in an awful hole they will have to climb out of down the stretch.