For the past three and a half weeks, the Steelers looked like a team that had forgotten how to play football, but it seems that something must have changed at halftime on Sunday, because the team that came out for the second half against the Colts looked like the Steelers team that started the season 11-0.
Based on how the Steelers offense had been playing over the past few weeks, the idea of Pittsburgh overcoming a 24-7 deficit in the third quarter seemed improbable, but that’s exactly what happened in a wild game that ended with the Steelers clinching the AFC North title in a 28-24 win.
Whatever Ben Roethlisberger said at halftime must have worked, because after a nearly month of struggling, the offense finally played competent football in the second half.
It was a wild Week 16 Sunday and playoff races are going down to the wire. Will Brinson and the Pick Six Podcast Superfriends break everything down; listen below and be sure to subscribe for daily NFL goodness.
One knock on Big Ben over the past few weeks is that he hasn’t been able to throw an accurate deep ball. That was one of the many problems that seemed to fix itself in the second half against the Colts and there’s no better evidence than this 39-yard touchdown pass to Diontae Johnson where Roethlisberger threw a perfect ball that traveled 47 yards in the air.
Roethlisberger then one-upped himself with another impressive deep touchdown in the second half. This time, the 25-yard scoring pass went to JuJu Smith-Schuster and the ball traveled roughly 35 yards in the air.
The throw to Smith-Schuster came with just under eight minutes left to play and ended up providing the winning points for Pittsburgh. It was also Roethlisberger’s third touchdown pass in a performance where he completed 34 of 49 passes for 342 yards.
When the deep ball is working for Roethlisberger, the offense is nearly impossible to stop. For the past few weeks, all the opposing defense had to do was focus on the short crossing routes. If you could stop those, you could shut down the Steelers offense. However, that’s not the case when the deep ball is working. If the Steelers can ride this momentum into the playoffs, they could become the Super Bowl contender that we all thought they were five weeks ago.
Speaking of the playoffs, the Steelers are going to have some interesting decisions to make heading into Week 17, especially with the division already clinched. On one hand, if Mike Tomlin decides to rest his starters, you can’t really blame him and that’s because this team has a lot of players who could use a week off after a season where the Steelers’ bye got interrupted due to COVID. On the other hand, with the offense finally in-sync, it might not be worth the risk to give them the week off and have them come out in the wild-card round looking rusty.
Alright, let’s get to the grades for every game from Week 16. If you’re looking for a deeper dive on New Orleans’ huge win over the Vikings that was played Christmas Day, be sure to click here.
Tampa Bay 47-7 over Detroit (Saturday)
San Francisco 20-12 over Arizona (Saturday)
Miami 26-25 over Las Vegas (Saturday)
Kansas City 17-14 over Atlanta
Chicago 41-17 over Jacksonville
Cincinnati 37-31 Houston
Pittsburgh 28-24 over Indianapolis
Colts-Steelers grades by Bryan DeArdo (Love the grades? Hate the grades? Let him know on Twitter.)
Baltimore 27-13 over N.Y. Giants
Giants-Ravens grades by Tyler Sullivan (Love the grades? Hate the grades? Let him know on Twitter.)
N.Y. Jets 23-16 over Cleveland
Browns-Jets grades by Josh Edwards (Love the grades? Hate the grades? Let him know on Twitter.)
L.A. Chargers 19-16 over Denver
Dallas 37-17 over Philadelphia
Eagles-Cowboys grades by Patrik Walker (Love the grades? Hate the grades? Let him know on Twitter.)
Seattle 20-9 over L.A. Rams
Rams-Seahawks grades by Jeff Kerr (Love the grades? Hate the grades? Let him know on Twitter.)
Carolina 20-13 over Washington
Panthers-Washington grades by Jordan Dajani (Love the grades? Hate the grades? Let him know on Twitter.)
Green Bay 40-14 over Tennessee
Titans-Packers grades by Cody Benjamin (Love the grades? Hate the grades? Let him know on Twitter.)
