Steelers starting to find a rhythm in 45-21 win over the 49ers.

by MadBomberTV | 4 years ago | 0 Comments

After seeing the 49ers Owner say that he would guarantee a win over the Steelers, Pittsburgh players were fired up for this game.  After starting 2-0, they had no intentions of letting their first loss come against an 0-2 team.  And they played like a team on a mission.   Going into halftime with a 28-7 lead, the Steelers were able to put it on cruise control and finish the game 45-21.  

Josh Rosen led the offense with a perfect 158.3 passer rating, completing 80% of his passes for 284 yards and 2 touchdowns.  The ground attack was equally explosive.  Bryce Love saw some goaline action, converting 3 carries into 2 touchdowns.  The Steelers did a great job spreading the ball around and keeping the 49er defense off balance, but the star of the game was far and away, Roman Whitlock.  The reigning AFC Offensive Rookie of the Year was unstoppable.  He had 89 yards and 2 touchdowns on the ground, while adding an additional 99 yards and 2 more touchdowns through the air.  The 49er defense could not find an answer for him.

Defensively, the title of the gameplan was Contain McLean.  They knew coming in that he was going to be the focal point of the offense and he was.   The Steelers didn't exactly contain him very well if you just look at the numbers, but for the majority of the game, he was unable to take over.  He had 7 catches for 161 yards and a touchdown.  While this is a great game statistically, more than half of that yardage came on 2 catches and one was after the game was all but over.  Redmon Blackwood was a force in this game, as he got to R.Ford 4 times, which is more sacks than the entire team had coming into this game.  The big stat for the Steelers on defense was the 10 pass deflections.  The secondary decided it was safer to knock the ball away than to try and win jump balls with the freakish 49er wide receivers, and it paid off.  The Steelers go from facing a potent passing attack, to taking on the leagues leading rushing attack when the Raiders travel to Pittsburgh next week.