Patriots are beatable, just not by Big Ben-less Steelers
PITTSBURGH – It seemed rather improbable from the get-go.
Landry Jones beating Tom Brady?
No, that didn’t happen at Heinz Field on Sunday. Brady, with eight touchdown passes and zero picks in three games since getting out Deflategate jail, was efficient as he needed to be in a 27-16 triumph. Jones will remember his third NFL start for what might been.
As much as the New England Patriots (6-1) look like the team to beat in sizing up the field of Super Bowl contenders, they also looked so beatable against a team missing its star quarterback.
The Pittsburgh Steelers (4-3) couldn’t do it with Jones filling in for Ben Roethlisberger, who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery last week.
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They had their chances, though.
“You knew the margin of error was going to be minimal,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said.
Tomlin’s voice dripped with the disappointment of what might have been. If you’re going to beat Bill Belichick’s team, which typically doesn’t beat itself, it helps to have a few breaks.
That came in form of two lost Patriots fumbles, which went right along with the dropped passes. It wasn’t a pretty, signature win. Just one, even with LeGarrette Blount’s 127 yards of smash-mouth running, that will provide The Hoodie with more ammunition to beat his team over the head.
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“Self-inflicted wounds,” is how Brady put it, summing up the early sputtering on offense.
The defense had a bend-but-not-break thing going. It could have been a lot worse.
It’s no wonder that Patriots safety Devin McCourty seemed to wince when asked what he imagined what the tone might be in the Monday afternoon film review with Belichick.
“Honestly, you never know,” McCourty said. “Sometimes we feel like we played well and we still get ripped.”
Sure, they’ll take the W. Victories are never automatic and hardly easy in the NFL.
But the Patriots need not have any illusions. It would have been a different game, with a different result, if the Steelers had Roethlisberger, who threw more TD passes than anyone during the first soix weeks of the season. He surely would have offered an extreme test for a Patriots secondary carrying questions.
McCourty realizes what the Steelers were missing with Roethlisberger, who drives defenses crazy with his ability to extend plays by going off-script.
Said McCourty, “He makes plays that are not normal.”
Jones provided none of that, one reason why the Patriots defense kept getting off the field on third downs. The Steelers converted just 5 of 16 third downs.
That is not how to beat the Patriots, especially when they are contributing to the cause with their own gaffes. With Jones, in his third pro start, the Steelers needed to pretty much play a perfect game.
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“It stings because we were right there,” said Antonio Brown, the Steelers’ star wideout.
Yes, you can beat the Patriots. Look at how they went down in last season’s AFC title game at Denver, when the Broncos defense took advantage of the soft spots on the Patriots’ O-line – some of which still exists, as demonstrated by the Cincinnati Bengals’ D-line in Week 6 – to dictate the flow.
There was none of that from the Steelers defense. Brady (19-of-26, 222 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs) was never sacked, and on a couple of occasions when pressured he escaped (yes, Brady plodded out of there on his 39-year-old legs) to scramble for first-down runs.
But that wasn’t even the half of it. Chris Hogan caught Brady’s pass on New England’s first snap, then fumbled it away when popped by Jarvis Jones.
This is apparently how to beat the Patriots. But four plays after Hogan coughed up the football, Landry Jones forced a pass to the corner of the end zone for Brown – with zero TDs in games without Roethlisberger – that was underthrown. Malcolm Butler turned around and intercepted the pass. Squandered was the chance to make the Patriots pay.
In the second quarter, the Steelers had an apparent game-tying touchdown called back – Darrius Heyward-Bey scampered 14 yards on a crossing route – because of Chris Hubbard’s holding penalty. Then Chris Boswell missed a 42-yard field goal and the Steelers got nothing.
As the game progressed, a distinct pattern emerged: The Steelers, who fell into a 14-0 hole, kept settling for kicks. Boswell wound up booting three field goals, then missing two, including a 54-yard try.
This, after much struggle and heavy lifting, a significant amount provided by running back Le’Veon Bell, with his 149 yards from scrimmage.
Stalled drives won’t cut it. The Steelers needed the touchdowns they couldn’t get as Jones (29-of-47, 281 yards) was forced to play a game of catch-up that he couldn’t win.
Meanwhile, the Patriots had two TD drives in the second half that covered a combined 150 yards and consumed less than 5 ½ minutes of game clock. That’s efficiency. And that’s how the Patriots win.
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Follow NFL columnist Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell
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