He Just Made a Statement! | Pittsburgh Steelers News

As the Pittsburgh Steelers start 1-0, TJ Watt sends a serious message to the rest of the league with his performance today and the entire Steelers defense make a statement showing out today as the Steelers beat the Atlanta Falcons 20-13. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the game. It was an awesome game. A lot of goods, a lot of bads. Let's get right into it. We got football back and the Steelers, like I mentioned, they won this football game beating the Atlanta Falcons 20-13. Pittsburgh had 266 total yards of offense. I think it's actually a little bit lower than that. I was writing these graphics as they literally were kneeing the ball in victory formation, so I think it's like 264, 265, but it was around that ballpark. They also had a turnover as well pretty early in that game with Jalen Warren fumbling the ball. And then on the Atlanta side of things, total yards pretty even between both teams. 238 total yards for Atlanta, but two turnovers, two very costly turnovers for Atlanta that we'll get into. Penalties, so many penalties for both teams. Atlanta had nine, Pittsburgh had seven. It was a very sloppy game from both sides, especially in that first half. It felt like every other play for Atlanta was an offensive holding. It just kept coming. I got a little bit better there in the second half, but just holy crap. Yeah, definitely really sloppy from both teams, but we have to talk about the man of the hour really here, and that is T.J. Watt. You can't really see. There's the jersey. What a performance from T.J. Watt. Holy crap. Turning back the clock here after what was, I don't want to say disappointing, 2025 campaign, but left some to be desired. I think that's probably a good way to put it, but today he was amazing. He had four solo tackles, three tackles for losses, two sacks, one pass deflection, and then of course the pick sixth that really kind of sealed the game for the Steelers. The Falcons hung around there from mainly off the back of offensive woes, which we'll get into, but he was, let's just say this, if the Steelers didn't have T.J. Watt, I think they straight up lose that game or that game is not a touchdown spread there. It's probably closer. He had a massive impact. A lot of questions surrounding him coming into the year with the age, with the contract. He shut all that up. He was awesome. I think Greg Olson during the game made this point of how splashy he is. When he shows up, he shows up and he makes big splashy plays and he did that today and was just phenomenal from start to finish. Honestly, the entire Steelers defense was awesome, awesome, awesome. Highsmith, two sacks for him. That's a combined four for both T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith. T.J. Watt had two itself and then Highsmith had two. Highsmith also had two TFLs, so just an awesome performance from that duo. Cam Hayward had three pass deflections. I love to throw that in there because they were talking about how Pittsburgh is so awesome when it comes to that defensive line. It's awesome when getting their hands up and deflecting passes and Cam had three of those today. And then Jaquan Brisker in his debut with the Pittsburgh Steelers had an interception in the first half led to a touchdown and this is a big point and I think kind of the key point of the game in my eyes. Both interceptions from the Steelers defense led to the only two touchdowns that the Steelers had the entire game. Obviously, T.J. Watt returned his interception for a touchdown and then that interception for Brisker that I just mentioned led to the only offensive touchdown that the Steelers had. It gave them short field. It gave the Steelers the opportunity and Aaron Rodgers the opportunity to actually capitalize on an offensive drive, something they did not do the entirety of the game only when Jaquan Brisker got the interception. So all that to say this defense has nothing to worry about at least here on week one. Bringing in new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham probably brought some question marks, but the talent speaks for itself. The money invested into that defense spoke for itself. They balled out, they showed up and if we got 70% of this defense today, if it wasn't in full gear like it was, I think the Steelers would have really, they would have been teetering on losing that game. The only reason I say that was because Atlanta offensively, besides the Steelers defense playing great, they just really couldn't get a whole lot going. It was just kind of the B. John Robinson show, which it usually is for them, but with Cooper Rush at the helm, they were really struggling. So it very easily could have gone the other way if that Steelers defense didn't play as awesome as they did. And I think it's a good time to bring up our sponsor for today, and that is Calshi. On Calshi, you are trading against other users, not against the house, excuse me, like other traditional sports books that you guys might think of. You're buying yes or no contracts on events like sports, the weather, politics, and then you can, if you want to get frisky with it, you can bet on the defensive player of the year already. And as you see right down there, TJ Watt, 20% chance of winning the defensive player of the year. It's early, but if you're feeling good about yourself, you can throw $25 on TJ Watt winning the defensive player of the year and get yourself $118. So if you want to try out Calshi, you can use the code in the description and in the pin comment, use promo code, digest NFL, and you'll get $25 added to your count instantly. All right, let's move on to, it's really fun to talk about the offense. I mean the defense, but it's not fun to talk about the offense. They definitely struggled in this game. Aaron Rodgers, 24 for 40, 221 passing yards and a passing touchdown. Team combined for only 58 rushing yards. They could not really get that rushing game going at all. I believe Warren had like 46, 48 of those rushing yards, really nothing from Rico Dowdell. Friar Muth had the only passing touchdown. He was actually a bright spot on this offense today. Five catches for 46 yards and a touchdown. DK Metcalf, four catches for 40 yards. One of the worst games I think we've seen DK Metcalf play as a stealer. There was big, there was moments there where, with the, what probably should have been a pass interference, but it actually, I'm talking about the long ball where AJ Terrell knocked it out, but he actually hit DK Metcalf's hand. If you watch that back, it actually hit DK's helmet. So it was definitely a pass interference, don't get me wrong, but I felt like maybe that could have gone a different way. Obviously you had a big drop from DK in the field. Rodgers made an awesome play to survive the pressure and to deliver the ball of what very easily could have been a touchdown, especially with DK's speed, he dropped that. So he, DK's got a, good thing he got the win. He's got to recalibrate here because the Steelers offense, if they want to make improvements, they need him desperately. And then who actually led the day for the Pittsburgh Steelers offense was Michael Pittman But yeah, not what you want out of this offense, especially bringing in Mike McCarthy, expecting the offense to make strides. And in a lot of ways, it looked the same as it was last year. And that was the main complaint. That was the big problem last year was the offense was stagnant. It wasn't dynamic, not a lot of big plays. They tried to have big plays. There were opportunities where they did take shot plays down the field, but in week one, in under Mike McCarthy, I actually was expecting more out of the offense. We'll see how week two, week three, how the offense, how the offense progresses. Cause I think if we turn around here and the clock goes to in the calendar, excuse me, goes to October, November, and we're looking at a similar offense, if we're not making strides, then I think it's, we're really, you know, need to sound some alarms when it comes to the offense. But for today it did what it did enough, uh, I guess against this Atlanta team. I mean, I'm trying to find good things to talk about with the offense. I can't. Um, like I mentioned, the only touchdown that they had was off the back of a Jaquan brisker interception. So they have to get better. If the Steelers offense, if the Steelers team just in general wants to make a run, um, this regular season, but before the game, so that, that was mostly the game Steelers win, good win. Uh, defense was awesome. Offense was not, this was before the game. We have to, uh, Troy Porter jr. Who has been in that contract dispute all summer did not play. This tweet was from before the game. He did not play Sunday. He didn't even suit up, um, was not out there on the field at all, uh, because of a back injury. It's hard to say, um, you know, I don't want to speculate if it's a back injury or if this is a holdout. Um, I'll let you, you know, be the deciding factor of that. But yes, from Adam Schefter and Ian Rappaport and the possibility of trade remains in play. This, uh, I can't believe that we're to this point now where we might have to trade Joey Porter jr. Because of what I would consider ownership malpractice from Omar Khan. Listen, if the the number that he wants, it could be not worth his, his play. And then that could come out later. And then I have to eat my words because he, you know, was asking for a whole lot of money, but I assumed he's asking for top of the market money, probably what close to what Christian Gonzalez got. He was the Steelers prioritized other players this off season more than Joey Porter jr. Joey Porter jr. More integral to the team, I would say then, uh, then, and this is no shot, no shot to these players. They're awesome. Right? I love Keanu Benton. I love Darnell Washington. I love Nick Herbert. Joey Porter jr. Is more integral to the defense than I think those players, you could disagree, but that's how I really feel for them to kind of sit around on their thumbs and not do anything. And then we, we get to this point and he's not going to play. Um, I had a video beginning of this week, last week where I thought where it seemed like he was going to play, obviously things changed or maybe, you know, those reports coming out last week were incorrect, but yeah, no Joey Porter jr. For week one. And then also on top of that, this is from Brooke prior. He was the first, first player out of the locker room after the win. So that's a nugget there as well. He got out of Dodge pretty quickly. Uh, according to Brooke prior, um, don't know where he went from that, but it was just a photo of him leaving the locker room. So that's not great, but we'll keep you up to date with all the Joey Porter jr. Uh, updates, all those updates with that situation, uh, as they unfold, but we'll end here. Steelers start one, you know, great feeling. It's always an awesome feeling when you're your team can come out, even if they struggled at times, get a win, right? Uh, they're wanting to know for the seventh time in the past decade, I believe there's seven, two in one in the past decade. And next week they have the new England Patriots. So that's going to be a big game. Obviously Patriots looking for a big bounce back after choking a choking the lead to Seattle and the Steelers look to continue again to against two. Now we'll get more into that game as the week progresses, but hopefully you guys enjoyed the game. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and we'll see y'all later.