The Pittsburgh Steelers went through a hard-fought and ugly contest on Sunday against the Denver Broncos. It was far from a clean game. Penalties plagued both teams, and the Steelers consistently shot themselves in the foot over and over. Pittsburgh managed to capture the victory by a score of 13-6, but repeated mistakes allowed the Broncos to stay in the ball game. Pittsburgh had crucial penalties on both offense and defense, with Broderick Jones and Joey Porter Jr. being repeat offenders.'
Pittsburgh knew this contest against Denver was going to be tightly officiated due to the history of the officiating crew. This became obvious shortly after the game began, and Jones was called for three separate penalties on one drive. This ultimately got him sent to the bench in the middle of the possession, which is rarely seen for an offensive lineman at the NFL level. Head Coach Mike Tomlin sounded off on the penalties and critical mistakes of his players in his postgame press conference.
"Thought the first thing that kind of captured my attention was the penalties. You can't produce or sustain drives being penalized in the way that we were, so we got some work ahead of us there. Among other things, just from a knee jerk reaction though that was the most troublesome component of the game."
Tomlin obviously isn't happy with the repeated mistakes, despite leaving Denver with a win. If the Steelers were facing better competition there was no way they would have won the game. Pittsburgh also benefitted from some penalties, as both George Pickens and Van Jefferson were able to draw some big calls on Denver's defensive backs.
Steelers' Broderick Jones Continues To Struggle
Jones himself killed what would have been a scoring drive. Pittsburgh got the ball on their own one-yard line and managed to get some momentum, and that momentum continued to be killed by Jones. He had one false start on the drive, and pre-snap penalties are unacceptable for Tomlin. He also had two holding penalties on the drive which put Pittsburgh behind the sticks.
"You get holding penalties, you're going to shut a drive down in the National Football League. Particularly at this stage of team development. You know, we just don't have enough cohesion to overcome those long-yardage circumstances. Not a lot of people do. In September, this stage of the game, you get a holding penalty it is going to shut a drive down. We got to play cleaner."
It was a bad day for Jones, as he came in for Troy Fautanu after the rookie played the first two possessions. Fautanu quickly came back on the field after the penalties by Jones. One of Jones' penalties wiped off a deep completion to Pickens which would have put the Steelers inside the red zone and in prime position to put more points on the board.
