On balance, the Pittsburgh Steelers probably should not have needed a last-second field goal from Shaun Suisham to put away the Peyton Manning-less Indianapolis Colts on Sunday evening. But they did need that field goal, and nonetheless improved to 2-1 on the season with the road victory.
The win was enough for Fox Sports analyst Brian Billick to move the Steelers up to no. 4 in his NFL Power Rankings, but clearly he has some reservations about Pittsburgh at this point in the young season. "The Steelers of old would have put this one away early," he notes. Billick also takes issue with the Steelers' use of the run game, saying, "I'd like to see them committed to the run even when its [sic] not particularly effective from a statistical standpoint."
Against the winless Colts, Pittsburgh ran the ball 28 times for 67 yards for a putrid 2.4-yard average. Indianapolis did a particularly effective job bottling up lead back Rashard Mendenhall, limiting him to 37 yards on 18 carries. And as Michael Bean of SB Nation's Behind the Steel Curtain points out, one of Mendenhall's carries went for 15 yards, "which for us non-math majors means his other 17 attempts went for a grand total of 22 yards." It's easy to see why Bean listed "Run Game" in the "Ugly" department in his latest "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" post.