Young Money comes through
When the Steelers flew to Glendale, they knew that they were going to be playing the Arizona Cardinals. What they didn’t know was that they were going to be having a coming out party for Young Money.
“Young Money” is the nickname given to the Steelers’ trio of young wide receivers, Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown, and Emmanuel Sanders.
In a game in which Ben Roethlisberger threw for 361 yards, 3 touchdowns, and a 121.8 passer rating, “Young Money” accounted for 266 of those yards and 2 of the 3 touchdowns.
Mike Wallace, who is already the Steelers’ star receiver, had 118 receiving yards, including a 95 yard touchdown reception.
Mike Wallace outruns Cards
Antonio Brown contributed 102 receiving yards. He also had over 100 yards on combined kickoffs and punt returns.
Emmanuel Sanders had 5 receptions for 46 yards and a touchdown.
If the Cardinals didn’t know who “Young Money” is before the game started, they certainly do now.
But the Steelers wide receivers weren’t the only ones who had a stellar game. Steelers outside linebacker LaMarr Woodley was a one-man wrecking machine. He led the defense with 7 tackles, 2 quarterback hurries, 2 sacks, and a safety. And he probably should have been credited with 3 sacks, but he wasn’t awarded a sack on the play in which he had Cardinals’ quarterback Kevin Kolb in the grasp, but Kolb threw the ball away and was charged with intentional grounding.
The Steelers run defense also returned to form. They held the Cardinals to 73 total rushing yards. That’s the type of performance Steelers fans have come to expect from their defense. Hopefully, today’s performance was a sign of things to come.
The final score of the game was 32-20. And it was actually 32-14 with about 5 minutes left to play in the 4th quarter. So the Steelers won this one by a pretty comfortable margin. That was good to see, since the Steelers have a habit of making games closer than they need to be.
Now it’s on to New England to face the hated Patriots.
Here we go Steelers!
- Lamar Woodley has a new friend. If you measure a 3-4 DE’s value in the stats of the OLB behind him, Hood is about as good as they get.
- Darnell Dockett absolutely owned our backfield the past two times we’d played. Yesterday, he was held to 1 assist. Porter had 2 assists.
- Involving Antonio Brown in the short passing game is a good idea. Forget the 100 yard game, his seven catches gave us 6 first downs (two coming on 3rd down, 2 more on 2nd and 10 or longer). The only catch that wasn’t a first down was when he gained 15 yards on a 3rd and 18. The guy moves the chains.
- Involving Curtis Brown in the short passing game is a… different idea. Did anyone else notice that our rookie CB caught a pass?
1Actually, Curtis Brown was incorrectly credited with Isaac Redman’s 9 yard grab. My bad!
2That’s okay about your Curtis Brown mistake. All of your other points were right on the money.
LaMarr Woodley seems to be completely revived now that Ziggy Hood is in the starting lineup. I hope that tandem continues to play like they are right now for the rest of the season. At this pace, LaMarr could exceed 15 sacks.
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