Steelers move forward in playoff hunt with 28-7 win at Indy

He broke up the Colts’ first fourth-and-goal pass and tackled quarterback Scott Tolzien on third-and-goal during the second goal line stand. Instead, it was Tolzien stepping up and the others not.

The Steelers have to hit on all cylinders; offense, defense and special teams.

For that, the Steelers can thank …

But few Steelers played particularly well on Thursday night. I’m out there trying to make plays.

“We’ve said that if teams want to take away the outside, it opens up stuff in the middle”. I just thought he did awesome. I learned that from [former Steelers safety] Troy [Polamalu]. “And Troy said you watch film to make plays”. Indy can’t blame this one on Tolzien, who, despite throwing a couple of picks, kept them in the game to the best of his abilities.

“Philly has some of the best sports fans in the country and great football fans so you’ve got to try to take them out of it early if you can and that’s going to be our focus this week”.

They could have played for overtime on their last drive, but coach Mike Zimmer allowed Sam Bradford to throw toward the sideline and Slay made him regret it. I just applied those notes to the situation.

Then again, there are times where the blame is evident. Tolzien, who started for Andrew Luck because of a concussion, finished with 205 passing yards 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions. Rogers finished with a career-high six receptions for 103 yards but they all came in the final 15 minutes as the Steelers had only two first downs in the first three quarters. Pounding Le’Veon Bell for 51 carries over a five-day stretch was pretty much what the Steelers wanted to do but couldn’t against Baltimore in Week 9. Good and Hilton returned but left again in the second half. Pittsburgh safety Mike Mitchell (stinger) left late in the first half. Hilton (back), center Ryan Kelly (shoulder) and cornerback Vontae Davis (groin) were all knocked out with injuries. The exact same thing happened five days earlier when Mitchell leveled Cleveland’s Terrelle Pryor with another hard – but clean – hit.

Finding a happy medium between intimidation and not hurting your team with a penalty in an era when the National Football League is legislating big hits out of the game is a fine line.

Under the circumstances of a short week to prepare after learning of Luck’s concussion Monday, Tolzien played about as well as could be expected. I was just telling him good job on eating that.

“Any time you have an opportunity like that, you can’t have it”, Colts coach Chuck Pagano said after Thursday night’s loss.

The Colts had two chances to cut the deficit but Tolzien was stopped twice on third-down runs at the 1-yard line, and the Steelers forced incompletions on both fourth-down plays.

Indy came back to score, thanks to a roughing-the-passer penalty on Lawrence Timmons and a blitz by the Steelers that did not work.

Pittsburgh scored touchdowns on each of its first three drives. They will have a tougher challenge with Eli Manning and Odell Beckham next week, but I think they are up for the challenge. It worked. And however uneasily, a piece of the Steelers’ offense that’s been glaringly missing got to feel some of his own presence on the field once more.

“He’s a big part of this defense”, Shazier said. “Tonight, we felt we had some shots, but we also controlled the ball.it wasn’t like a big staggering numbers night but it was an efficient night”.