Starks’ return rejuvenates offense
PITTSBURGH — A week earlier, Max Starks was in a bar in Arizona, enjoying a couple of cold ones, watching his former employer lay an egg against the Houston Texans.
“Water and Diet Coke,” Starks insisted were his beverages of choice. “It was 10 in the morning out there, a little too early for me to be drinking. Plus, I had worked out hard Saturday and didn’t want to waste that.”
Fast forward seven days and Starks was back to doing what he does best. He not only re-signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he worked hard enough and well enough during the week to start in Sunday’s 38-17 win over the Tennessee Titans.
“There was supposed to be a rotation system, where I would come out for a series every two or three possessions,” Starks said.
Instead, Starks stayed in the game pretty much throughout, probably due to injuries elsewhere on the line and played well enough to draw praise from his coach and quarterback.
“It’s something that revealed itself to us over the course of the week,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said when asked when the decision was made to start Starks. “First, you have to give credit to him for coming back in the ridiculously good shape he’s in. He’s a quick study. He got more and more comfortable with what he was capable of doing as the week wore on. Quite honestly, we needed it. We have some men who are partially wounded in some other areas, Jonathan Scott and Marcus Gilbert. He was able to provide what we needed.”
“He stepped up,” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said of Starks. “Once we brought him back to town, it was, ‘OK, let’s see how we’re going to use him. Are we going to use him sparingly? What are we going to do? He ends up starting and the plan that I heard was that he was going to rotate so we could check on his conditioning. The next thing you know, he’s playing the whole game. Without looking at the film, I think I could tell you he did a great job.”
You might be tempted to look at this game and theorize that Starks fixed all of the problems the offensive line has been having. To a degree, you’d be right, but probably not for the reasons you are thinking. Starks listed a few things that he believes contributed as much as he did in this game that saw Roethlisberger sacked only once.
“The entire key to effective offensive line play is communicating,” Starks said. “Sometimes in a different stadium, it’s hard to communicate. You saw the Texans take advantage of that last week and Indianapolis the week before that is notorious for being a loud place.
“The other factor is that I’ve been teammates with these guys for a couple of years, so it was different than bringing someone in off the street,” Starks said. “I know the offense, I know the quarterback. It made for a pretty smooth transition.”
In hindsight, it was a transition back to normalcy.
POSITIVES: LB LaMarr Woodley sacked Matt Hasselbeck on second-and-goal from the 7-yard line to hold Tennessee to a 29-yard Rob Bironas field goal on its opening possession. … Pittsburgh won a challenge on its 10-play, 50-yard first-possession touchdown drive that started with a 52-yard kickoff return by Antonio Brown. … P Daniel Sepulveda passed to Ryan Mundy for 33 yards on a fake punt that carried to the Tennessee 17-yard line. Roethlisberger passed to Hines Ward for a 7-yard touchdown a few plays later to boost Pittsburgh’s lad to 14-3. … Jonathan Dwyer ripped off a 76-yard run on Pittsburgh’s next possession and Roethlisberger capped it with a 1-yard scoring pass to David Johnson and it was 21-3. … Woodley not only had 1.5 sacks, he also intercepted a tipped Hasselbeck pass after a successful Titans onside kick.
NEGATIVES: FS Ryan Clark drew a personal foul on a non-play. Clark was flagged on a Tennessee false start, so instead of facing a third-and-11, the Titans had a first down. LB James Farrior was called for illegal contact on a third-and-goal play from the Steelers 12-yard line. … Special teams gave up a 42-yard kickoff return to Marc Mariani early in the second quarter. … Roethlisberger was intercepted by Cortland Finnegan to end a Steelers scoring threat at the end of the first half. … The Steelers played much of a possession without a nose tackle and Tennessee turned it into a 9-play, 77-yard touchdown drive to close to within 28-10 with 2:02 remaining in the third quarter. … The Titans then recovered an onside kick. … Tennessee’s Tim Shaw blocked a Sepulveda punt and Finnegan recovered for the Titans.
IN THE BOOKS: With his 8-yard touchdown reception, TE Heath Miller became the eighth Steelers player to record at least 30 receiving touchdowns. … Roethlisberger’s third touchdown pass gave him 150 career TD passes. Only Terry Bradshaw (212) has more touchdown passes in a career with the Steelers. It became Roethlisberger’s 4th career game with at least four touchdown passes and his first game this season with more than one TD pass. … WR Hines Ward caught two touchdown passes. It was his 16th multi-touchdown game and third against the Titans. … Jonathan Dwyer had his first career 100-yard rushing day. … First-round draft pick Cameron Heyward recorded his first sack and forced a fumble in the process. … The Steelers improved to 16-1 when DT Chris Hoke was in the starting lineup.
INJURIES: Rookie RT Marcus Gilbert suffered a left shoulder injury midway through the second quarter and was replaced by Jonathan Scott. Gilbert did not return. … C Maurkice Pouncey suffered a right knee injury midway through the third quarter and was replaced by Trai Essex who played left guard and allowed Doug Legursky to move to center. Pouncey returned and finished the game. … Isaac Redman left the game in the fourth quarter with cramps. Tomlin said post-game that Gilbert’s injury was the only significant one of the game.
INACTIVES ANALYSIS: Six of the Steelers’ seven inactive players were injured and four of them were starters. NT Casey Hampton, DE Aaron Smith and LB James Harrison missed the game on defense, while G Chris Kemoeatu was out for the offense. The Steelers’ makeshift defense showed Chris Hoke at NT, Ziggy Hood at DE, Lawrence Timmons moving to OLB and Larry Foote replacing Timmons at ILB. Offensively, Doug Legursky moved from RG to LG and Ramon Foster started at RG. … The only Tennessee inactive of note was former Steelers S Chris Hope, who suffered a broken forearm last week.
WORTH REPEATING: “We weren’t going to leave any bullets in the gun,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said about the fake punt that gained 33 yards. “It was important that we started fast and competed. I saw the opportunity there and took advantage of it.”