Saints, Brees burn Steelers
PITTSBURGH — The Steelers made plays on offense and got off the field on defense in Sunday’s 35-32 loss at home to the New Orleans Saints.
Trouble is, they didn’t do either consistently enough to produce a win.
The result is a 7-5 record, which the Steelers share with the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns, good enough for a last place tie in the AFC North Division. All three teams are 1.5 games behind division-leading Cincinnati and the Steelers play the Bengals twice in the last month, including on the road next Sunday.
The Steelers allowed Drew Brees to throw for five touchdowns to five different receivers, none going to favorite target Jimmy Graham. Brees passed for a modest 257 yards, but burned the Steelers for several long pass plays, including a 69-yard touchdown and a 44-yard hook-up to Kenny Stills.
Asked whether it was execution, personnel or strategy that allowed the long plays, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was direct in his answer.
“We have to keep a lid on it,” he said. “I’m not going to search for excuses. They got behind us some. It was significant, particularly when it occurred. We have to be better than that if we want to win.”
When it occurred was the worst possible time for the Steelers, who had just welcomed back cornerback Ike Taylor and Troy Polamalu from injuries. The first of the big pass plays occurred after the Steelers had squandered a chance to reclaim a lead and the second came late in the third quarter, right after the Steelers had scored a touchdown to make it a one-score game.
Taylor took a lot of the blame for failures in the secondary.
“It’s tough, one of those days,” Taylor said after his first game since a broken arm shelved him back in week three. “What I put on film, I have to eat it. I have to correct it and get back and play better. When you play inconsistently, that’s what happens.
“Put it this way, with a future Hall of Fame quarterback like Drew Brees, you have to be on your P’s and Q’s. If he sees something, he’s going to hit it. He doesn’t miss a lot.”
Shaun Suisham got Pittsburgh on the scoreboard first by hitting a 49-yard field goal with 6:05 remaining in the first quarter. The Steelers’ 3-0 lead came at the end of a seven-play, 34-yard drive that featured Le’Veon Bell gaining all 34 yards on four carries.
Suisham doubled Pittsburgh’s lead with a 31-yard field goal with 14:05 left in the second quarter. The kick capped a 13-play, 60-yard drive and made the score 6-0.
But that was part of the problem, according to Tomlin.
“The bottom line is we didn’t have enough cohesion at different points in the game to overcome our weaknesses,” Tomlin said. “We were getting off the field defensively early in the game, but we weren’t putting touchdowns on the board, we were kicking field goals or even missing scoring opportunities.
“You can’t have that versus an explosive offense like New Orleans. Then, once we started getting it going, particularly in the third quarter, we couldn’t get the necessary stops for whatever reason on defense. They hit some big plays on us. We had a stop, but we had a defensive holding penalty, things of that nature.”
To that point, Bell had 76 yards on 13 carries and had become the Steelers’ first 1,000-yard runner since Rashard Mendenhall gained 1,273 in 2010. Bell finished with only 95 rushing yards, but caught eight passes for 159 more.
The Saints took the lead when Brees led the team 79 yards on eight plays, the last 15 coming on a TD pass to tight end Ben Watson. New Orleans converted its first third down on the drive and assumed a 7-6 lead 6:04 before halftime.
Brees passed to Stills for a 44-yard gain to the Steelers 21-yard line at the two-minute warning and the Saints stretched their lead to 14-6 at the break. Mark Ingram ran twice for 17 yards to a first-and-goal at Pittsburgh’s 4-yard line and Brees passed to fullback Erik Lorig for the score with 36 seconds left in the first half.
New Orleans’ 9-play, 80-yard drive started when Kenny Vaccaro intercepted a Ben Roethlisberger pass to Darrius Heyward-Bey in the end zone.
“They had everybody doubled and we didn’t have a check-down because we were in max protect,” said Rosthlisberger. “It was either take a shot or get sacked. I saw a corner had his back turned to Darrius, I threw it up to let him make a play. The safety made a play, I didn’t. I didn’t throw it far enough.”
But it was the New Orleans running game that put up 143 yards (122 by Ingram) on the Steelers defense that caught the attention of Steelers defensive end Cameron Heyward.
“I think they got some runs on us and that set up the play action,” Heyward said. “We just didn’t execute, in every category, rushing, passing, defense, offense, special teams. They won. We have to regroup and get back in the saddle.”
Roethlisberger completed only eight of 22 passes for 115 yards, with no touchdowns and one interception in the first half. It was the first game since the 2013 opener that Roethlisberger played a first half at home without throwing a touchdown pass.
His second pass attempt of the second half was tipped and intercepted by Cameron Jordan and Brees capitalized on the turnovers with an 11-yard TD pass to Nick Toon and, with 11:25 left in the third quarter, New Orleans had scored 21 unanswered points for a 21-6 lead.
Bell’s 1-yard touchdown run capped a 13-play, 83-yard Pittsburgh drive that cut New Orleans’ lead to 21-13 with 4:21 showing on the third-quarter clock.
Brees passed to Stills for a 69-yard touchdown with 1:50 left in the third to restore the Saints’ lead to 15 points at 28-13. New Orleans’ drive covered 89 yards in five plays. Stills got behind Taylor for the touchdown.
Pittsburgh closed the deficit to 28-16 when Suisham connected on a 48-yard field goal with 14:52 left in the game. The 5-play, 44-yard drive began with a 48-yard Roethlisberger pass to Bell.
The Saints put away the win by driving 80 yards in nine plays to a three-yard TD pass from Brees to Marques Colston. The drive included a 31-yard Mark Ingram run and a defensive holding penalty against Antwon Blake that negated a sack by Vince Williams.
Pittsburgh scored twice down the stretch and converted a pair of two-point conversions to make it look like a chose game. Roethlisberger capped drives of 95 and 98 yards with short scoring passes to Antonio Brown before splitting two-point tosses between Brown and Lance Moore.