New England Patriots: 3 takeaways from Week 2 victory over Steelers
The New England Patriots snuck out a 17-14 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 2 to even out their record to 1-1 on the 2022 season. It wasn’t always pretty, but the Patriots did what they had to do on both sides of the football to pull out their first win of the season.
While the Steelers certainly didn’t play their best football, the Patriots cleaned up much of their mess from their Week 1 loss against the Miami Dolphins. With the win officially in the books, let’s dive in and look at three takeaways from New England’s first win of the season against the Steelers.
New England Patriots takeaway No. 3: Defense shuts down Pittsburgh’s offense
Heading into the game, it was clear the Patriots were going to have to play well on defense if they wanted to win this game. Mitch Trubisky is no sure thing for the Steelers at quarterback, and if New England allowed him to get anything going, they were going to be trouble.
Trubisky didn’t do much on the day (21/33, 168 YDS, 1 TD, 1 INT) and helped the Patriots defense out by primarily throwing short passes all day long. Still, with all the strong weapons Pittsburgh has on offense, it was no sure thing that they would be able to keep guys like Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool in check.
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On the ground, they did a great job of keeping Najee Harris quiet, which was probably the bigger concern on the day. Harris only picked up 89 total yards on the day, and couldn’t do much considering how limited Pittsburgh’s passing attack was.
The Patriots defense had a strong start to the season against the Dolphins, but it was clear they were going to have to be good again against Pittsburgh if they wanted to come out on top. A lot was asked of them in this one, especially in the fourth quarter, but they came up big to help the Patriots grind out a huge victory in Week 2.