The first drive was bad. Everything else wasn’t. That’s how you could sum up the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defensive performance tonight. So what changed? A large reason for that was the ability to make the Carolina Panthers one-dimensional. Run up the score and force Cam Newton to sit in the pocket.
“None of [our adjustments] are possible unless our offense isn’t putting up the points they were,” T.J. Watt told the media after the 52-21 win. “That put them in a hard position and they had to throw the ball a lot more than they wanted to.