Indholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 35 - Number 5 i Steelers Digest

“Pro football began in 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when former Yale star William ‘Pudge’ Heffelfinger was paid a notable sum of $500 to play in a single game for the Allegheny Athletic Association on November 12. For nearly the next three decades, pro football faced its ups and downs as the game was played primarily in small towns throughout western Pennsylvania and the Midwest.” --ProFootballHOF.com The National Football League wasn’t born in Pittsburgh. That happened in Canton, Ohio, on Sept. 17, 1920, when a group of men gathered at the Hupmobile showroom owned by Ralph Hay, also the owner of the home-town Canton Bulldogs, where the result was the formation of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) that would be renamed the National Football League in 1922. Art Rooney Sr.…

From the notebook of a sportswriter who’s old enough to remember how exciting it was to cover Pitt in 1987 when Ironhead carried the ball 387 times: And young enough to have watched his sons become the first brother act to record a sack and a touchdown in the same game for the same NFL team. I have no doubt that the spirit of Ironhead Heyward - a former Atlanta Falcons FB - was on the side of the Steelers. He’s a Pittsburgh legend. Yes, the Sons of Ironhead were key, but special teams coordinator Danny Smith deserves a game ball for turning around that mess in Indianapolis. The best kickoff returner in the NFL was deep for six Steelers kickoffs by a replacement placekicker with a weak leg. Cordarrelle…

Mark it down. Third-and-9 from the Steelers 26-yard line, the first play of the fourth quarter in a game against the Colts where the Steelers had managed to turn a 16-3 halftime lead into a 17-16 deficit by playing 15 minutes of awful football in all three phases. Just as Ben Roethlisberger announced his presence in that Saturday afternoon training camp practice at Saint Vincent College in 2004 with that laser back to the middle of the field thrown on a dead run that hit receiver Zamir Cobb in the chest 25 yards downfield, Kenny Pickett showed he had the bonafides of an NFL starting quarterback on the first play of the fourth quarter in a Nov. 28 game with a 4-6-1 team hosting a 3-7 opponent. This is not…

For a minute there, it looked like 2005. For a minute there, Kenny Pickett was Ben Roethlisberger, Pat Freiermuth was Heath Miller, and Najee Harris was a young Jerome Bettis. Was Alan Faneca in Atlanta, too? The Steelers beat the Falcons, 19-16, with an old-school approach that had offensive coordinator Matt Canada up in the booth looking like Ken Whisenhunt. It was that kind of day for a physical Steelers offense led by a first-round rookie quarterback who gets better every week. “It’s us trying to establish a run game early,” said left tackle Dan Moore Jr. “It’s helping us open our offense. It’s giving us a little flexibility to just do different things and spread things out. It’s helping the passing game. It gives us confidence as well on…

Since its inception, the Steelers Hall of Honor has recognized the best of the best who have contributed to the organization, either on or off the field. That tradition continued when the Steelers Hall of Honor Class of 2022 was officially enshrined on Nov. 12 during ceremonies at Acrisure Stadium. The Hall of Honor Class of 2022 spans the decades and appeals to generations of Steelers fans, because it includes Myron Cope, Sam Davis, Ray Mathews, and Heath Miller. In addition, Louis Lipps, a member of the Class of 2021, was enshrined with the group. “It’s a special night, a special class, a special weekend,” said Steelers President Art Rooney II. “This is the reason we created the Hall of Honor, to recognize the group we have tonight. They all…

Steelers wide receivers coach Frisman Jackson didn’t know who George Pickens was the first time he saw him Jan. 1, 2020. He certainly figured things out pretty quickly. Pickens, then a freshman wide receiver at the University of Georgia, caught 12 passes for 175 yards and a touchdown – tying a single-game school record – as the Bulldogs topped Jackson’s Baylor Bears team, 26-14. “He went off with like 200 yards receiving,” Jackson said of the Steelers rookie and second-round draft pick. “I’m like, ‘Who is this dude?’ It’s crazy how life works. I end up going and working him out. I found out who he really was.” Little did Jackson know that a few years later, he would find himself coaching Pickens with the Steelers. But Pickens always knew…

There were a lot of friendly statistics when the game was over. The Steelers converted 8-of-17 on third down (47.1 percent) to the Bengals’ 3-of-9 (33.3 percent). The Steelers outrushed Cincinnati, 102-62, and had a better per carry average, 4.3-2.6. The offense finished with 351 total net yards, scored three touchdowns in a game for the first time this season, and it exceeded 23 points for the first time by finishing with 30. And the 30 points was the most for the Steelers in a game since Nov. 21, 2021, when they scored 37 in a 41-27 loss to the Chargers. Unfortunately, those statistics didn’t add up to squat, because the Steelers lost, 37-30, to the Bengals at Acrisure Stadium on Nov. 20 to drop to 3-7, and for the…

On Nov. 13 at Acrisure Stadium against New Orleans, the Steelers won a football game, and maybe more significantly they should have learned how to play if they want to win more of them over the course of the final weeks of this particular regular season. Usually, when an NFL regular season works its way into mid-November, teams have a good handle on the style of play that’s most likely to result in victories, or at the very least which style of play will end up more often than not in defeat. But with the Steelers transitioning to a new quarterback and a different style of offense in the wake of Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement, and then having their backup plan of winning via a dominant defense derailed by the loss…