Oct 9, 2016 5 min read

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The Steelers needed one of these kinds of victories at home.

They had jumped on both Cincinnati and Kansas City early in their wins over those two teams and kind of went into cruise control late in those games.

Sunday against the New York Jets, the Steelers fell behind 13-7 late in the first half, much to the chagrin of the Twittersphere.

Words like dominated and catastrophe were being bandied about

Then the Steelers scored a touchdown right before the half. And the Jets never scored again.

By the time the scoring was done, the Steelers held a 31-13 lead.

That’s right, the defense pitched a shutout in the second half.

Not only was it a shutout, the Jets managed just two first downs. And one of those came in the final two minutes after the Steelers had scored their final touchdown.

That was without defensive end Cam Heyward and linebacker Ryan Shazier, arguably the team’s two best defensive players, on the field.

Shazier was already sitting this one out with a knee injury – he could return next week at Miami – but Heyward suffered a hamstring injury in the first half.

He is awaiting results of an MRI on his left hamstring, but it doesn’t appear good. Still, he was impressed by what the defense did without him.

“I’d rather be out there but it was good for guys to step up,” said Heyward. “It’s nice that we have leadership from guys like James Harrison, Will Gay and Lawrence Timmons to provide that. We’re going to need them all as long as I’m out.”

The Steelers can’t afford for that to be very long.

• I know you all love to hate Jarvis Jones. And he’s made himself an easy target in his first three seasons. But he is actually playing much better this season.

He was a big part of the second-half defensive surge in this game, shutting down one drive himself with a pass breakup on second down and a tackle for no gain on third-and-2.

Jones also had a big pressure late in the game, forcing an incompletion with a big hit on Ryan Fitzpatrick.

“I’d like to get 12, 15 sacks,” said Jones. “But that’s not happening for me now. I’ve just got to do what I’ve got to do for my team, whether that’s dropping into coverage or playing the run. We’re winning, do I’m fine with that.”

• The offensive line will get a lot of credit for keeping Ben Roethlisberger clean in this game, but so did offensive coordinator Todd Haley’s game plan.

When the Steelers did go deep, such as early in the game to Sammie Coates, they made sure right tackle Chris Hubbard had some help.

And then they continually worked Le’Veon Bell out of the backfield to keep New York’s defensive lineman from getting too comfortable running up the field at Roethlisberger.

“They didn’t know when to rush up the field,” said Hubbard.

• Roethlisberger, of course, has been magnificent at home this season, throwing 12 touchdown passes in three games. The real test for this team will be whether he can make that work on the road next week at Miami.

He has just 17 touchdown passes on the road since the start of the 2014 season. And that includes the three he threw at Washington earlier this season.

This offense, however, might be slump-proof with Bell in the lineup.

The Dolphins aren’t very good, but then again, who exactly is in today’s NFL?

• Like Martavis Bryant before him, Sammie Coates can be a little maddening with his inconsistency catching the ball. But he now has at least one catch of at least 40 yards in each of the team’s first five games.

Only Mike Wallace, who had a similar streak in six games in 2011, has bettered that in team history. Yep, Bryant didn’t do that.

You’d like to see Coates catch the underneath stuff more consistently. But perhaps that will come.

Then again, if he had caught the ball better coming out of school, the Steelers wouldn’t have been able to wait until the third round of the draft to select him.

Roethlisberger trusts Coates, which is all that matters. And he just keeps running past defensive backs. You’d think they would catch on at some point.

• I’m not going to kill Mike Tomlin for running a fake field goal in the second quarter, even though it didn’t work.

The Steelers saw something on tape that made them believe that play would work against the Jets. It didn’t.

Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes he gets you.

Tomlin was playing to win.

I don’t, however, understand Todd Bowles punting from midfield on fourth-and-2 with 7:36 remaining in the game and New York trailing 24-13.

That’s playing to lose.

• As good as the Steelers’ offense has been this season, I still don’t feel like Roethlisberger has played his best. He’s missed some throws and had some big drops – including three to five by Coates Sunday (depending on your grading system) and one by Jesse James.

This offense could be scary good.