Steeler vs. Redskins Review

I said before that I trust our defense, but I have to say that, at this point, I really trust our defense.

Just a few stats that I stumbled across after looking at the box score:

1. The Redskins were 3-15 on third down and 0-2 on fourth down.
2. They had 161 net yards on 43 attempts. That's 3.7 yards per pass attempt. If you hold someone to 3.7 yards per rush, you're doing pretty well. If you count the seven sacks, that's 3.2 yards every time Jason Campbell dropped back to pass. That's just amazing.
3. Clinton Portis came into the game with five straight 120 yard games. He had 13 carries for 51 yards. If you take his 22-yard run out of the equation, he had 29 yards on his other 12 carries. Think about that. A man that came into the game with almost 1,000 yards for the season and almost 200 carries laid a giant friggin' egg and they didn't go back to him, even though they were still only 10 points behind at the end of the third quarter.
4. They started the game with two drives inside our 40 and came away with six points. And had to kick relatively long field goals.
5. They were 0-3 in the red zone and 0-1 in goal-to-go situations.

The most important thing, though, was that I knew the game was over when we went up 10-6. I thought, "If they didn't score after being handed two opportunities, they're not going to score in the second half." I figured we'd get more points, but I just knew that they wouldn't.

Some more good stuff:

1. As much as I hate his delivery, I'm starting to convince myself that Byron Leftwich could be a decent fill-in guy. He's a good back-up. He's no Charlie Batch, but he'll do.
   
2. I think Fast Willie is back and ready for action, but I like the fact that Mewelde Moore didn't completely disappear in last night's game (even though I kinda needed him to for fantasy football purposes). Completely by accident, I think we found the tandem guy to complement Willie.
3. Just to repeat: Our linebackers are awesome.

Bad stuff to balance out the good:

1. If Leftwich starts the next two games, we're not winning the next two games.
2. Fast Willie will struggle next week against the Colts and the week after that against the Chargers.
3. Our secondary? Not so much. If we can't pressure Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers, we lose the next two games.

But, I will say that I'm very impressed by the fact that we're half way through the "toughest schedule ever" and we're 6-2. The eight remaining games we have are all at least winnable and five of them are at home.

New England is without Brady, San Diego and Indianapolis have both taken a step back, I think we match up well against the Titans...

As a matter of fact, let's make this a separate post.