Patriots at Steelers Recap

 This past Sunday the New England Patriots took on the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium.  The Patriots were favored -3 points before kickoff and the Steelers were getting 3 points respectively.  The game itself was essentially a coin flip on who would win it do to glaring issues that both teams had.  

(Don Wright, Associated Press)

The Steelers had more injuries on their roster as several key players had injuries that affected their performance or kept them out of the game such as current reigning Defense Player of the Year LB TJ Watt.

Both teams had very questionable coaching that was evident in the first game of the season.  The Patriots struggled offensively against the Dolphins in week 1 and this shinned a light on the fact that Bill Belichick decided not to have an offensive coordinator officially announced.  The Steelers also had their struggles on offense week 1 and the loss to the Patriots only further put their offensive coordinator Matt Canada in the hot seat as players blamed the loss on the schemes that he drew up for the offense. 

(Charles LeClaire, USA TODAY Sports)

Since both teams were so evenly matched, the game came down to which team made the most mistakes.  The first lucky break came for the Patriots at the closing seconds of the second quarter.  Nelson Agholor mossed Ahkello Witherspoon for a 44 yard touchdown and was able to make an extremely skilled/lucky play as there was no margin for error in making the catch that he was able to haul in. 

The real dagger in the coffin for the Steelers was massive error that Gunner Olszewski committed in the third quarter.  Olszewski was at the Steelers 20 yard line when he muffed a punt and the Patriots were able to recover.  This essentially gave the Patriots a free 7 points and they never looked back once they were able to score the touchdown.

It was a very low scoring game as the total was only 31 points and the Patriots were able to defeat the Steelers 17-14.  In a game that featured two below average offenses, it really came down to who would make the biggest error and the Patriots were able to win the turnover battle and were able to put up points off of the turnovers leading them to the win. 

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