CATCHING COTCHERY—Wide receiver Jericho Cotchery had his best game as a Steeler with seven catches for 96 yards and two touchdowns. (Photo by Hulio Torres)
The Steelers offense played the best game of the season, however, they picked the game in which the defense played its worst game, which led to a 55-31 defeat at the hands of the New England Patriots, to drop to 2-6. The competition should be much easier this weekend when they face the 2-6 AFC East Buffalo Bills.
Ben Roethlisberger played his best game of the season with 400 yards on 28 of 48 passing for four touchdowns. Antonio Brown continued to battle for the NFL lead in receptions with five catches for 71 yards, but he had to take a back seat to Emmanual Sanders’ six catches for 98 yards and Jericho Cotchery’s seven catches for 96 yards and two touchdowns. Even the running game was somewhat impressive with Le’Veon Bell’s 16 carries for 74 yards. But it wasn’t enough.
After a very poor game for him last week, Tom Brady had his best game of the season. He was 23 of 43 for 432 yards and 4 touchdowns as he put 55 points on the board which was the highest number the Steelers have allowed their history.
The big difference was Rob Gronkowski, who had nine catches for 143 yards; Stevan Ridley, who ran for 116 yards on just 12 carries; and Fred Jackson, who had 77 yards on 16 carries.
The Bills played the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs tough with a backup rookie quarterback Jeff Tuel, who was 18 of 39 for 229 yards, replacing the injured Thad Lewis. Just who will start at quarterback for the Bills against the Steelers is still not clear, but theexpectation is that it will be Lewis. Compared to the Patriots, there are no outstanding players on the offensive side of the ball for the Bills, but they do have an outstanding defense, which translates into a low scoring game as the Steelers defense gets itself back on track against an inferior team. The Steelers should register their third win against the lowly Bills, but they were also supposed to beat the Oakland Raiders.
Other action in the AFC North had the Cincinnati Bengals, 6-3, losing to the Miami Dolphins 22-20 and surprisingly, the Cleveland Browns upsetting the Baltimore Ravens, 24-18, moving them ahead of the Ravens at 4-5, as Baltimore dropped to 3-5.
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