Haden, others limit Falcons WR Jones
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Steelers cornerback Joe Haden followed Julio Jones all over the place Sunday at Heinz Field. When Jones went left, Haden followed him. When Jones went right, Haden was there with him. The only time Haden was not assigned to cover Jones was when he lined up in the slot.
Haden and the rest of the secondary held Jones, the NFL’s leading receiver entering the game, without a catch for the first three quarters of the game. He finished with five for 62 but none of consequence.
“Joe did a heck of a job today,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “Joe deserves a lot of credit for minimizing him, a significant guy like that, but I think the other guys deserve credit because it’s an adjustment for them in terms of their normal travel and so forth when they are matching up.”
Jones entered the game averaging 126 yards per game and had been on pace for the NFL’s first 2,000yard receiving season through four games.
“They had a good game plan for me today,” Jones said. “A lot of two-man, things like that. It discouraged me early on … that two guys were going to be on me throughout the whole game.”
Jones still has not scored a touchdown this season. The only touchdown pass Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan threw Sunday was to slot receiver Mohamed Sanu.
“Obviously, we want to get him involved,” Ryan said. “They made a pretty concerted effort to take him out and that created opportunities elsewhere. I’m not sure how many catches Austin Hooper had, but it was a good matchup for us. We will find ways to continue to get him the ball regardless of coverage.”
Ryan heard footsteps
The Falcons scored 31 points or more in their previous three games and Ryan threw for an average of 355 yards and tossed 10 touchdown passes in those games.
On Sunday, the league’s 30th-ranked defense made the Falcons offense look ordinary, and it started with the pressure that was generated by the Steelers pass rush.
The Steelers sacked Ryan six times. They hurried him on five other occasions and made him uncomfortable in the pocket for much of the game. Even though he completed 69 percent of his passes and threw for 285 yards, the Steelers felt as if he was hearing footsteps in the second half.
“He was,” cornerback Mike Hilton said. “It seemed like he was flustered throughout the game. Even if he was getting passes off someone was getting in his face, making him feel our presence. It showed. We were able to get a lot of pressure.”
T.J. Watt had three of the team’s six sacks and Cam Heyward had 1½.
“I’m confident in my guys every week,” Heyward said. “We got the job done today. We were able to stay together. We had a good week of practice. I know every week is different, but the level of detail really picked up this week.”
This and that
Tomlin improved to 3-0 against the Falcons. … Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has thrown three touchdowns or more in 47 games. … Receiver Antonio Brown has 64 touchdown catches in his career and moved past John Stallworth for second place in that category. … Brown now has 38 100-yard receiving games in his career. … James Conner had his second game with 100 rushing yards and two touchdowns this season. Le’Veon Bell has never had multiple 100-yard rushing games and two touchdown games in the same season. He only has had three such games in his career. … Cameron Heyward had the seventh multi-sack game of his career and now has 39½ career sacks, good for eighth place on the franchise’s all-time sacks list. … T.J. Watt had three sacks in a game for the second time this season. Watt is the first Steelers player with six sacks in the first five games of a season since James Harrison in 2009. … L.J. Fort scored his first career touchdown when he recovered a fumble in the end zone in the fourth quarter.
Inactives
The Steelers deactivated linebacker Vince Williams, safety Morgan Burnett, quarterback Mason Rudolph, offensive lineman Zach Banner, receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, safety Marcus Allen and defensive lineman L.T. Walton.
The Falcons deactivated defensive tackle Grady Jarrett, defensive end Derrick Shelby, offensive linemen Zac Kerin and Matt Gono, running back Brian Hill and defensive backs Justin Bethel and Blidi Wreh-Wilson.