PHILADELPHIA -- As dress rehearsals go, this one had to be considered a success.
The Steelers checked off a lot of the boxes Mike Tomlin wanted to see addressed Thursday night in their preseason opener.
The result was a solid all-around team performance against the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles in the preseason opener for both teams, as the the Steelers won, 31-14, at Lincoln Financial Field.
"It's great to get the win," said Tomlin. "Whenever we step into a stadium, regardless of the circumstance, that is our singular focus. The evaluation of the play comes after that. We wanted to focus on some little things; putting our conditioning on display; trying to play clean football from a technical standpoint, minimizing penalties; and to win the possession of the ball, to take better care of it on offense and to hunt it on defense. Largely, those things happened throughout the game.
"Generally, I was pleased with those fundamental things collectively as a group."
The Steelers won the time of possession battle, 33:29-26:31, the turnover battle, 3-1, and while they had eight penalties, they were mostly of the minor variety, as they went for just 42 yards, compared to 11 for 74 yards for the Eagles.
And, oh, by the way, their three backup quarterbacks all performed well.
TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCOREAfter a slow start in which he was sacked twice to end the Steelers' first two possessions, Landry Jones finished off his night by throwing this 71-yard TD pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster after the Eagles jumped offside:
Josh Dobbs followed by completing 9 of 13 passes for 91 yards, one touchdown and one interception, leading a pair of touchdown drives.
And rookie Mason Rudolph, who played the entire second half, finished 7 of 12 for 101 yards, running the offense efficiently and leading the team to nine second-half points.
All told, the trio combined to complete 20 of 29 passes for 275 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. That works out to a passer rating of 107.7, led by Jones' maximum 158.3 night.
Perhaps the most impressive thing was that the quarterbacks all made chunk plays down the field, including Jones and Rudolph showing the wherewithal to take shots down the field when they got the Eagles to jump offside with cadence.
"It was good to see the young guys do it," Tomlin said. "It was good to see them execute it. And kudos to the other 10 guys. It's the other guys holding their water, the center executing the snap."
Rudolph, a third-round draft pick playing in his first game, got the Eagles offside in the third quarter and threw a jump ball down the sideline to second-round pick James Washington, his former college teammate at Oklahoma State, for a 35-yard gain to set up a Chris Boswell field goal in the third quarter.
That poise and game awareness was impressive. So, too, was Dobbs' performance.
Fighting for a roster spot in what has become a crowded quarterback situation behind Ben Roethlisberger, Dobbs overcame an interception to lead the Steelers to a pair of touchdowns. None was more impressive than his throw to receiver Damoun Patterson with 18 seconds remaining in the first half to give the Steelers a 22-14 halftime lead.
Dobbs, a fourth-round draft pick in 2017, stepped up in the pocket and fired a laser to Patterson, a rookie from Youngstown State. Patterson made a leaping grab, got both feet down inbounds and then did a standing backflip after scoring.
"It was a shot opportunity and we got one-high (on the safety look)," Dobbs told me. "He was able to slip and get inside, then made a heck of a play on the ball. It was a two-minute drill. We had no timeouts, so we knew we couldn't get tackled in play. It was a great job for him to stay with it."
Those quarterback performances had Tomlin pleased.
But there was more for the head coach to be happy about. His defense produced a pair of interceptions -- one each by Coty Sensabaugh and Cameron Sutton -- and a forced fumble on the opening possession of the third quarter on a sack by rookie Ola Adeniyi.
"You put yourself in a position to be around the ball," said Sutton, a fourth-round pick a year ago who's fighting for more playing time this year. "Why not take it away?"
The Eagles didn't play starting quarterback Carson Wentz or backup Nick Foles, who led them to the Super Bowl last season, but overall, it was a good first outing.
"It was the first time for a lot of guys out there," Tomlin said. "(There was) a lot of good effort out there."
Five thoughts to share:
1. The rookie redeemed himself.
Patterson, a Youngstown State product who was placed on the roster after getting a tryout at rookie minicamp, had been catching everything thrown his way early in training camp and showing excellent speed in doing so. Then, last Wednesday, he slipped behind the defense and promptly dropped a pass right in his hands that would have easily gone for a touchdown.
"That one still bothers me," he told me.
Obviously it did for the past week, as he continued to struggle with some drops. But that changed Thursday night as the father of two children — with another on the way — led the Steelers with six receptions for 77 yards and an acrobatic touchdown in the back of the end zone to end the first half:
"I let an easy pass go through my hands and it makes me think about taking every rep seriously," Patterson said. "Even when the ball is in the air and I've already beaten the guy, I still have to attack it the same way."
Tomlin wasn't about to let the kid's head get too big. When asked about Patterson having a good camp, the head coach was quick to jump in. "He's made a few plays. You said good camp. He's made some plays and he made some plays tonight."
As for the backflip?
Patterson told me it was an unplanned, spontaneous celebration. Tomlin was again unimpressed.
"Man, I've seen it all," he said. "This celebration group I have? You kidding me?"
2. Offensive line depth is a concern.
Marcus Gilbert didn't play because of the birth of a child. Ramon Foster was out with a knee injury that will keep him sidelined for the remainder of the preseason. And Maurkice Pouncey didn't play in this game as a coach's decision.
That left a starting line of Alejandro Villanueva at left tackle and rookie Chukes Okorafor at right tackle, Matt Feiler at left guard and David DeCastro at right and B.J. Finney at center.
Working against Philadelphia's first-team defense on the first two possessions of the game, the Steelers allowed two sacks. Then, Finney, who had moved to guard, suffered what Tomlin called a quad contusion in the third quarter.
The Eagles had four sacks and the running game produced an average of just 3.0 yards per carry despite runs of 17 and 18 yards.
Philadelphia's first-team defense is one of the best in the league and the Steelers weren't playing a lot of regulars, but this team needs some young players to emerge as backup candidates beyond Okorafor, Feiler and Finney.
3. The defense remains in progress.
After Marcus Tucker did a great job of downing a punt, the Steelers had the Eagles backed up at their 2 on their second possession when Jay Ajayi ripped off a 22-yard run, scampering through tackle attempts by Artie Burns, Morgan Burnett and Jon Bostic.
Bostic would end the possession with back-to-back stops in the backfield later in the series, but for a team that had major issues with missed tackles last season, it was disconcerting. Especially since Burnett and Bostic, the team's two big offseason acquisitions, were brought in to help solve that issue.
Then again, sometimes we forget the other team is being paid, too.
"I thought overall, we did a pretty good job of tackling," Sutton said. "It was a good first start."
What about the new seven-defensive backs package? We didn't get to see that in this game, though it is surely coming.
"We want to keep that under wraps," Sutton told me. "We kept things pretty basic tonight. We wanted to work on that."
4. Rudolph thinks he was 'great.'
Rudolph was sacked twice and lost a fumble while scrambling around trying to escape pressure. But he handled things well overall in his first NFL action.
"I had one quarterback-center exchange, and I need to clean that up," he said. "I think throwing to (James Washington) a little bit more could help. I still had a lot of clean plays, checked it down when I needed to, pushed the ball down the field. I believe I had a great performance."
Promising? Sure. Great? That's in the eye of the beholder.
But if Rudolph follows his past performances, we can expect even better play next Thursday in Green Bay. The rookie has started slowly throughout this process since being drafted and then played better.
"I have taken a lot of steps forward," he said. "Being a lot more comfortable under center after not doing that for eight years in high school and college. I feel a lot more comfortable there. Just learning my teammates, getting time right. I'm looking forward to getting back to practice, watching tape and looking forward to going to Green Bay."
5. Running problem? Not yet.
James Conner started and had four carries for 25 yards and caught a pass for another nine yards. Fitzgerald Toussaint came next and looked good, gaining 29 yards and scoring a touchdown on seven carries. He also converted a two-point run.
Veteran Steven Ridley had a tougher time running behind the third-team offensive line, gaining 14 yards on 10 carries, but he caught the ball well, gaining 45 yards on three checkdowns. Rookie Jaylen Samuels, a fifth-round pick, managed just seven yards on six carries and added a catch for one yard.
Overall, it was a decent effort for a group playing without star Le'Veon Bell for the second consecutive preseason.
"I thought (Conner) represented himself well on a small body of work," Tomlin said. "We'll see. That position often is defined as the game wears on."
One negative? Conner did miss a block on blitzing safety Malcolm Jenkins in the first quarter that led to a sack of Jones.
Like he did a year ago, Bell has yet to sign his franchise tag tender offer and report to the team. He'll likely do that at the end of the preseason games as he did a year ago. That gives the Steelers three more games to look at the backups and decide what the pecking order should be this year, but also if any of these guys should be in the equation next year if, or when, Bell leaves in free agency.
Conner would seem to have the best shot of being in that conversation. And he'll work deeper into the games later in this preseason.
"We know from watching him play in college and stuff that's an element of his game," Tomlin said of the former Pitt star wearing down defenses. "That's a positive. I like the sample size we saw tonight."
