JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- It wasn't pretty. And Mike Tomlin and the Steelers certainly weren't happy with their overall performance.
But a win is a win is a win.
And it's apparent all of the team's work on two-minute offense -- and defense -- at training camp is paying at least some dividends.
Kenny Pickett led a touchdown drive at the end of the first half and Mason Rudolph had one, as well, at the end of the second half as the Steelers came from behind to knock off the Jaguars here, 16-15, at TIAA Bank Field Saturday night in a preseason game.
What happened in between those two-minute drives for the offense wasn't particularly good, as the Steelers gained 115 of their 279 yards in this game in those two late-half drives that accounted for just 1 minute, 49 seconds of possession.
"I told the guys (Jacksonville) controlled the football game, but we won the game," said Tomlin. "We got to take responsibility for that positively and negatively. Down in and down out we didn't perform well enough. We didn't perform at a high enough level to control the game.
"I thought their defensive front, in the environment in particular, controlled the game. I thought we had some blown assignments on defense that cost us from a field positioning standpoint. But when you look at it, the weighty downs, oftentimes we talk about downs aren't weighted the same, and that's where we were able to win the football game. We won enough possession downs on defense, particularly when the field got short. We made them settle for three a couple of times."
Beyond those late-half heroics, it was a lot of the quarterbacks being forced to do things on their own behind an offensive line that didn't hold up well against Jacksonville's pass rush, such as this first-quarter sack of starter Mitch Trubisky:
But Pickett, who entered after Trubisky played the first three possessions, didn't fare much better on his first set of downs, a three-and-out.
The Steelers got the ball back, though, with 1:05 remaining trailing just 6-0 after safety Damontae Kazee made a strong open-field tackle to hold tight end Evan Engram to a 2-yard gain on a fourth-and-6 play.
Taking over at his own 37, Pickett, the Steelers' top draft pick and only quarterback selected in the first round of this year's NFL Draft, went straight to his top target, Diontae Johnson, for a 17-yard gain on a slant:
"I was just getting the ball out of my hands and playing fast," said Pickett. "That was helping the guys out up front. The key in two minutes is getting that first completion and getting the drill started. Once we had that and got the ball moving, that was kind of it. Coach (offensive coordinator Matt Canada) did a great job of dialing up some good plays."
He followed that up with an 11-yard completion to tight end Pat Freiermuth, then spiked the ball to stop the clock.
Coming out of the stoppage, Pickett again went back to Freiermuth for a 24-yard gain down the seam to the Jacksonville 11, where the Steelers used their third timeout with 33 seconds remaining.
Pickett would need all of that time. On first down, he threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Johnson, though the Jaguars' Josh Allen jumped offside, forcing left tackle Dan Moore to hold him, with the offsetting penalties negating the score.
The play likely should have been blown dead from the start because of the offside penalty, but it didn't matter as Pickett threw a pass out to the flat on his left to Benny Snell and Snell bulled his way through a tackle attempt, diving into the end zone at the pylon to give the Steelers a 7-6 halftime lead.
Pickett completed 6 of 7 passes for 76 yards and the touchdown, with his only incompletion coming on the spike to stop the clock.
Tomlin liked what he saw of his rookie QB, who also led the Steelers to a touchdown drive at the end of their 32-25 win over the Seahawks last week in their preseason opener.
"It's probably who he is. I know he did it next door (in college at Pitt). He probably did it in high school. He probably did it in little league. Some things people are born with.”
Mason Rudolph entered in the third quarter and after a punt that pinned the Steelers back at their own 2, was called for intentional grounding in the end zone as he took pressure from his right side, giving the Jaguars an 8-7 lead.
Jacksonville backup C.J. Beathard then added on to that lead early in the fourth quarter, scoring on a 4-yard scramble putting the Jaguars up, 15-7.
But Rudolph directed a 46-yard field goal drive, capped off by a 38-yard kick by backup Nick Sciba to make it 15-10 with 6:24 remaining.
Then, when Justin Layne intercepted a pass by third-string quarterback E.J. Perry, returning it to midfield, Rudolph, who had taken second-team snaps last week before Pickett was elevated for this game, ran a late-game hurry-up offense of his own.
He hit last week's hero, Tyler Vaughns for a 25-yard gain on first down to get things moving — Vaughns did as he had a week ago while scoring the game-winning touchdown against the Seahawks, catching an out and turning it into a bigger gain.
Rudolph then went back to Vaughns on the next play, gaining 21 yards to the Jacksonville 6. A third-down pass to Vaughns came up just short of the goal line, but following the two-minute warning, Rudolph threw a fourth-down, 1-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Snead to give the Steelers a 16-15 lead after the two-point conversion attempt failed.
Rudolph completed 17 of 21 passes for 127 yards, playing the entire second half.
"I thought he looked like a varsity guy in a JV game, and I told him that. It was reminiscent of when we had Charlie Batch and Byron Leftwich as backups," Tomlin said. "When you've got a veteran guy like that late in a preseason game in the quarterback position, he should be the best player on the field. It should show and I thought it did.”
The Jaguars did get one last chance to win it, but Ryan Santoso's 57-yard attempt as time expired was wide right, giving the Steelers the win -- with a lot to work on.
"Football is our game; our business is winning, and we've got to find ways to win even when we win poorly," Tomlin said, making no bones about how his team played. "Make no mistake, we won because we won the weighty downs. They won significantly more downs than we did. It's good to learn with a W and hopefully we'll do so. But obviously we've got some correcting and some things to do based on that performance."
• It's good to see the Steelers' quarterbacks -- no matter who they are -- using the deeper middle of the field more than the team did a year ago.
Trubisky, who was 5 of 8 for 60 yards and also scrambled for 10 yards, had a big third down completion of 29 yards to Chase Claypool out of the slot.
And Pickett had the aforementioned passes to Freiermuth in the middle of the field, hitting the big tight end in stride for some run after the catch:
That's a missing component that can definitely help keep opponents honest.
• The offensive line just didn't play well in this game. Now, certainly, the Jaguars deserve some credit, but the Steelers ran the ball six times for 8 yards in the first half and 14 times for 24 yards overall. And Steven Sims got 11 of that on a jet sweep, while Trubisky had 10 on a scramble. That means the other 12 runs the Steelers had in the game netted 3 yards.
"I’m not happy about it, of course," center Mason Cole told me. "To only run the ball five or six times in the first half and not run it effectively is not ideal. When that happens, you see defensive linemen teeing off on the pass rush. And it shows. They were getting to our quarterback and that’s on us."
That made life awfully tough on Trubisky, who didn't play poorly.
"I thought Mitch played well," Tomlin said. "I thought he created and extended some things when there wasn't much there. We've got to do a better job in protecting him and having some semblance of a running game if you want a fair evaluation, and I'm just being bluntly honest.”
• Listening to postgame radio here, the Jaguars' hosts were lamenting the fact that the "Wow" moment in this game belonged to Pickett and not Trevor Lawrence, the top-overall pick in last year's draft. Lawrence was 14 of 21 for 133 yards in the first half, but failed to produce a touchdown.
That's a good sign for the future, Steelers fans.
Now, Lawrence had some really good throws in this game, slipping passes just over the outstretched hands of Steelers defenders. But he couldn't get his team into the end zone.
Pickett did.
• Tyson Alualu and Larry Ogunjobi got their first action of the preseason, as did T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick. It would have been nice to see that group on the field with Cam Heyward and Alex Highsmith, but overall, it wasn't a bad effort by the first-team defense.
"I thought it would be one of those where we would have everybody, but we’re just getting ready for Week 1," said Alualu, who was playing for the first time since fracturing his ankle in Week 2 of last season.
That unit probably won't see any time next week, but it did enough in this game to get its feet wet and escape without injury.
"It’s always one of those things where I’m like ‘Man, we should have played better than we did,'" Alualu told me. "But this is just preparing us for the real deal."
• Devin Bush clearly outplayed Robert Spillane in this game. Bush had four tackles, three of which came in the first quarter, when he and Myles Jack were manning the inside linebacker positions. He finished with four tackles, and while Spillane had seven, Bush was clearly the better player.
Anyone not seeing that is simply never going to give Bush credit for anything.
• That dime defense is still a work in progress.
The Jaguars converted a pair of third-and-longs the first two times the Steelers ran it, beating a zone the first time and a man-look the second. But the Steelers got an incompletion on third-and-6 the third time they ran it. There was another third-and-long completion against a zone and a third-and-4 completion after that with Jack as the only linebacker on the field.
Bush got his turn next and a third-and-7 scramble netted just one yard.
Spillane finished the game as the dime linebacker.
That grouping should continue to get better. And the Steelers have to use it because they have to find ways to get Fitzpatrick, Terrell Edmunds and Kazee on the field together.
Those three safeties all can play and deserve to play.
• It's tough to judge the running offense fairly in the first half given Tomlin decided to give Snell the bulk of the carries. Snell had three carries for minus-2 yards in the first half. Jaylen Warren had one carry for 4 yards.
Now, Snell did catch a touchdown pass and had two catches for 15 yards, but Warren had two receptions for 11 yards in the first half. Warren is just the more explosive player.
And you'd like to see what the running game looks like with Najee Harris out there. But it doesn't appear we'll get to see that in the preseason.
• Even the second-team offensive line, which had played well last week against the Seahawks, didn't perform well in this game -- though Joe Haeg was held out for some reason.
That meant Moore played left tackle well into the second half, with Kevin Dotson, who had rotated with Kendrick Green in the first half, beside him.
Even with more "varsity" players on the line -- to steal a term from Tomlin -- the Steelers were forced to roll Rudolph out and put him on the move to avoid Jacksonville's pass rush.
Rudolph, at least, showed he was capable of playing that way.
• It will be interesting to see how Tomlin handles his quarterbacks this week with the preseason finale against the Lions looming next Sunday.
It wouldn't be surprising to see him give Pickett a chance to start a game to see how that looks.
That would at least give Trubisky, who has fared well in two-minute drills at training camp and in the offseason, a chance to do it in a live game.
"I’ve gotten those in practice and I like two-minute," Trubisky said. "I feel like it’s a good part of my game. I like the no-huddle. I like going fast and staying on the ball. I’ve been in that situation in practice. I just haven’t gotten that chance in a game. When they come, you’ve got to be ready. Maybe next week. Maybe Week 1. You never know."
After Pickett's performance, there will be more questions, at least nationally, about whether he should be the starter. The Steelers aren't going to rush this.
Pickett has done enough to show he can be the No. 2 quarterback, however. And that's not a knock on anything Rudolph has done. But Pickett is the future of this team.
And Tomlin had done a masterful job of getting him ready for moments like what has happened in the first two preseason games.
"We have had so many reps at it," Pickett said of the two-minute offense and other competition periods. "I’m not sure there’s many teams that have as many reps in those key and crucial moments like we have. It’s the way our practice is set up. Seven Shots out of the gate. We won two games back-to-back off that. We had two-minute drives. It’s all things we’ve practiced over and over."
Still, it's one thing to do it in practice and another to do it in a game.
Pickett has commanded the moments.
"He’s in there calling the plays and what he calls, we run it," Cole said. "It’s fun to see him command the huddle. It’s good to see him just be himself and be confident."
That's showing up in his progression each week. Last week against the Seahawks, most of Pickett's throws were layups, easy throws within a few yards of the line of scrimmage. This week, we saw more down-the-field stuff.
Tomlin has put more and more on his plate, and Pickett has eaten it up and asked for second helpings.
"I go out there and play, that’s it," Pickett said. "I’m a football player. Wherever they have me, I’m going to go out there and play every single time."
