1. Shooting themselves in the foot.
A week after playing mistake-free football, Mike Vick was back to his old tricks. He fumbled the ball three times (losing it twice) and spent the majority of the game on his back. Vick fumbled it away in the first quarter, right when he was lunging into the end zone. He was a yard way from six points. Vick would fumble again on the team’s very next offensive possession. “It was just one of those days,” Vick said. “Everything happens for a reason. It was meant to be … to fumble the ball on the goal line. I have no explanation for it.”
2. Candy store open.
Antonio Brown joked that rookie cornerback Brandon Boykin was a candy bar earlier in the week, implying he would have his way with him in the slot. Well, the receiver backed up his trash talk yesterday. On a crucial 3rd-and-12 during the game-winning drive, Brown got a step on Boykin and Ben Roethlisberger found him for 20 yards and a first down. “We had to make that play,” linebacker DeMeco Ryans said. Roethlisberger went at Boykin later in the drive, this time to Emmanuel Sanders, on a 3rd-and-4 play. That conversion ended the game for all intents and purposes.
3. Running away with it.
Not many people expected Rashard Mendenhall to be this healthy, this soon. Certainly not the Eagles linebackers. Mendenhall showed little rust on his tires, running for 81 yards on 14 carries. When strongside linebacker Mychal Kendricks came out for a stretch due to injury, the Steelers ran it right down the Eagles’ throats. Mendenhall, who tore his ACL late last season, posted 101 total yards from scrimmage, including a 13-yard TD run that set the tone in the first quarter.
