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Steelers come out on top, 38-17, against Titans
Sunday, October 09, 2011

The Steelers -- battered, bruised and unbowed -- ran out to a big lead and beat the Tennessee Titans at Heinz Field today, 38-17.

Ben Roethlisberger, playing with a special shoe to protect his sprained left foot, threw five touchdown passes to tie the team record again. He has done it twice, and Terry Bradshaw and Mark Malone once each.

Hines Ward caught two touchdown passes of 7 and 5 yards. Heath Miller caught an 8-yard touchdown pass, and David Johnson caught a 1-yard scoring pass. Mike Wallace caught the final one of 40 yards with 2:39 left. Roethlisberger and Wallace have now hooked up on 10 touchdown passes of 40 or more, stretching their team record.

Backup halfback Jonathan Dwyer, playing only because of injuries to Rashard Mendenhall and Mewelde Moore, already had 100 yards on five carries by the end of the third quarter and finished with 107 yards on 11 carries.

The Steelers and Tennessee are both 3-2.

Rob Bironas kicked a 29-yard field goal to end the first series of the game for Tennessee's only lead at 3-0. Chris Johnson scored on a 1-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter.

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A blocked punt set up a late Titans' touchdown, a 19-yard pass from Matt Hasselbeck to Damian Williams with 3:30 to go.

The Steelers scored one touchdown in the first quarter, two in the second and one in the third to go with Shaun Suisham's 19-yard field goal in the fourth.

The Titans, following their TD, recovered an onside kick, but on the very next play Brett Keisel tipped a Hasselbeck pass that popped up, and LaMarr Woodley came down with it for the interception. That gave Woodley 1 1/2 sacks and an interception. It was the Steelers' first interception this season and only their second turnover.

The Steelers played without a gaggle of injured starters today -- linebacker James Harrison and linemen Aaron Smith and Casey Hampton on defense, and Mendenhall and guard Chris Kemoeatu on offense. In addition, during the course of today's game they lost starting right tackle Marcus Gilbert to a shoulder injury.

They also lost, for a time, center Maurkice Pouncey to a knee injury, although he returned. After that, the juggled line was further juggled with left guard Doug Legursky moving to center and Trai Essex coming in to play left guard. Jonathan Scott, who was spotting new starter Max Starks at left tackle, replaced the injured Gilbert at right tackle.

Ward's second touchdown pass of the game came on third down, and he leaped over safety Michael Griffin to get there, from five yards out. It's the first time Ward has had two or more touchdowns in one game in two seasons.

It was Roethlisberger's fourth touchdown pass of the game, the fourth time he has thrown at least that many in a game.

Ward's first touchdown catch, in the second quarter, was made possible when punter Daniel Sepulveda, in punt formation from midfield, faked it and completed a pass over the middle to safety Ryan Mundy for a 33-yard gain to the Tennessee 17.

Both teams scored on long, opening drives of the game. The Titans, though, could not get into the endzone after they had a first down at the four. Bironas kicked a 29-yard field goal to end a 69-yard drive.

Roethlisberger put his team ahead for good when he threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Miller to cap a 50-yard drive that began after Antonio Brown returned the kickoff 52 yards. The drive appeared to end on an incomplete pass to Wallace on third down, but coach Mike Tomlin successfully challenged the play and Wallace was awarded a catch of 11 yards to the Titans' 38.

Ed Bouchette's blog on the Steelers and Gerry Dulac's Steelers chats are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
First published on October 9, 2011 at 1:46 pm