5 Things to Watch: Steelers vs. Dolphins

Fresh off a huge upset win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Pittsburgh Steelers once again look to play the role of spoiler this weekend. 

Currently slated as touchdown underdogs on the road, it's abundantly clear that Vegas isn't giving the team much of a shot in Week 7 against the Miami Dolphins. For two teams looking to propel themselves into Wild Card territory, this is a primetime matchup in more ways than one. 

Here are some of the things to watch for on Sunday Night.

Quarterbacks Returning From Concussions

Both Tua Tagovailoa and Kenny Pickett will be making their much-anticipated returns from concussion protocol. For Tagovailoa, the saga surrounding his absence has been well documented but he's now fully healthy with a week full of practice reps leading up to the matchup. 

Miami's offense struggled mightily without him but prior to getting injured, Tagovailoa put on a show in Week 2 against the Baltimore Ravens, throwing for a whopping 461 passing yards and six touchdown passes. 

Tagovailoa comes equipped with a lightning-quick left-handed release to accompany impressive accuracy and ball placement, particularly over the middle of the field. Miami gets a big boost in the passing game with his return while slowing down that portion of the offense is priority number one for the Steelers defense.

Pickett became the fastest player to return from concussion protocol this NFL season, just days after suffering the first concussion of his playing career. Pickett's practiced in full all week leading up to the game and this week will be his first career start in primetime. 

Last week against the Bucs, the rookie from the University of Pittsburgh orchestrated the Steelers' first opening drive touchdown drive since Week 10 of last season and the drive was capped off by his first career touchdown toss. His first two opponents featured stout defensive matchups but he'll square off against a Dolphins unit 27th in points allowed while only accumulating four takeaways on the season. 

This could be a week where Pickett and the Steelers offense finally get jumpstarted by scoring over 20 points for the first time all season. 

Dolphins Dynamic Duo

Tyreek Hill's arrival in Miami shocked the NFL world in the offseason and he's been nothing short of brilliant since then. New Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel has made Hill the focal point offensively. His 701 receiving yards are the most in the NFL so far this season. 

Pittsburgh is familiar with him from his time in Kansas City and they've had a reasonable amount of success containing him, holding him under 60 yards in five out of six matchups. Hill is the engine to the Dolphins dangerous offense as lines up all over the formation, making it difficult to key in on him before the snap. 

When Jaylen Waddle was coming out of Alabama, the closest stylistic comparison that you could find was Hill, and now they're on the same field together. 

Waddle is an explosive playmaker who has game-breaking speed on the outside and his 11.3 yards per target rank third in the entire NFL among receivers with 25 targets on the season. Not only is Waddle a threat when working vertically, but he's also a gifted ball carrier and a threat to take it the distance whenever he catches one underneath. 

The Steelers will get a couple of their cornerbacks back healthy, but this is their toughest task yet on the season. 

Pittsburgh's Wideouts Should Shine

Miami's defense is one built on aggression and they rely on their corners to win one-on-one matchups on the outside. The issue for them has been that Byron Jones hasn't played a snap yet and his replacement, Nik Needham recently found himself on injured reserve. 

Enter the much-maligned, former first-round pick from Auburn, Noah Igbinoghene into the fold. His career has gotten off to a very slow start and until recently, he found himself buried on the depth chart. 

Igbinoghene is a long, explosive cornerback who likes to use his physicality to his advantage. His biggest flaw to date is that he's always had trouble locating the football in the air, something that Pittsburgh will surely look to take advantage of this weekend.

With Miami relying so heavily on a corner that regularly panics with the ball in flight, expect George Pickens to be given a couple of chances to win downfield. Pickens is the exact archetype of receiver that would give Igbinoghene problems, given his prowess in contested catch situations. 

The Dolphins also regularly leave Xavien Howard on an island without safety help and at times this season, that strategy has burned them. While Howard is a very good cover man, he's not the most athletically gifted player instead relying more on his physicality in press situations. Diontae Johnson's quickness could give Howard fits at the line of scrimmage and without much help behind him, there are explosive plays to be had.

Loudermilk Goes From Inactive to Huge Contributor

Teryl Austin's defense has employed a 3-3-5 look on early downs to compensate for the loss of T.J. Watt off of the edge. 

Prior to last week, DeMarvin Leal was playing the role of hybrid IDL/EDGE but an unfortunate injury in practice landed him on injured reserve. This opened up an opportunity for Isaiahh Loudermilk, a second-year man from Wisconsin. 

With the Steelers being so deep along the defensive line, he was the unfortunate odd man out, being a healthy scratch for the first five games. In his first game action of the season, Loudermilk logged 22 snaps on defense, regularly making an appearance in their 3-3-5 looks. 

He made his impact early and often on the day, making a pair of nice tackles in run support. Loudermilk caused havoc on multiple occasions against the Bucs ground attack, picking up where he left off last season in that regard. While the Steelers run defense was horrific in 2021, Loudermilk wasn't mostly to blame. When he was on the field, the Steelers allowed 4.2 yards per carry but that number spiked all the way up to 5.2 yards per carry with him on the sidelines. 

Unfortunately, he's still a limited pass rusher but he can easily fill the void left behind by Leal in terms of assisting in stopping the run. With Leal out at least three more weeks, it's worth keeping an eye on Loudermilk's development and impact up front. 

Miami's Tendency to Blitz

Defensive coordinators love playing rookie quarterbacks on the road and Miami defensive coordinator Josh Boyer is one of the best at drawing up creative pressure looks. According to Sports Info Solutions, only four teams leaguewide have blitzed at a higher rate than the Miami Dolphins so far this season. Without a true star pass rusher, Miami is forced to get creative upfront to apply pressure on opposing signal callers. 

Nine of Miami's 12 total sacks have come on plays where they brought 5 or more pass rushers, third most in the NFL.

Pickett hasn't faced many designed blitz pressure looks thus far through his first two starts and the results have been a mixed bag overall. He's 13-17 through the air for 145 yards but he's also been sacked three times in such situations. Miami will also play man-to-man and/or middle-field closed shells behind their pressure looks which should give Pickett opportunities to push the ball down the field outside the numbers. 

Pocket navigation was one of the bigger areas that Pickett needed to improve coming into the league and this week could very well be used as a gauge for his development to date.