Pittsburgh Steelers 26, Denver Broncos 21
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Injuries, do you have a status on Drew Lock and Courtland Sutton?
VIC FANGIO: I do not. They're going to be undergoing some more tests once we get back. We'll have some answers then. But I don't have anything definite yet.
Q. Same on Jones and Walker?
VIC FANGIO: Yes, yes.
Q. How do you think Brett Driskel played today?
VIC FANGIO: I think in light of the circumstances, when you have a young quarterback like Drew, he doesn't get a lot of snaps in practice as maybe some other backups do. Plus we had a short week.
I thought in lieu of all the circumstances going against a good defense, that I thought he did an admirable job. He'll only get better if we have to continue with him.
Q. With 19 quarterback hits, seven sacks, what is your level of concern about the pass protection? What can be done to remedy that?
VIC FANGIO: Well, we just got to do a better job of blocking our guys, number one. If we have to help them more, we'll have to help them more.
But in protection there's a lot of moving parts in it, not just all the O-line. We need to take a good look at it and not have that happen again.
Q. You got down 26-14 after that safety. Talk about the importance of the turnover caused by Shelby, recovered by Jackson, to give you a chance to win this game and the fact that the defense refused to let you give up in this game?
VIC FANGIO: Yeah, our whole team, not just our defense, had great fight. I thought our defense, outside of three or four plays, played an admirable game. We gave up a long pass. We shut them down a few times in the second half there to allow us to come back, give us some time to do that.
We didn't take advantage of our pick opportunity in the end zone there, and they converted a third-long on their first drive that we could have stopped, I believe should have stopped, but we didn't. It was about a three to four, five play on defense that cost us from having a really good game.
But like you said, I thought the fight was great.
Q. It looked like your defense had Big Ben baffled for much of the game. The one person he picked on it looked like was your rookie corner Ojemudia. What do you say to someone after he has a game like that? Was it as bad as it looked on a couple of those passes?
VIC FANGIO: If he's going to play corner in this league for a long time, he's got to be able to come back from plays like that. He can't let them linger, can't let them affect the next plays that follow. He's going to get beat. If you play enough snaps in the NFL at corner, you're going to give up some stuff.
It's not that. The important thing is how you react to them, come back. I think Mike is the right kind of guy to be able to do that.
Q. How do you think Pat Shurmur adjusted, especially in the second half, before things fizzled in the fourth quarter?
VIC FANGIO: I think he did a good job. They were mixing up the way they were playing our three wide receiver set. They were staying in their base defense some, staying in nickel some. I thought we adjusted to that well.
Q. It's easy to sit here and second-guess. Do you wish on first-and-two, fourth-and-two, Gordon would have had a shot maybe on a run play?
VIC FANGIO: Yeah, now that I know the results. But we called the two best plays that we thought we had to get those two yards.
Q. From your vantage point, on Edmunds' blitz that ended your final drive, was there a feeling like he wouldn't come? Was that a blown assignment? Pat indicated the ball should have come out because it was a hot read. Did you see that?
VIC FANGIO: I'm not sure because as soon as that happened I clicked over to the defense because we had to start playing defense. I haven't had a chance to find out exactly what the problem there was yet.
Q. What do you say to the team in the locker room after to try to keep their spirits up or keep them together after two hard-fought games but an 0-2 start?
VIC FANGIO: Yeah, we've proven we can put ourselves in position to win against two really good teams, two teams that most people have picked to go to the playoffs. We've got to avoid the sequences that happen.
Just like first drive of the game, we get a nice drive going, we're in field goal range, and we get pushed out of it, we fumble it. We have a chance to hold them to a field goal, but they convert a third-and-long. We had a chance for an interception that we didn't make.
Instead of being 3-0 there in our favor, or 3-0 in their favor, we're down 7-0. Those types of sequences in a game have a major impact on the outcome of a game.
Q. What did they do to take the catches away in the first half? What adjustments did Pat make?
VIC FANGIO: I don't know if they did anything special to take them away. A lot of times it's where the read is on any particular pass play which dictates where the ball goes. I don't think they were doing anything special to take Noah out of the game.
Q. KJ Hamler, his contribution do you think made a difference? Were you happy with it?
VIC FANGIO: Yeah, I've been anxious to get him out there and rolling. You could see that he can run, made some nice catches, one right on our sideline. Excited to see him continue to grow and get back into the groove.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.
VIC FANGIO: Thanks, guys.
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