Pittsburgh just took on its sixth loss of the season.
New England shouldn’t get too excited, but Bailey Zappe looked far from awful in a somewhat unexpected road win.
And “Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime” got a better football game than a lot of us thought.
The Patriots actually won a professional football game Thursday in Pittsburgh, holding off the Steelers, 21-18 (Bailey Zappe throws for 3 TDs, Patriots damage Steelers’ playoff hopes with 21-18 win | AP News). And Zappe threw three touchdown passes in the process, more offense than it seems like the Patriots have had since the Reagan Administration.
Not really, it only seems that way.
Two of Zappe’s touchdown passes went to Hunter Henry, the other to, of all people, running back Ezekiel Elliott, and JuJu Smith-Schuster even came back to haunt his former team, with 90 yards receiving.
Still, Pittsburgh (7-6) had a chance to tie it up late, twice, although the final one not realistic, because after a long completion downfield in the middle of the field by Mitch Trubisky, the Steelers had no time outs to call to get into position for a possible game-tying field goal.
For New England coach Bill Belichick, it was another win, and now he’s second all-time in regular season wins behind legendary Don Shula (526).
