“Everything is going to be situational to the game plan for who you’re playing against,” Morris said in response to a question about whether Cousins’ health affected play-calling decisions. “When you go out and you put those guys in what we do and how we want to play and try to put those guys in good positions to get those guys blocked, the aliens the Pittsburgh Steelers have, you gotta try to figure those things out.”

Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt was a force to be reckoned with. He technically had only one sack recorded in the game book. But that’s because his two others were negated due to Pittsburgh penalties.

Defensive tackle Montravius Adams also had a sack for the Steelers.

In total, Pittsburgh had two sacks and seven quarterback hits.

“It exposed some things inside for us,” Morris said. “We had a tough day inside, and then it also activated those guys out there a little bit and those guys got going. That’s a good football team, and I don’t want to take away any credit from what they were able to do, but with our plan to go out there, we have to execute it better in order to get (Kirk) protected a little bit better. Think he had seven hits and he got hurried a bunch. … They definitely hit us too much when it came to some of the drop-back passes.”

Of the Falcons’ 226 net offensive yards, 89 were rushing and 137 were passing. The Falcons ran 50 total offensive plays. Of those plays, 44% were rushing and 52% were passing. The two plays unaccounted for were the sacks.

Running back Bijan Robinson carried the ground game with 18 carries for 68 yards. Wide receivers Drake London and Darnell Mooney had three receptions for 30 yards between the two of them, while Ray-Ray McCloud III was the leader with four receptions for 52 yards.

It was tight end Kyle Pitts who scored the Falcons’ sole touchdown on a 12-yard reception in the first half.

“We want to get better,” Morris said. “But we got to play better at the (quarterback) position, we got to play better around him.”