Steelers’ Defense Plagued w/Matchup Failures in 31-17 Loss to Seahawks | What Ailed Aaron Rodgers?

Steelers’ Defense Plagued w/Matchup Failures in 31-17 Loss to Seahawks | What Ailed Aaron Rodgers?

The Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Seattle Seahawks Sunday. I’m Chris Carter of the Lockdown Steelers podcast. The biggest thing about this loss though is that the Steelers are losing the matchups they’re building their game plan on. I’ll explain how crucial that is here on today’s episode. Let’s get into it. [Music] You are Locked On Steelers, your daily Pittsburgh Steelers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Locked On Steelers podcast. I’m your host, Chris Carter, bringing you your daily dose of all things on the Pittsburgh Steelers. As always, you can find the show on your favorite podcasting apps and on YouTube. Like this one if you enjoy it. Subscribe to this YouTube channel to get all of your daily Monday to Friday episodes as well as our bonus content. We thank you for making us your first listen every day because we’re your team every day. Again, you can read my work at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Um, let’s talk about this game because I did my little short clip afterwards where I talked about certain things. This game was lost on some key mistakes in some bad moments for the Steelers. Caleb Johnson’s right at the top of the list, letting the ball bounce over his head. Whether he touched it or not, everyone, oh, he touched it, he didn’t touch it. Just don’t let the Don’t let the ball bounce freely into the end zone. Cover it up. take the touchback, make sure it’s not a touchdown. And he didn’t do that. Allah Barry Foster back from like 1990. Ste, old school Steelers fans know that one. But you have multiple key turnovers and then key third down losses in this game that just came at backbreaking times. And that to me is the thing that really hurt the Steelers in this game. On the whole, you look at it, they held the Seahawks to six of 14 on third downs. Not a terrible rate, 43%, but you want to be higher than that. And the problem is, I’d say about four of those six came in just really tough moments where they had things lined up, they had the matchups they wanted, and they still lost. And to me, that is the biggest problem the Steelers are facing right now is they are getting matchups, they’re getting schemes, they’re getting alignments that work that should work in their favor, but they’re still losing them. Here was my conversation with Patrick Queen in the Steelers locker room. I want you to see how he responds to my questions and then it’s a couple questions after that where he won’t point the finger, but you can tell he’s protecting someone. Here’s Patrick Queen. Patrick, it seemed like you guys figured something out after the first drive and then they were able to strike back down the middle part of the field. what did you guys get right and when how did they counter you guys in this game? Uh we just kept running the same stuff we was running. We just was playing good. Um and obviously when we didn’t play good, they exposed it and um you know that that that’s what happens when you don’t play consistent. Um stuff like today happened. So um we got to get back to the get back to the drawing board, go to work, get better. It’s that simple. You guys have given up more than 20 points for a second straight game. You know, we know that how good this talented this defense is. What do you guys feel like you have to do as a collective to get to the point that you think you can get? Uh I think we just all got to look in the mirror. Um myself and myself uh first off um and just get better. I don’t think it’s no easy answer, no shortcut. Um I think we just all got to go to work. Um get home in on the details. Um be where we were supposed to be, make the plays that we’re supposed to make. Um I could have got us off the field on that third down with Sam Donna. I didn’t get didn’t get him down and then led the points. So um it’s it’s just it’s that simple. the plays that we got to make, we got to make. He was hitting passes over the middle. What was what was he doing to kind of find open spots on you guys? Oh, he was just running man and you know, guys was getting inside and um you know when we did switch it up, they’ll get a taked down here and there. Um I just feel like we just got to be better. Um zone coverage, man coverage, whatever it is, feel like we just got to be better. Um like I said, when our player may just make it. Is it a scheme or is it people not being in the right position? Communication? Can you put your finger on where the breakdowns are? I don’t want to answer that one. Game plan wise, was there a specific that you thought you guys had a good spot that you had ironed out that just didn’t manifest today? I can’t I’m sorry. So, right there, I do think the Steelers had a few spots where they were supposed to manifest some wins because it was one thing against the Jets where they were just giving up big gashes of run plays and they did do that in this game, but there were times they actually stuffed the run. I mean, if you go back and you look at the stats, Zack Charbanet, who as we talked with uh Corbin Smith last week uh of locked on Seahawks, he was like, “That’s the guy that you should be worried about because he was better last week.” And then when I talked to him after the game because he came to Pittsburgh, shout out to Corbin. Um but, you know, we were talking and he was like it was and it was Kenneth this week. He’s like, “I didn’t see that coming. I thought Zach was going to be the guy.” But they certainly tried to give Zack Charbanet the ball because he had more carries than Walker. But he ran it. Charbanet ran it 15 times for 10 yards. Walker 13 times for 105. And so to me, I look at this and I see like, well, they certainly had some stops in the run game. One guy averaged less than yard, one yard per carry. The problem is the other guy averaged over eight. And to me, when I look at that, I think that they’re expecting to win in certain matchups and they were able to win in certain matchups, but then they lost key moments. And some of those key moments were on third downs. And that’s going to be the break the film breakdown, the initial film breakdown that I do for the PostGazette. Check that out at post-gazette.com. should be up Monday morning, early afternoonish at the latest uh there. Uh but to me, when I was looking back over the game and I was trying to think through the critical moments, some of the early third downs and some of the late third downs that they blew, there were plays where you got the matchup you wanted, you had everything lined up for you, you just didn’t finish. Uh there were a couple plays and as good as Jaylen Ramsey was with the interception that he had with the big hit that forced an incomplete pass. He another tackle that you know that that that forced a forced to you know that had a stop. He he got beat sometimes on some inside routes where he was manned up and I think Patrick Queen is trying to not point the finger. But there were several plays where the Steelers and he even he took he took ownership for the big one that he missed because I I thought Patrick Queen was having a pretty solid game and then that third nine where they dialed up the right blitz. Got the look. He has an open shot at Sam Darnold and he attacks the front shoulder. You got to attack the back. And he just misses and he lets him escape. Darnold spins out. Pton Wilson’s then put on an island where he has a choice. Do I contain Darnold or do I stay on the tight end? He tries to contain Darnold. Darnold flips the pass over for him. It’s a third and nine conversion and that leads to eventually the the score that bas the touchdown drive that basically sealed the game on the Steelers. It’s those moments where I think the Steelers are getting the matchups that they want and they’re just not winning. They have to be able to finish those. I saw I see a lot of people saying, “Oh, TJ Watts not making an impact on the game.” you’re not watching the same game I am because TJ Watt, for example, on the Jack Sawyer sack, which put the Steelers in a chance to at least have a chance at a comeback uh later on that same drive, it was created entirely by TJ Watt. Go to my Twitter profile at Carter Critiques. You scroll down just enough to one post I made la uh late later in the night when I was just before I left the stadium and I was going back to the film and there on Jack Sawyer sack, he literally just walks to the quarterback because three guys are looking at TJ Watt. Go look at the double team numbers from last week at TJ Watt, he was double teamed almost twice the rate that Miles Garrett is being double teamed right now. That is insane. Now, I think that again when the Steeler when their Steelers are doing this, they need guys to win their matchups. They need Jaylen Ramsay to take guys away, especially over the middle. They need guys like uh they need the other pass rushers to win to win more consistently. They need to get guys down. I I thought in the third and 19 run play where they scored a touchdown uh I think it was a 20-yard run uh for uh for Kenneth Walker that basically sealed the game. Pton Wilson has him dead to right since him and his mono mano in space. And it would have been one thing if he hit Kenneth Walker and he bounced off, but he never even got hands on him. And those are the things that I think Patrick Queen is trying to not dish too hard on. I think he’s trying to not point the finger because he’s trying to be a good teammate. But these are some key serious wins the Steelers need to have for their scheme to work. And and not even that complex of a thing. TJ Watt also said after the game, he’s like, it’s like we have good players, we have good scheme, we have to finish. And I think that’s the thing here is that the Steelers are are position where the defense, especially now two weeks in a row, has to come through for them. Now, um, again, they only gave up really 24 points in this game, but still, you’re supposed to be a defense that’s holding a Seahawks team like this under 20 and then allowing the the Steelers offense to do just enough to get them over the hump. And we’ll get to the offense in a sec because they are not uh clear of any criticisms either. But to me, the biggest thing is the Steelers right now are banking on trying are setting themselves up to get certain wins and they’re just not getting them. That has to change and soon. If you’re the Pittsburgh Steelers on defense, if you expect to be a good defense, forget historic the way Mike Tomlin said, they have to be able to win those and win those very soon or things are going to take a turn for the worst. We’re going to take a quick break. We come back, I want to talk about the offense. I got a chance to ask Aaron Rogers a couple questions after the game. And I thought his response reminded me of some things that earlier Aaron Rogers would have said in his Green Bay days. I’ll give you my thoughts on that next here on the Locked On Steelers podcast. I’m your host Chris Carter. Stick with us. We’ll be right back. But first, remind you this show is brought to you by Prize Pick, the daily fantasy platform that where making the right call can actually pay off. You and I make decisions every day, but on Prize Picks, being right means cashing in. With football back, Prize Pick is the simplest and fastest way to get in on the action. 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I’m your host Chris Carter. we continue our episode here. I want to switch to the offense because as as rough as the defense was, the offense I felt left a lot on the table as well. I felt like one of the main things that the Steelers should have been able to capitalize on this game was targeting the Seahawks secondary, especially when Deon Witherspoon was noted to be out and they really didn’t get to do that. The Steelers leading receiver was Jaylen Warren who caught four of four passes for 86 yards. Uh I I thought Jaylen Warren was kind of the Steelers player of the game. He had 86 yards to the air, 48 yards on the on the ground. pretty solid overall performance for that guy. Uh, but Aaron Rogers, I felt like, wasn’t able to figure out consistently what the Seahawks were doing deeper down the field and and resulted to a lot of checkdowns in this game. And the offensive line certainly didn’t have a very good day, but this was not a terrible day in my opinion. And I still got to look back at the all 22 and get a full look at this game, but there were several times where like a lot of people were like, “Bro Jones is the problem.” I was like, “Buddy, he was containing his guy.” I thought Troy Falano gave up more pressures than than he than he should have. I thought Isaac say Amalo had some rough plays here and there, but all in all, I I felt like the bigger problem was the Steelers were trying to do certain things and I think the Seahawks were were effectively taking them away enough to discourage Aaron Rogers from going there. And I think part of it was they stayed in too high shell. They played a lot of zone and they said, “Go ahead Steelers, run the ball on us.” And the Steelers did just okay running the ball. They didn’t do too great. Uh Jaylen Warren ran 14 times for 48 yards. Uh which isn’t terrible, but that’s a 3.4 yards per carry average. Um and then Gareth Gaml ran five five times for 20 yards. And really about two of those runs that really built up his numbers were just based off of garbage time runs. So the run game still hasn’t manifested. And this was something that we did talk about was a concern going into the season was that I didn’t see the run game coming together yet. I think it needs to come together. And I think you saw the Seahawks come out and say, “Okay, you know what? We’re going to play back. We’re going to play zone. We’re going to make sure those crossing routes aren’t aren’t available to you. And we’re going to make it so that you have to beat us with not just the way not just how you beat the Jets and throwing the ball around here and there. You got to run the ball.” And when we talked to Aaron Rogers, I asked him about uh the what the what the Jets were doing. he brought that up, but also listen to how when when I kind of poked that, you know, red the red zone offense, you know, he kind of got a little defensive, but I think in a in a not uh not in a bad way, just in a way that acknowledge like, hey, it’s still early in the season. We were perfect in the red zone last last week. We need to finish better this week, but and there’s opportunities for that. But listen to Aaron Rogers and how he responds to my questions to get the gist of what I’m saying. Aaron Aaron, you guys were able to hit on a lot of crossing routes uh la last week and to different different players. What do you feel like disrupted you guys from that aspect of your offense this week? I don’t know if we called a lot of crossing routes, [Music] but they played a lot of zone coverage too high, so it’s good against a lot of them. Aaron, on the touch more on the touchdown drive, the two-point conversion, you guys you threw two combat balls to DK and uh Darnell and they won them. What a part what how can you guys maximize more of that in the red zone to be more consistent in in in finishing when you guys have that kind of size advantage. It’s been two weeks. Last week we were 100% in the red zone. Mhm. So this week we were so take it easy. It’s small sample size. That was two nice plays and 50/50 balls by two big guys. Um, and we had a chance, you know, I think by a touchdown pass that makes it 21 and 14 and changes the whole scope of the game. So, you got to understand this is the league and things happen. You know, we’re not trying to crush anybody on our team. We just what happened happened. You know, disappointing for KJ. Love KJ. You know, Cal’s trying to make a play. We love Cal. We just got to we got to be 100% with our assignment and in order to win some of these games. comes down to one or two plays. Could be the first quarter, could be the fourth quarter. So, you saw me say it’s been it’s been two weeks. That felt very reax of Aaron Rogers. Not saying like, hey, this ain’t the big deal just yet. But I will say this, I did think that there were times where like, hey, it was like the interception where he threw it in the red zone and it bal and Calvin Austin went for it and it tipped off his hand and right to the defender. That’s just like a okay, bad luck happens sometimes. Um, but at the same time, I felt like that drive because that was the drive where Jaylen Warren caught the ball, you know, you know, and that was a that that play was a really well improvised play where Aaron Rogers spins outside because and again, Brderick Jones did a good job. Seals his man to the inside, takes it takes him out of the play. So, Aaron Rogers has all this room to roam. He kind of rolls out. It gives Jaylen Jaylen Warren space to roam. He hits Warren. Warren goes off for 65. Gets them inside the red zone. And then the Steelers are in a good place. Um, and I thought once they got to the five yard line, I was like, “Okay, here’s where they’re going to do exactly what they did on the last red zone possession.” Now, granted, he is right. Last week, they went perfect in the red zone and they didn’t need to do any of the jump ball stuff, but you saw in that first red zone possession when they got into the red zone, what did they do? They said, “Hey, DK, just just run to the pylon, man. We just going to hit you with a with a with a combat catch. You’re going to you’re going to box that guy and get a touchdown.” And then what did they do the very next play? They said, “Spread him out wide. Hey, Darnell, just go up and get that. Here’s here’s here’s that here’s that seven shots thing that we do all the time when we want an easy win. I felt like I was like, hey, where’s that in the in the in the in this moment? And so, hey, you don’t always get the call you want. You don’t always get the um you know, you don’t always you get to you want to kind of switch things up. You don’t want to be too predictable and all that. But I did think I was like, hey, that’s that was right there for you. And but to Aaron’s point, if Calvin just doesn’t tip the ball, the ball was right on the money to Pat to Pat Fmouth. He catches that. It’s a touchdown. It’s 2114. We’re talking about a completely different game here. It doesn’t guarantee the Steelers win, but it does change the tone entirely. The defense would have actually got to got the chance to play with a real lead um and later in the game, and that could have allowed for a few different things momentum wise. But that’s where I think that Aaron Rogers does have a point. I don’t think it’s I I don’t think it’s time to panic yet on offense. But I do think that the Steelers offense does this is a sign that they do need to find this run game and find it soon. And you saw Jaylen Warren when given space does work. Again, he was able to make plays in this game. But you got to think you got to find it more consistently in this run game. And honestly, the way Caleb Johnson looks right now, I mean, the the kick return mistake that he made, he had one run for one yard, I’m not so sure he’s ready just yet to figure things out. Maybe that’s part of why they were putting him on kick return was to get him just used to attacking and being more aggressive uh in in his in his running. Uh but if you’re Jaylen if you’re if you’re the Steelers and Jaylen Warren’s cooking, you got to find ways to get him to to to work in space. I think one thing you got to let this offensive line be a little bit more athletic, show off its athleticism and saying, “Hey, let’s pull. Let’s move guys in space. Let’s go hit and run.” Um and again, I think that it’s uh I think that that’s something that the Steelers have done. uh you know you have shown that they can do on occasion, but they have to do it more often. It was something I thought they should have worked on in the in more in the preseason. They didn’t and now they’re here. Now granted, again, the sky is not falling. This season’s not done. Uh they have a lot they have a long way to go. It’s a very long season and I think that’s the thing that they have on their side. But I do think that there are lessons to definitely be learned from each loss and and each win. And I think that one thing that you saw from this from this game on offense is that hey, you know what happens if teams just drop into too high zone soft zone shells where they’re just going to try to take away the deep ball. They’re going to try to take away your crossing routes and you have to win with thinking and dunking. Um or you can run the ball on. I think that’s a sign that Steelers have to have a plan and say, “Hey, we have to be able to attack this more efficiently than we did.” And again, some of it’s also just key mistakes at the wrong times like Aaron Rogers says, but I do think that that’s where the Steelers could find a little bit more of their mojo in this game. And I mean, again, like this was supposed to be a game where the Steelers took advantage of a secondary that was missing their top guy, Deon Witherspoon, where they don’t have, you know, supreme talent at the safety position. And your leading receiver was Jaylen Warren for 8 four catches for 86 yards. Next up, we’re Pat Frymouth for three for 31. Johnny Smith four for 27. Calvin Austin 1 for 22, DK Metaf 3 for 20. Uh they they really didn’t get the the flow of the passing offense going to open up the run game. And I think that that’s something that they have to be able to do if this offense is going to to to win and uh to to be able to make up. But again, the problem for this team isn’t as much on offense right now. Again, I think the the the tip pass from Calvin Austin kind of fluky. Not too mad at the offense for that. And I do think that they’ll find have some have some better days. Um, but the key to this team is still supposed to be the defense because if the defense doesn’t allow the early score and then I’d say the the second touchdown, the third touchdown drive was purely on Peyton Wilson just giving Pton Wilson giving up the third and long run and then uh Patrick Queen also missing on the on the easy sack that he had on Sam Darnold uh on third and nine. Um, but the two touchdowns before that to me also were just moments where the Steelers had matchups and opportunities where they wanted just like those plays and they fell short. And to me, that’s where, if you want to talk about coaching, that’s where the biggest problems are going to lie if the Steelers aren’t able to make adjustments moving forward. I’ll talk about how they do that next here on the Locked On Steelers podcast. I’m your host, Chris Carter. Stick with us. We’ll be right back. But first, I remind you this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. We all turn to some funny places for advice. Your barista, your barber, maybe even a random stranger in the bathroom, but not everyone is the right one when it comes to real support. That’s why BetterHelp is here. With over 30,000 licensed therapists and more than 10 years of experience, BetterHelp helps you find your right match. Someone clinically trained and credentialed to guide you through your life’s challenges. I’ve caught myself venting to group chats or oversharing with friends who mean well, but they’re not therapists. Having someone trained to help me work through situations has made all the difference. I like that you start with simple questionnaire and Better Help does the matching work for you. 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Um, so I want to talk about coaching, but I always whenever I talk about things, I always try to come from a nuance sense perspective where I’ve done some research, done some work on it, and I’ve looked at things and I try to not just come out with the the hack of the ah here’s just this raw opinion where I’m just going to say this thing that seems obvious and it’s just the surface level material. And I think that take if you’re going at coaching this week is, oh, Mike Tomlin should have gone for it from fourth and one. And listen, I think he should have gone for it on fourth and one. I was thinking you want I want to go for this one. But people who saying that the Steelers lost a game in the I’m not going up fourth and one are out of their absolute mind because at that point in the game, it was still the third quarter and the Steelers were tied 14-4. Even after the drive that came after that punt, they were down 17 to 14. I think they lost the game when Caleb Johnson let the ball bounce over his head in the end zone and let the Seahawks get a free touchdown. I think they also I think a bigger consequence in the game was the Calvin Austin tip pass that resulted in a red zone interception. I think those two plays were the plays that lost the game. But I do think that the Steelers could have gone for one fourth one. But I don’t think that that’s the biggest problem the Steelers are facing coaching wise right now because people often want to blame coaching for everything under the sun. They say, “Oh, this guy miscommunicated. That’s on coaching. Oh, this guy missed a tackle. That’s on coaching.” I think where coaching comes into play is when you see that certain guys can’t fill a role, you have to find a way to circumvent that, work around it, or get them to learn how to fill the role. And that’s where I think the Steelers are having the biggest problem right now. Because if you look at how this game this this game was played, again, you look at the third down failures that they had on defense. They weren’t plays where there was just like, oh man, like we were totally, you know, out of position there. It was plays where Jaylen Ramsay was one-on-one with a guy and he lost. It was plays where Patrick Queen, they had the right blitz that they actually blitzed. They sent the heat. There was times they moved TJ Watt over the left tackle and they were able to get pressure, but they didn’t bring down Sam Darnold or they didn’t contain him and he broke contain and he was able to find an open guy uh ba based off of that. you know, um they they were just plays where they absolutely had it in front of them and they whiffed. And now the question comes, I think the biggest question with coaching is are there certain things that you’re willing to live with that you think you can get around or that you’re trusting to just get better? Because that’s where I think the best coaching happens is that often times you’ll be sitting there and you’re saying, “Hey, we should win this matchup.” And you didn’t win that match up one week. Now you could hit the panic button and say, “You know what? We’re never going to win that matchup no matter who we’re facing. We’re just going to scrap this plan. we’re going to go with a whole new plan. But often times you do that, that’s what causes chaos. You you say, “Hey, we don’t believe in you.” And then the player doesn’t believe in themselves. You don’t give them a chance to develop because you’re saying, “Hey, we don’t trust you to win these matchups.” And then that becomes an issue. But then you have to find that balance, right, of how long do you let a player stick to an assignment that they’re that they’re not winning consistently before you eventually say, “Hey, we got to change this plan around.” And that’s the thing that I think this Steelers team, the Steelers coaching staff is going to struggle with the most this year if they if if guys aren’t able to win because for example, Keanu Bettton nose tackle again in this game. Just raw watching, I haven’t looked closely back at his all 22 tape uh yet or anything, but I felt like he still got pushed off the ball way too much. Now, there were plays where he did win more more times, I think, at a higher rate in this game, but there were still too many plays where he got pushed off the ball and it caused problems across the board. Um, you know, I think that there were times where Jaylen Ramsey lost in certain situations. And, you know, this is a Steelers team that I think prides itself on they they like their cover. They want to be able to go manto man, bump and run, you know, you know, but you know, you run run with guys. Maybe that’s not who they are. Now, granted, I’m going to also give the defense a little bit of grace and that they were missing four starters. They still haven’t seen Derrick Harmon this year and that could change a lot about how the defensive line operates. Uh Joey Porter was missing this game and Deshun Elliott was missing this game, you know, and then Alex Highmith ended up missing most of this game with with an injury. Uh looks like he might be out for a bit with a high high ankle sprain. So that’s another thing to be looking at. Um so you give the defense some bit of grace, but if you’re the coaching staff, you have to start looking at things and saying, “Okay, can Keano Bettton circumvent this problem at nose tackle?” Because as we said last week when I asked Mike Tomlin, Harold Lawson AC Cam Hayward across the board, they were like that guy can do it. He can do the job. But if he can’t do the job, it’s up to you to either if you’re going to leave him there to find a way to make it so that that doesn’t hurt your defense because for backto-back weeks, I think it has. And then the same thing goes for when you have, you know, third and seven or third and nines and you’re giving up 12 and 14 yards on pass plays where it was just one-on-one. Someone just won manto man over over the middle on a crossing pattern or a slant. And that happened more than a couple times. And if they get a few more of those stops, I think it sets an early tone in this game and it allows the defense to lock in a little bit better. Same thing with finishing on on some of these pass rushes. That’s where I think the Steelers have to be able to do better in a lot of these games because moving forward, this is a defense that you’ve invested in with the talent you have at linebacker, the speed you have at linebacker, the talentedness, experience and talent you have in in the quarterback room, the the guys you have up front, you’re expecting to win more one-on-one opportunities. You’re expected to just line up and be able to beat the guy across from you. And I think too many times in these first two weeks, you haven’t. And that’s where you have to adjust to say, “Hey, is this just a matter of certain things that that you’re losing on that eventually that you will win on and this is just a bad stretch.” You could gamble on that. But this coaching staff has to identify, is that just the issue or is this a bigger problem where maybe they need to not put as much on the one-on-one? Maybe they do need to resort to some more trickier zone coverages whereas saying, “Hey, you know what, Jaylen Ramsey, we know that you’re a dog. we know that you’re a a bad man and you know that you can win in one-on-one man-to-man matchups. But what if we work on plays where we’re disguising more mana, we’re dropping into zones where we can effectively put, you know, force guys into worse decision. And on on the same token, on the pass rush, you know, they have to be able to get after the quarterback and finish the quarterback. uh Cam Hayward. I asked him about that and gave a pretty straightup answer just saying like, “Hey, they have things to work on, but it has to come hand inand here with Cam Hayward when I asked him about it in the locker room.” What What do you guys have to do better in a as a pass rush unit to get home? Uh it seems like you guys have gotten close a few times the last two weeks and just not finished as much as you had last year. Yeah, you know, we just got to keep beating on the door. Um a couple times, uh you know, guys are just wide open where we didn’t keep contained. Um, and you know, it all works hand in hand. Um, you know, I’ve never met a good rush without a good secondary, and I’ve never met a good secondary without a good rush. So, um, we got to clean that up. Um, we got a lot of tape to watch, but uh, we’re working to fix that. So, like this is the thing is that these aren’t I don’t think there’s there’s some whole scale scheme problem the Steelers have unless these guys just aren’t going to win many one-on-one match as many one-on-one matchups this year. Now, I still think Jaylen Ramsay is is still probably going to be a pretty good corner for the Steelers this year. Heck, he made quite a few plays in this game. He just also lost some others. And I think there’s also times where Pton Wilson Pton Wilson I’ve seen make that play on the guy like Kenneth Walker before. I’ve seen him run stride for stride with guys faster than Kenneth Walker. He whiffed there. Um I’ve seen Keanu Bettton in this very game, have plays where he was able to stand up as man and, you know, set the play up so they can get a good run stuff. Um again, we’ve we’ve seen these things happen. We’ve seen guys finish I’ve seen Patrick Queen finish plays where he sacks more mobile quarterbacks than Sam Darnold. Problem is, you got to actually do it. And to me, that’s where the biggest question with the coaching staff is going to lie. How long do you do you keep going with your current game plan where you’re trusting these guys to win more of their one-on- ons before you find other ways to adjust around it? And sometimes doing that, you’re going to compromise part of what you thought your identity was going to be. But if you shift it properly, you can still find an identity that makes you a winnable football team. And that is the challenge that faces Mike Tomlin, Terrell Austin, Arthur Smith, too. He’s not he’s not out of this either because I thought there there were some moments the offense stalled with decisions that I didn’t fully agree with. But um everyone involved here on the coaching staff needs to be hitting the the drawing board and needs to be hitting the classroom and saying, “All right, this hasn’t worked. Let’s figure out why this hasn’t worked. Is it just technical things that we can win with if we just get very fundamental things out of our guys that we know we can get, or are these wholesale things that you know what, maybe we don’t win this way? maybe we adjust and we find other ways to win. Those are the challenges facing the Steelers as they’re one-on-one headed to the New England Patriots next weekend uh in in Foxboro where they haven’t won, I think, since 2008. Is that how long it’s been? Jeez, they got a lot to clean up. We’ll talk more about that when I look at the All2 film and give you my grades on tomorrow’s episode of the Locked On Steelers podcast. I’m your host, Chris Carter. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, Blue Sky, wherever you get your social media. Uh at Carter Critiques is always my handle. Read my work. the Pittsburgh Postgazette going post-gazette.com and find me here on the Lockdown Steelers podcast every day Monday through Friday on your favorite podcasting apps and on YouTube. Like this video if you enjoy it. Subscribe to this channel to get all of those episodes back here tomorrow with our grades here on the Locked On Steelers podcast. [Music] [Music]

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 31-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks showcased several matchup failures where the defense was in position to make a play, and didn’t. Christopher Carter breaks down where those biggest letdowns occurred, who was most to blame, and where the defense must be better if they’re going to be a good unit this season.

Also, Aaron Rodgers’ struggles slowed down the passing game. But how much of that was Rodgers instead of the Steelers’ lack of an efficient run game? And where does the biggest challenge for Mike Tomlin rest after the Steelers’ 1-1 start to the season?

Steelers’ Defense Plagued w/Matchup Failures in 31-17 Loss to Seahawks | What Ailed Aaron Rodgers?https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7JorgD8nGLtvvMy1ogFetg

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