It’s Time To TELL THE TRUTH About The Pittsburgh Steelers Defense This Year…

It’s Time To TELL THE TRUTH About The Pittsburgh Steelers Defense This Year…

[Music] Today on Steelers Talk, we’re going to be having a little bit of a difficult discussion here, Steelers Nation. I’m going to tell you the truth, at least from my perspective, about the Pittsburgh Steelers defense. There’s a lot of different hot takes out there about this defense, what needs to happen, a lot of declarative statements about what this team already is just two weeks into a new NFL season. Some people already declaring that this defense is sucks, can’t be fixed, and it’s going to be the doom of the Pittsburgh Steelers here in 2025. Today, I’m going to be taking a little bit more of a nuanced approach here. We’re going to look at some film. We’re going to be looking a at at what Mike Tommen likes to do from a schematic standpoint. Talk about some of his failures and also some of some of his successes as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Talk about some of the issues we’re seeing on the film through the first two weeks here in 2025 and some potential solutions uh for those problems here in the weeks to come. If you guys want in-depth nuance Steelers coverage here on YouTube every single day, that’s what we try to provide for you guys here on Steelers Talk every single day. Um, I really put in a ton of hours, guys. I don’t know if you guys have noticed, I haven’t even shaved this week because I’ve been up all night grinding the film, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with this Steelers defense. Um, and I think that we have uh at least some answers here on today’s show. So, if you appreciate the time that we put in here and you guys want that nuance coverage here that doesn’t get too much into uh, you know, panicking or anything like that, make sure you guys click that subscribe button right now uh, for nuanced Steelers coverage. So, the first things first, and this has to be getting out of this has to get out of the way immediately. The defense has underperformed and the defense has not been good enough to start this season. All right, plain and simply, the expectations coming into this year was that this defense was supposed to be, to use Mike Tomlin’s term, historic. All right, and we’ve we’ve heard guys like DK Metaf say this is the best defense he’s ever seen. We’ve seen Juan Thornnehill saying this could be the best defense of all time. and they go out there in the first two weeks and they give up at least 24 points a game. All right, and they gave up over 30 to the New York Jets who could barely move the football against the Buffalo Bills. All right, so there’s been some issues with this Steelers defense and frankly the issues have gone past just the first two games this year. You can extend this out to the Cleveland Browns game on Thursday Night Football last year and if we extend it out for the last 10 games, every opponent the Steelers have played have gotten 300 yards of offense. All right, every single opponent. All right, put them all together. They’re averaging 27 and a half points per game. All right, so approaching 30 points a game over the last 10 games for Tara Lost and Mike Tomlin and this Steelers defense. Now, to be clear, Pittsburgh’s defense has been uh the most expensive defense in the NFL for many years. All right. So, the fact that this defense is over $20 million more expensive than the next most expensive defense in the NFL and they have had this bad of a start to this season and they were as bad as they were to finish last season is unacceptable, especially for this organization and this head coach who claims that the standard is the standard. So, what’s really weird to me about this whole situation, guys, is that before this 10game skid where the defense has undeniably played poor football under Mike Tomlin and Terrell Austin, they went on a really incredible 36game stretch of over two years worth of games of defensive football where they were the most dominant defense in the National Football League. All right. And you know, you can you can see here from week 10 in 2022, uh that was kind of when they turned their season around after a really slow start there uh in 2022, all the way to week 11. That was the Ravens game at home last year in 2024. That’s 36 regular season games in between those games. All right. Pittsburgh gave up 20 points. All right? Or less or less than 20 points in 24 of 36 of those games. So in twothirds of the games you were playing, you were giving up less than 20 points. that is by far the most in the National Football League. Um, and that is really a dominating type of statline that Terrell Austin and Mike Tomlin were putting up for, like I said, over two years worth of football games for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And the truth is, guys, you know, with with the Pittsburgh Steelers, they’re really relying on getting that back. They’re really relying on this defense being elite, a team that shuts teams down if they want to win a Super Bowl. And if they can’t do that, and if this defense isn’t great, and this defense u maybe even if this defense isn’t elite, they might have to be a top three or top five defense in the league this year to even have a chance to hoist a seventh Lombardi trophy. And to this point, in the first two weeks of the season, it simply hasn’t been good enough. And if it continues, they’re going to have no shot to win a Super Bowl this year or honestly win a playoff game. Like, if you want to win a playoff game this year, this defense is going to have to play a lot better. And because of that, I believe that the clock is ticking on head coach Mike Tomlin. All right. And this is where we get honest with Coach T. And I’m somebody that thinks Mike T is a good football coach, is a good uh leader and motivator, but frankly uh this coaching staff has fell short over the last 10 games. And if they have this much talent and this much money on this side of the football and Mike Tomlin and Terrell Austin can’t figure it out by the end of the season, this team misses the playoffs or this defense finishes uh bottom half of the league in most defensive categories, I think you got to find somebody else and a new voice in this locker room that can actually fix this defense moving forward and lead this organization to greener pastures. But with that said, I’m somebody that’s not saying it’s over. Uh they have to fire him now. uh he can’t have the rest of the season. I’m not one of those people on Steelers Twitter overreacting at this point. Uh I still think there’s time to fix this, but time is certainly running out. I believe he has to the end of this season to figure it out. Or else, if I’m the Pittsburgh Steelers, I would move on from Mike Tomlin. Now, still to come here on Steelers Talk, we’re going to be breaking down Mike Tomlin’s scheme, what he likes to do from a schematic standpoint, some of the weaknesses, and also the strengths. Then we’re going to be talking about some common myths that I see on Steelers Twitter and even in the comments section about the Pittsburgh Steelers defense uh in this coaching staff. And then we’ll be diagnosing what’s wrong with the Steelers defense so far on film here in 2025 and some of the solutions that I have come up with to fix those problems in the weeks to come. But before we get into the rest of today’s show, guys, I want to give a big shout out to our sponsor today at Mando Whole Body Deodorant. You guys know the feeling. 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Say goodbye to sweat stains and hello to long lasting freshness with our friends at Mando whole body deodorant today. All right, so now let’s first talk about Mike Tomlin’s scheme and what he likes to do as a defensive uh mind and why this defense has been uh really as consistent as it has been and also some of the issues that it presents uh for the Pittsburgh Steelers and some of the inconsistencies that it presents. Now, Pittsburgh is one of the only teams left in the National Football League that consistently uses a true 34 base defense. So, you’ve got a nose tackle there in the middle, two defensive ends, which really act more as like defensive tackles. They’re interior players in this scheme. Then you got outside linebackers playing on the ball um as edge rushers, and then you got two inside linebackers there playing off ball. Then you’ve got two corners on each side, and then a free safety and a strong safety. you can bring down the strong safety if need be. All right, so that’s the base three four defense and really anytime that a opposing offense comes out in in heavier personnel or a six offensive lineman set or a multiple tight end set, whatever the case may be, Pittsburgh is going to go to this alignment. All right, where you got five down linemen, you got two offball backers. You can put another strong safety in there if you want. Um, and you can also put in um the strong safety in the slot if need be. Um, but also Pittsburgh plays, especially with the with the with the emergence of three receiver sets in the National Football League, Pittsburgh has had to adjust and play more four down fronts in their nickel formations where they will still uh consider bringing down a strong safety uh to play in the box if they feel like a run is coming from these three wide receiver sets. But this is certainly something that the Pittsburgh Steelers um have run quite a bit. Sometimes they’ll still run like a 34 shell by bringing in a slot corner to blitz and be pretty much like a pseudo uh edge rusher from the edge there. They did that a lot with Mike Hilton. We’ll talk about uh that role with Jaylen Ramsay later in today’s show. But in terms of coverage and pre-nap looks, the Pittsburgh Steelers love to run what is called one high safety coverages more than most defenses. Really, the modern NFL defense really loves to go two high safeties. They really love to uh disguise coverage, all that different stuff. But the Pittsburgh Steelers like to have that extra guy in the box to help defend the run. Um, and you know, the problem with single high coverage, and a lot of Steelers fans point this out, is that you don’t have as many options in terms of the coverage that you can play. Usually, you’re restricted to cover one and cover three type coverages. Uh, you can still do uh some creative stuff and you can still do some rotations. And by the way, Mike Tomlin uh has been about as creative as you can possibly be from one high structures. He does a lot of uh non-traditional tampas. Uh he has done some really creative rotations from single high coverage pre- snap uh throughout his career. So the Steelers can still get creative and have gotten creative uh with postnap rotations from single high coverage. Uh but certainly there’s not as many options as say a Mike McDonald defense or a Vicfangio defense where they play two high safeties on pretty much every single play. In terms of the coverage types that Mike Tomlin likes to run, uh cover three and cover one out of that single high structure is really the bread and butter of this defense. It has been for a very long time. Uh Tampa 2 is a very po important part of Mike Tomlin’s past. He got his career started under Monty Keifin uh with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who invented the Tampa 2 uh and uh the Steelers have c certainly implemented Tampa quite a bit throughout Mike Tomlin’s tenure here in Pittsburgh. And then of course uh with the Dick Leau uh influence here in Pittsburgh. The three deep fire zone defense has certainly made an impact on him and he has implemented that into his defensive structure. By the way, the Steelers do play other coverages. They do play quarters. They do play two reed or palms. they do play too high man. They’re not only restricted to these coverages, but these are the ones that you see more often uh in this Mike Tomlin scheme here in Pittsburgh. So, now that we have a a good understanding of what Mike Tomlin likes to do from a schematic standpoint, let’s talk about some of the common myths that I see on Steelers social media about Pittsburgh’s defense and also their coaching staff. Uh we’ll start with Mike Tomlin himself, which is that he’s not a good defensive coach and he’s never been a good defensive coach. I I just don’t know how you can say that when you look at the track record over an 18-year NFL career. All right, and we’re going to be talking about a lot of the things that the Steelers are doing wrong on this video, especially so far this year at the end of things here. But Mike Tomlin has had 12 top 10 defenses in 18 years here in Pittsburgh. All right, you can’t just fall into that as a bad defensive coach. You can’t luck your way to twothirds of the seasons you’re with a team uh to getting top 10 defenses. Now, obviously, he’s benefited from having great talents here. Troy Palamalo, Cam Hayward, TJ Watt have certainly helped him get to those uh get to those top 10 rankings, so to speak, and it’s certainly a fair criticism that those that his defenses have not performed when it matters most, especially lately in the playoffs. But the idea that Tomlin doesn’t know uh defensive coverages or that he doesn’t know how to coach a defense, uh it’s just it’s just it’s just false, guys. And you guys can see since 2016, all right, this is kind of uh since they started uh tracking EPA per play and success rate, it’s this goes all the way back. All right, since 2016, once they once they started really recording this stuff, the Steelers defense is sixth in EPA per play and second in success rate. They’re also way up there in turnovers uh forced. So, like this defense has been a successful one uh for many seasons, even in recent seasons under uh the toutelage of Mike Tomlin and even defensive coordinator Tara Lost. And you know, I I I don’t think Tomlin is absolved from criticism when this defense does stuff wrong. We’re going to be honest on this channel and we’re going to tell you when those uh things are wrong, but also we’re going to acknowledge the good things that have happened under Mike Tomlin here. It’s not all bad like a lot of people seem to think that it is. um and he certainly understands defensive football. All right, that is something that I think is irrefutable uh based on his track record here with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Uh that’s the second myth here, guys, is that the Pittsburgh Steelers have a quote unquote static defense and they don’t do postnap rotations. It’s all uh just super static and they don’t move and you know they they they don’t do all this post snap stuff that we’re seeing from other teams in the league. But did you guys know that on 34% of the Steelers defensive snaps versus pass attempts versus the Seattle Seahawks, they had postnap rotations. All right, so they were rotating a lot from cover two, so two high safeties actually down into a cover three look where the safety was buzzing down. That was a lot of postnap rotation that they did uh in this football game. And they also played quite a bit of cover one robber where you start with two high safeties and then a safety comes down into the intermediate zone. They played that quite a bit. They played cover one cross quite a few times as well. Um, which is also a post snap rotation. So, um, you know, this narrative that the Steelers just stand in place pre- snap every single play and they don’t do any postnap rotations. Uh, it’s just not true. And it hasn’t been true for multiple years. I mean, Mike Tomlin and the Steelers defense have been doing postnap rotations for years at this point. All right. And this is somebody that has watched every single snap of Steelers defensive football probably over the last decade on film. All right. I can tell you from from experience, this defense does do a lot of postnap rotations and they will get creative, especially on third down. And every cover three look, by the way, every single one that they ran versus Seattle had a buzzing safety. It came from two high safeties. And a lot of NFL teams are running this. It’s a super modern look because it gives leverage uh and vision uh it gives the leverage and vision advantage for the buzzing defender, the safety. Uh it’s much better than having a linebacker backpedaling out there and doing all that stuff. it’s much much more beneficial to have a buzzing safety and the Steelers have embraced that. All right, so uh I keep hearing that this defense just stays in place and doesn’t move and all this different stuff. That’s just not true. Um they do uh embrace some of the more modern stuff. Then we get to uh the the myth that the Steelers defense isn’t creative. Now maybe it’s not as postnap uh postnapheavy as a Mike McDonald defense or some of these other ones that we’re seeing. And maybe it’s not quite as creative as uh maybe like a Brian Flores defense. But did you know that Pittsburgh ran 12 different types of coverage versus the Seattle Seahawks? In fact, uh their last seven defensive coverage snaps were seven different coverages. All right, so you finish out the game with multiple exotic looks, multiple post snap rotations. And uh especially at the end of the game, they finished with two exotic looks versus Sam Darnold and the Seattle Seahawks. Um, and you know, so this this idea that they just run like the same two or three plays over and over and over again, uh, it’s just not true. And you know, the reality is guys, a lot of great defenses stick to a few core concepts. All right, you look at the Legion of Boom, they played cover three match on every single play because they could. All right, you look at some of the Lovey Smith Bears defenses, they would play cover three on first down literally every play. Then they would roll the Tampa two and then they would have some uh third down stuff that they would do and and mix in there, a couple blitzes. All right. And that would be it. All right. Really good defenses can can can afford to be a little bit more uh simplistic. The Steelers have kind of started this season with a little bit more of a simplistic game plan because they thought they had the talent to run that, but I think the Steelers coaching staff is starting to figure out that maybe they don’t have quite the horses as those uh historic defenses had uh back in the day. Then we get to uh another myth here, which is that the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t make adjustments. All right. Um, and you know, this is something that when I watch the film, I do see adjustments being made both in-game and then week to week. Just sometimes they aren’t executed. Uh, this was a prime example this week where there was a double crosser concept that the Steelers have given up a touchdown two straight weeks and then I think a a viral social media, I think it was on Instagram, some film watcher guy put out there saying that’s the same exact coverage. And even though on film it looks the same, it ends up being a blown coverage from cornerback Darius Slay. And that’s of course confirmed by Juan Thornhill who was the cutting safety on that play and what’s called a zombie adjustment on this double crosser concept. Um so sometimes you know adjustments just aren’t executed by the players. But in terms of that game against the Seattle Seahawks, the I think four of the first five plays were cover one blitzes. Um and then the Steelers only played four more the rest of the game. So the Steelers certainly identified that their cover one blitzes were not working versus the Seattle Seahawks. and then Tara Austin and Mike Tomlin made the adjustment to play less cover one as the game went on. Now, unfortunately, the Steelers run defense couldn’t stop Kenneth Walker in the second half. Uh so, obviously, you know, that adjustment uh wasn’t really picked up or or seen as a positive thing because the defense was given up a lot of yardage in the second half, but they were trying to do stuff in game last week to try and mix things up uh and get away from those cover one looks that they were just getting blasted by last week. And then another myth here in my opinion, guys, is that the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t blitz enough. Um, you know, I keep hearing this saying, we need to be like Brian Flores and we need to blitz more often, right? While the Steelers are blitzing at a top five rate in the National Football League right now. They’re blitzing at about 40% of their defensive snaps. Um, and that, by the way, that’s that’s about double what Mike what Brian Flores is doing in Minnesota. All right. The Vikings are barely blitzing over 20% right now. um because of some of the injuries that they have, they know they can’t hold up on the back end if they are as aggressive as they used to be. So, the Steelers are blitzing. It’s just a matter of, you know, I think Terrell Austin brought it up this week, they’re just not aligning in the correct ways and they’re setting themselves up for failure pretty much pre- snap and giving quarterbacks easy answers so that the blitz can’t get home. So, um you know, it’s not that the Steelers don’t blitz enough. They do it plenty. Uh it’s just that, you know, the coverage on the back end, and we’re going to talk about some of those issues here in just a second, need to be cleaned up. And then the final defensive myth here is that the Pittsburgh Steelers should have kept Brian Flores and fired Terrell Austin after the 2022 season. All right, this one kind of bothers me a lot, guys, because I keep hearing it. But Pittsburgh’s defense finished the 2022 season on an absolute tear. You guys will remember that they won all those games in a row to finish the season. They led the league in sacks. They led the league in turnovers. They led the league in points per game allowed during that final stretch. And guess who was the defensive player, a play caller for the Steelers. It was Terrell Austin. Are you going to fire the defensive coordinator that just where your defense just had that incredible run with? No, you’re not going to do that. No NFL team in the history of the NFL would have said, “You know what, Terrell, you had a great stretch here, great second half of the year. We the best defense in the league. You’re fired to keep this assistant coach.” That there’s just no way that any team in the NFL would have done that. And by the way, Pittsburgh’s 2022 defense was nothing like the Brian Flores defense in Minnesota. All right. Actually, Flores stole his defensive scheme from Pat Nardooi here at Pit. It’s all palms and it’s, you know, a bunch of different quarters and palms combinations along with cover zero and a bunch of uh pre- snap looks with with linebackers walked up to the line of scrimmage. You didn’t see that in Pittsburgh in 2022. In fact, the scheme for Pittsburgh in 2022 looks a lot more than the defense we’re seeing from Pittsburgh right now under Mike Tomlin because guess what guys, it’s Mike Tomlin’s defense. It wasn’t Brian Flores’s defense in 2022. And then two things here, guys. Number one, Pittsburgh wasn’t going to fire or demote Terrell Austin after that awesome end to the 2022 season. Um, you know, you guys can have your opinions on Terrell Austin all you want. There’s just not a single NFL team in the league that would fire their defensive coordinator after the stretch run that they had at the end of 2022. And then number two, if Flores would have stayed on as the defensive coordinator here in Pittsburgh and they fired Terrell Austin, this defense would still be Tomlin’s defense. I mean, Tomlin is in charge of the defensive game planning week in and week out. Now, maybe Flores has a couple ideas that they throw in there, but this would still be Mike Tomlin’s scheme, and it would be it would still look largely the same if Brian Flores was calling the defensive plays here in Pittsburgh. And to be completely clear here, guys, I love Coach Flow. All right, I I am the biggest Coach Flo supporter. I’ve been saying for years that he should be getting another head coaching job. I love his defensive structure there in Minnesota. And by the way, if they fire Mike Tomlin at the end of the year, I he would be the first one on my short list. the players respect him. He’s got a great presence in the locker room. Um, and he can bring over an offensive mind from the Kevin Okonnell, Shawn McVey, they’re from Minnesota to be the new offensive coordinator here in Pittsburgh. So, this isn’t a Brian Flores thing. It’s more of just they’re not going to fire Tara Lost after the stretch run that they had at the end of the 2022 season. So, let me know what you guys think down there in the comments section. Would you be happy if Coach Flo uh is hired as the next Pittsburgh Steelers head coach? Personally, I would be thrilled if Tomlin uh had to be fired at the end of the season and they bring in Flores. I think his defense would work great here in Pittsburgh without Tomlin kind of superseding him. Um, and I think that the offensive tree that he has access to is really good and could be really beneficial for the Pittsburgh Steelers. So, give me a yes or a no down there in the comments section. And now, let’s get into the part where you guys probably will get the most uh value out of this, which is what the hell is going wrong with the Pittsburgh Steelers defense and how the hell did they fix it? All right, so let’s get into some legitimate issues that I’m seeing on film that needs to be fixed. All right, so first up, there’s not enough strength in the middle of this defense. Um, Keano Benson, in my opinion, I’ve been saying it on the show, is not a nose tackle. Uh, he’s undersized. He doesn’t have the functional play strength. Um, and he’s very disruptive. if he can get into the back field and make some nice TFLs happen, but in terms of being a nose tackle that sits in the middle of this defense, takes on double teams, has to hold the line of scrimmage, he just hasn’t been doing that to start this season. So, personally, I would rather go out and get YA Black um you know, in this spot. And honestly, if you just switch YA Black, who’s been playing defensive end, playing next to Keano Benson, and you switch those two where you got Black at the nose and then Benson at defensive end, which would allow Benson to play more disruptively, that would be excellent. I think that that would actually work and I think that we talk about Benton as a much better run defender in that case because he’s not being played out of position. So that’s the first switch that I would make. And then another switch that I would make here guys is I would get a thumper at linebacker and put him in for Pton Wilson on early downs. Now the Steelers have brought in Jawan Bentley. They have Cole Hulkcom on the roster. So hopefully this team makes that adjustment. But the Queen and Wilson every down kind of experiment uh it just hasn’t worked through two weeks. Uh Patrick Queen has been out of position a number of times. Uh but Pton Wilson has been out of position even more. He’s getting blasted off the line of scrimmage. They can’t provide any push uh either. They’re getting driven backwards. And when you combine a nose tackle getting driven backwards with Peyton Wilson and Patrick Queen who are also getting driven backwards as kind of undersized linebackers, it’s just not a good fit, man. Like Roberts played such a big role in this defense as the thumping early down linebacker and I think the Steelers need to get back to that. So, the way that I would adjust uh kind of the size element and the issue here in Pittsburgh is I would start YA Black at nose tackle, I think, you know, with his long arms, his 330 plus pound frame, his functional play strength, that’s an immediate upgrade. And then, by the way, Ko Benson at defensive end, I think is a an immediate upgrade over YA Black because he’s more disruptive than YA is. So, I think that that is a double upgrade right there. And then I would play Peyton Wilson less on early downs. Whether it’s Cole Hulkcom, whether it’s eventually Jawan Bentley that gets in there. Um, you know, I think that you need to get somebody out there that’s a better run defender than Pton Wilson currently is. If you make those two switches, I think the run defense gets a lot better. Then, uh, when we talk about the passing game, I think you got to make quarterbacks work harder than the Steelers uh, have kind of, you know, put out there so far this season. All right. And plain and simply, like there’s just some instances here, guys, where the defense is just not aligned correctly and is giving opposing quarterbacks easy answers to get the ball out fast, to get chunk yardage. So, you guys can take a look here at this photo um where it’s third and seven early in the game for the Seattle Seahawks. It’s a great opportunity for the Steu for the Steelers to get off the field. They’re playing a cover one uh dog blitz which means five rushers um and with a deep safety which means there’s nobody in a intermediate zone here playing the middle. All right, this guy in the middle right here uh is playing a man alignment against a tight end that’s lined up at the line of scrimmage. So with uh Jaylen Ramsey playing way off the line and outside leverage that allows Jackson Smith and Jigba over here to just cross his face on a little glance route. Darnold gets it out immediately and he picks up an easy 10 yards, 11 yards, and picks up a first down. Like, this is just bad defensive alignment. Uh, that gives the defense easy answers. And the Steelers need to do a better job of not giving those easy answers to opposing quarterbacks and make them hold the ball for longer against this Steelers pass rush, who honestly have been doing a pretty decent job rushing the passer. It’s just these quarterbacks have easy answers and they’re getting the ball out quickly. Another thing that I would do more than what I’ve seen in the first two weeks from this Steelers defense is I would play uh Jaylen Ramsey more as a blitzer. All right, back in the day, all right, Mike Hilton was an absolute menace from the slot blitzing. Teams were literally adjusting their offensive philosophy to guard against Mike Hilton blitzes. All right, and Jaylen Ramsay is more instinctive. He’s bigger. He’s stronger. He’s a better tackler. And he’s better in coverage than Mike Hilton ever was. All right. So, if Mike Hilton could have the effect that he had as a blitzing slot corner that, you know, offenses had to know where he was at all times on this defense, you got to use Jaylen Ramsey in the same way, man. And if you can combine that with some rotating coverages on the back end, some fire zones where you’re sending uh when where you’re sending the corner off the edge, and really start confusing people, like that’s really when I think this defense can start cooking with gas. All right. Um, but then another thing here and my final thing here, guys, that I want to talk about with legitimate issues with this team is you got to play more zone. All right. Uh, I think that right now the Steelers have been playing a lot of man. Uh, in in week two versus Seattle, they ran eight cover one blitzes and almost all of them uh were not successful. And you know, I think that the Pittsburgh Steelers have been kind of approaching this season with a little bit of arrogance, saying, “We’re so good that we can line up and beat teams and cover one with no disguises, nothing like that. Uh we’re not going to, you know, play detailed football in terms of uh the easy answers that we’re giving to opposing quarterbacks. Like, our pass rush is too good and our secondary is too good in man coverage. So, we’re just going to be lazy about it and we’re just going to play a little bit arrogantly.” And that’s just not working out. I think that I hopefully, you know, Mike Tomlin and Lost are learning their lesson here. Uh, but really guys, making the quarterback think uh makes the entire pass defense better and it makes every element of the pass defense better. If you’re making the quarterback hold it for longer and process things after the snap, that’s going to allow the defense to get home and the pass rush to get home and get more sacks, get more pressures, uh, get more tip ball opportunities, but then also like it’s going to help out the secondary as well, right? because if you’re making uh guys uh cover and then also the pass rush is getting there, that’s going to lead to more opportunities for turnovers in the secondary. So, you got to make these quarterbacks think a little bit more uh than just, oh, look at this. They’re playing outside leverage in cover one and there’s nobody in the middle of the field. Let’s just throw it there. Like, we got to have better answers than that to start this season. And the Steelers coaching staff needs to realize uh that as good as and as much talent as the Steelers defense has, they’re not that good to play that caliber of football. And hopefully guys Tomlin and Austin have learned that lesson. Like I think that when they got all these players and Jaylen Ramsey and Darius Slay and all these guys, they said we can just go out there, play cover one, and we’re going to dominate just playing that stuff. And it’s just like that is not the case, man. Like this is not the Legion of Boom. All right. This is not the 85 Bears where you can just roll out there, run your thing, and they can’t stop it. All right? You got to be able to get creative here. And we have seen Tomlin and Austin do that in the past. I laid that out in today’s video. they’re more than capable of fixing this thing from a schematic standpoint. It’s just a matter of when and if they can do it. Um, and hopefully it doesn’t take them too long to do it because time is ticking here in the 2025 campaign. So, what’s you guys? Let me know down there in the comments section. Will the Pittsburgh Steelers finish as a top 10 defense this year after their slow start? Give me a yes or a no down there in the comment section. I’m sure at this point in the year it’s a little bit of a hot take, but I think they will finish inside the top 10 by season’s end zone. Now, before I go here, uh, I want to, uh, give you guys a little bit of a quote here from Darius Slay, uh, Super Bowl champion with the Philadelphia Eagles last year. And I think he had some wise words, uh, for the team and for the fan base here, um, after a kind of a shaky start to this season. This is what Slay had to say earlier this week. He said, “Last year in Philly, we started off the same way last season, one-on-one. We wasn’t feeling like we were living up to the Philly standard and and next thing you know, we turn around after the by-week, number one defense in the league, Super Bowl champion. So, I told our guys, man, keep our composure and let’s be detailed. And remember guys, Philadelphia was also coming off a late season collapse in 2023 last year. So, not only were they coming off a collapse at the end of the season where they had a first round playoff exit, but then they go into the next season, everyone’s hyping up the roster, all this different stuff, and with a bunch of new players, and uh they don’t get off to a good start on either side of the football, and people are talking about firing Nick Serriani and all these different things and replacing Jaylen Herz, and they go on and win every single game Jaylen Herz starts and finishes for the rest of the year. So, if that’s a lesson to anything, guys, is that the first few weeks of the season, teams are very much still trying to figure out who they are. And that’s exactly where the Pittsburgh Steelers are at. I still think they have more than enough talent to make this a legitimate top 10 or even top five defense by the time we get to January. And that is the moral of the story here, guys. I think you are a much different team in January than you are in September. I think last year with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the story of last year’s season should tell us that this defense was amazing the first six weeks of the season. and then they were terrible down the stretch. Uh it’s very possible that the Steelers can figure things out here and they can really become uh the defense that they’re capable of becoming down the stretch here if they can make some uh crucial adjustments. All right, that’ll be it for today’s show, guys. This is one of the longest videos we have ever made for Steelers Talk. I’ve been grinding the film all week trying to get you guys a comprehensive view of what the Pittsburgh Steelers are going through right now and how they can make it better moving forward and why I still have hope for this team as we sit here right now heading into this week’s game versus the New England Patriots. So, I hope you guys enjoyed this content. If you want in-depth nuance content like this every single day on the Pittsburgh Steelers, that’s what we try to provide for you guys every single day. So, make sure you guys click that subscribe button if you haven’t already. Until next time, guys. Here we go, Steelers. [Music]

Steelers Talk by Chat Sports on Friday, September 19th, takes a deep dive into the Pittsburgh Steelers defense and what has been going wrong to start the 2025 NFL season with a unit that had historic expectations heading into the season. On today’s show, host Jack Sperry breaks down Head Coach Mike Tomlin’s defensive scheme, some of the myths surrounding this Steelers defense and it’s coaching staff, and identifies 4 problems with the Steelers defense that need to be addressed if this unit is going to turn things around and live up to it’s potential when it matters most at the end of the season.

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