The lasting image of the end of the Pittsburgh Steelers 2024 season is not one that sits well with head coach Mike Tomlin. Last year’s Steelers started the season strong, and entered December in position to make noise in the playoffs.
A late-season skid, helped along by one of the toughest December schedules ever, instead gave the Steelers a more-difficult than expected playoff opponent: the Baltimore Ravens. While the Steelers and Ravens had split their two games during the 2024 regular season, the game in Baltimore in December provided quite the blueprint for the Ravens to follow in the rubber match, with star running back Derrick Henry gashing the Steelers for 162 yards.
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In the playoffs, he did it again. Only worse. On Jan 11, the Ravens lit up the Steelers run defense to the tune of 299 yards. Henry led the way with 186 of them. It was one of the most embarrassing defensive performances in Steelers playoff history.
Two weeks later, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was on the sidelines as the 2025 Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, scouting players for the 2025 NFL Draft. And from the very beginning, it was clear that Tomlin was focused on upgrading his defensive line.
At what point after that Ravens loss did Tomlin determine they needed to be exceptionally aggressive in building the trenches?
“I doubt that I had even gotten in the shower yet,” Tomlin said to NFL Network on Saturday.
Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Dec. 22, 2024. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
Henry, who the Ravens acquired in free agency last year, had his best games against the Steelers last season. After being held in check in a loss to Pittsburgh, the Ravens game planned to make Henry the thorn in the Steelers’ side.
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Henry gashed the Steelers for 162 rushing yards in a win over their divisional foe–by all accounts, his dominant game against Pittsburgh. Three weeks later after winning the division, the Ravens gave the Steelers’ defense another warm welcome–racking up nearly 300 yards on the ground alone.
Tomlin’s defenses have made Lamar Jackson look human when the ground game was minimal. Once the Ravens overcame that hurdle, Jackson showed Pittsburgh why he is an elite quarterback.
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin during a game against the Baltimore Ravens on Jan. 11, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
When looking ahead to the 2025 season, and the team’s needs for adding talent this offseason, the Steelers then turned to their defensive line as the tip of the spear in stopping Henry. Not only was it part of the unit that was gashed by the Baltimore ground game, it was also a unit overdue for investment. Before drafting Derrick Harmon in the first round on Thursday night, the last time the Steelers used a first-round pick on a defensive lineman was on aging legend Cam Heyward. The team released Larry Ogunjobi earlier this offseason in a salary-cap related move that also created a starting vacancy that the team needed to fill right away. The big-picture and immediate needs converged to create what Tomlin called “extreme urgency” at the position.
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“There’s no substitute for young talent,” he said. “You don’t have a chance to fill a quality defense unless you’re stout up front. This is a guy that has the opportunity to look for the likes of Cam Hayward and put his hands in that pile and be a significant contributor for years to come.”
After making the pick, Tomlin reiterated how much the downtown of the defense down the stretch, which finished eighth in scoring and sixth against the run overall, factored into the team’s offseason plans.
“The tape is the tape, and so we’re behaving appropriately,” he said. “You don’t have a chance to have a top-notch defense unless you’re smashing the run and getting after the quarterback, and this is a guy whose resume says he’s capable of contributing in both areas.”
Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 17, 2024. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
The Steelers didn’t stop with Harmon. In the fourth round, the Steelers turned up their noses to draft another outside linebacker, despite having three quality options on the roster already in T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig. What Ohio State’s Jack Sawyer will bring to the group shouldn’t be a surprise.
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“You’re talking about a 260-pound man who has his mean on half the time and probably more than half the time, and that’s really a good thing, because you got to be able to set edges,” defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said. “And we know in the AFC North, if you’re not good stopping run, that’s going to be a problem.”
In the fifth round, the Steelers drafted Yahya Black, a massive defensive tackle from Iowa. Black ideally fits into the nose tackle slot and is known as a space eater coming out of the draft.
“He’s a big man and really stout against the run,” Tomlin said. “You can always use a skill set like that, certainly”
Three of the Steelers’ seven picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, and three of their first four selections, all came on the defensive side of the ball, all came on the front seven, and all have strong run defense as a significant part of their game. All because of the Ravens and Henry.
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This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: The Derrick Henry Draft: How Steelers Plans Changed after Playoff Thrashing By Ravens
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