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.<\/p>\n
At what point after that Ravens loss did Tomlin determine they needed to be exceptionally aggressive in building the trenches?<\/p>\n
\u201cI doubt that I had even gotten in the shower yet,\u201d Tomlin said to NFL Network <\/a>on Saturday.<\/p>\n Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Dec. 22, 2024. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n 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\u2019 side.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Henry gashed the Steelers for 162 rushing yards in a win over their divisional foe\u2013by all accounts, his dominant game against Pittsburgh. Three weeks later after winning the division, the Ravens gave the Steelers\u2019 defense another warm welcome\u2013racking up nearly 300 yards on the ground alone.<\/p>\n Tomlin\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin during a game against the Baltimore Ravens on Jan. 11, 2025. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n When looking ahead to the 2025 season, and the team\u2019s 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<\/a> 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 \u201cextreme urgency\u201d at the position.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no substitute for young talent,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a chance to fill a quality defense unless you\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s offseason plans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tape is the tape, and so we\u2019re behaving appropriately,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a chance to have a top-notch defense unless you\u2019re smashing the run and getting after the quarterback, and this is a guy whose resume says he\u2019s capable of contributing in both areas.\u201d<\/p>\n Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 17, 2024. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n The Steelers didn\u2019t 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\u2019s Jack Sawyer will bring to the group shouldn\u2019t be a surprise.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re talking about a 260-pound man who has his mean on half the time and probably more than half the time,\u00a0and that\u2019s really a good thing,\u00a0because you got to be able to set edges,\u201d defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said. \u201cAnd we know in the AFC North, if\u00a0you\u2019re not good stopping run, that\u2019s going to be a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n In the fifth round, the Steelers drafted Yahya Black<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a big man and really stout against the run,\u201d Tomlin said. \u201cYou can always use a skill set like that, certainly\u201d<\/p>\n Three of the Steelers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n This article originally appeared on Steelers Now<\/a>: The Derrick Henry Draft: How Steelers Plans Changed after Playoff Thrashing By Ravens<\/a><\/p>\n Related Headlines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lasting image of the end of the Pittsburgh Steelers 2024 season is not one that sits well…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[6310,184,117,2282,344,292,9676,7,295,895,8662,1255,6,6313,57,169,5226,2085],"class_list":{"0":"post-19611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-alex-highsmith","9":"tag-baltimore","10":"tag-baltimore-ravens","11":"tag-baltimoreravens","12":"tag-cam-heyward","13":"tag-derrick-henry","14":"tag-ed-thompson","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-jack-sawyer","17":"tag-lamar-jackson","18":"tag-larry-ogunjobi","19":"tag-mike-tomlin","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-nick-herbig","22":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","23":"tag-ravens","24":"tag-t-j-watt","25":"tag-yahya-black"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114441829002267842","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Pittsburgh](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/63836543b38b79da52b4b257ac4c0618.jpeg\"\/)
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