{"id":300044,"date":"2025-08-19T07:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T07:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/300044\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T07:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T07:42:10","slug":"predicting-the-steelers-starting-defense-for-week-one-vs-the-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/300044\/","title":{"rendered":"Predicting the Steelers starting defense for Week One vs the Jets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Historically, the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/pittsburgh-steelers\/356\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Pittsburgh Steelers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> have had <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/steelers-53-man-roster-prediction-090925734.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:one of the most expensive defenses;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of the most expensive defenses<\/a> in the NFL and 2025 is no different. Pittsburgh gave multiple huge contracts to Steelers defenders and are banking on all these new faces to mesh with the stars in place and make this a championship-quality unit. The Steelers are preparing for their final preseason game, so here is our updated prediction for the starting defense when Pittsburgh takes on the New York Jets in Week One.<\/p>\n<p>Defensive end<\/p>\n<p>Derrick Harmon<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Nose tackle<\/p>\n<p>Keenau Benton<\/p>\n<p>Defensive tackle<\/p>\n<p>Isaiahh Loudermilk<\/p>\n<p>Left outside linebacker<\/p>\n<p>T.J. Watt<\/p>\n<p>Left inside linebacker<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Queen<\/p>\n<p>Right inside linebacker<\/p>\n<p>Payton Wilson<\/p>\n<p>Right outside linebacker<\/p>\n<p>Alex Highsmith<\/p>\n<p>Left cornerback<\/p>\n<p>Darius Slay<\/p>\n<p>Right cornerback<\/p>\n<p>Joey Porter Jr.<\/p>\n<p>Nickel cornerback<\/p>\n<p>Jalen Ramsey<\/p>\n<p>Free safety<\/p>\n<p>Juan Thornhill<\/p>\n<p>Strong safety<\/p>\n<p>DeShon Elliott<\/p>\n<p>In this prediction, there are six new Steelers on defense. It does include Loudermilk in place of Cameron Heyward as he continues to hold out for a new contract. It also includes a completely re-tooled secondary with only DeShon Elliott and Joey Porter Jr. from last year&#8217;s group.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Steelers Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/steelerswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/steelers\/2025\/08\/19\/predicting-steelers-starting-defense-week-one-vs-jets\/85718168007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Predicting the Steelers starting defense for Week One vs the Jets;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Predicting the Steelers starting defense for Week One vs the Jets<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Historically, the Pittsburgh Steelers have had one of the most expensive defenses in the NFL and 2025 is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[6310,4034,2908,3455,7,4109,1815,226,7582,10781,1917,255,2321,2097,6,7584,7585,57,5226],"class_list":{"0":"post-300044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-alex-highsmith","9":"tag-cameron-heyward","10":"tag-defense","11":"tag-deshon-elliott","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-isaiahh-loudermilk","14":"tag-jalen-ramsey","15":"tag-jets","16":"tag-joey-porter-jr","17":"tag-juan-thornhill","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-jets","20":"tag-newyork","21":"tag-newyorkjets","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-patrick-queen","24":"tag-payton-wilson","25":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","26":"tag-t-j-watt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300044","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=300044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}