via video posted to Steelers.com<\/a>. \u201cAnd then the first game of the year, you come out here against a guy that can run a 4.4 [40-yard dash], it just adds a little bit more to the game. Next time, I just feel like we\u2019ll be prepared for that.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m not really panicked at all. I don\u2019t think no one on the defensive side is panicking, not one bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only one game, so the panic level shouldn\u2019t necessarily be high. But the Steelers had no answer for not only Fields, but also the Jets\u2019 rushing attack. Breece Hall went over 100 yards and picked up chunk runs throughout the game.<\/p>\n
While practicing against Rodgers, a quarterback who isn\u2019t going to hurt a team with his legs, doesn\u2019t allow the Steelers to see and prepare for quarterback mobility, they\u2019ve known for a long time that they were going up against Fields in Week 1. He\u2019s one of the most mobile quarterbacks in the league, and the Steelers defenders who were with the team last season know that and have practiced against him. Just because they haven\u2019t practiced against a mobile quarterback shouldn\u2019t really be an excuse to not be ready to face one.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a lot that the Steelers will have to correct defensively, and this week won\u2019t be a fun one for those players when they watch the game film. For the league\u2019s highest-paid defense, it was alarming to see the Steelers again struggle to stop the run after allowing 299 rushing yards to the Baltimore Ravens in their Wild Card Round loss last season. It\u2019s the biggest issue the Steelers had to correct, but they looked lost for most of the game when it came to containing Fields and Hall.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s enough veteran leadership on the defensive side of the ball that there should be an emphasis on not allowing what happened in Week 1 to continue. The defense shouldn\u2019t be panicking yet, and one game shouldn\u2019t really raise the panic meter too high, but if the run struggles continue, it\u2019ll be problematic.<\/p>\n
The Steelers will see plenty of mobile quarterbacks this season, including Lamar Jackson twice, so Thornhill better be right that they will be prepared to defend such dual threats moving forward.<\/p>\n
Or winning the AFC North will be nothing more than a pipe dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Pittsburgh Steelers pulled off a 34-32 Week 1 win over the New York Jets, it wasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,10781,493,18713,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-352577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-juan-thornhill","10":"tag-justin-fields","11":"tag-steelers-com","12":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115170867191333357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352577","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=352577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}