{"id":352874,"date":"2025-09-09T00:24:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/352874\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T00:24:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:24:16","slug":"steelers-safety-exposes-defenses-struggles-vs-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/352874\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Safety Exposes Defense’s Struggles vs. Jets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers safety Juan Thornhill at minicamp on June 10, 2025. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh Steelers entered the 2025 regular season with the belief that they were fielding one of the best defenses in the league. However, that looked far from the case in Week 1 as they narrowly escaped with a 34-32 win against the New York Jets.<\/p>\n

Of course, getting the win was the most important thing, but Steelers veteran safety Juan Thornhill thinks he knows the reasoning for the defense\u2019s struggles on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a lot of things we\u2019ve got to work on already on the defensive side. I feel like we might have not been prepared for a running quarterback because we\u2019ve be seeing a guy like Aaron (Rodgers) who\u2019s not really using his legs to try to beat us,\u201d Thornhill said. \u201cNext time, I feel like we\u2019ll be prepared for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jets quarterback Justin Fields did have his way for most of the afternoon, throwing for 218 yards and one touchdown as well as rushing for 48 yards and two more scores.<\/p>\n

\"\"New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sep. 7, 2025 \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

However, a lot of Pittsburgh\u2019s players on defense are no stranger to Fields, who spent the 2024 season with the team. <\/p>\n

That coupled with the fact that the unit is made up of several veterans with plenty of experience against all different types of quarterbacks does bring reason for concern, especially with at least two meetings with two-time NFL MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson on the schedule.<\/p>\n

Luckily, there is plenty of season still ahead for the Steelers to right their wrongs, which is exactly the mentality the group has, according to Thornhill.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would think guys might come in here on the defensive side and be a little upset, but we know we can play better,\u201d he said. \u201cWe came out with a win. It\u2019s hard to get those wins in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh will have the chance to bounce back in Week 2 against the Seattles Seahawks and a less-mobile quarterback in Sam Darnold.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Juan Thornhill<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers News Pittsburgh Steelers safety Juan Thornhill at minicamp on June 10, 2025. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,10781,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-352874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-juan-thornhill","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115171496193335479","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352874","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=352874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}