{"id":507723,"date":"2025-11-07T20:08:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/507723\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T20:08:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:08:32","slug":"the-steelers-are-gonna-pepper-him-gruden-thinks-ol-injuries-will-cripple-chargers-against-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/507723\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The Steelers Are Gonna Pepper Him&#8217;: Gruden Thinks OL Injuries Will &#8216;Cripple&#8217; Chargers Against Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Chargers are allowing pressures on a league-high 27.5 percent of their dropbacks, and that was before Joe Alt or Bobby Hart got hurt. Justin Herbert is one of the most-sacked QBs in the league this season, and now he will face the Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love the Pittsburgh Steelers in this one,\u201d Jon Gruden said via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qYjCnSbSlj4\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barstool Sports\u2019 The Pro Football Show<\/a>. \u201cI just think the injury to Joe Alt at left tackle cripples this team. You can\u2019t get hit as much as Herbert\u2019s getting hit. The Steelers are gonna pepper him. They have too many good rushers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Chargers\u2019 nearly 12 pressures per game allowed will have to contend with the Steelers\u2019 nearly 11 pressures generated per game, and just one week after they generated 20 pressures against Daniel Jones and the Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n<p>The best part? Pittsburgh should be able to <a href=\"https:\/\/steelersdepot.com\/2025\/11\/steelers-defensive-line-should-beat-the-living-crap-out-of-chargers-offensive-line-monson-says\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">get home with a four-man rush<\/a> without having to use many blitz packages. In theory, that would prevent Herbert from getting rid of the ball quickly as other offenses have done to neutralize the Steelers\u2019 pass rush.<\/p>\n<p>Gruden likes the matchup for Pittsburgh\u2019s defense the most, but that isn\u2019t the only thing he\u2019s pointing to for a Steelers victory on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s gonna be more Steeler fans than you\u2019ve ever seen in California,\u201d Gruden said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be like a road game for Herbert and [Jim] Harbaugh,\u201d Gruden said. \u201cI love Aaron Rodgers. He\u2019s playing consistent and I think they got a huge win and some confidence last week pulverizing the Colts. I\u2019m with the Steelers, man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The crowd advantage only further plays into the defense\u2019s favor. It\u2019s much easier to time the snap against a silent count, and T.J. Watt has proven elite at doing that in the past. The deck is stacked against the Chargers in this game.<\/p>\n<p>Nobody is going to confuse this AFC matchup as one between the conference elites, but the three-loss teams are both heavily in the mix for playoff contention with a lot to prove. On paper, Pittsburgh has the upper hand in a lot of ways.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Chargers are allowing pressures on a league-high 27.5 percent of their dropbacks, and that was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[657,241,7,3925,1159,1014,262,2444,2443,6,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-507723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-barstool-sports","9":"tag-chargers","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jon-gruden","12":"tag-justin-herbert","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleschargers","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115510228298043850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507723","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=507723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}