{"id":662036,"date":"2026-01-07T20:49:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662036\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T20:49:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:49:21","slug":"steelers-mike-tomlin-shares-high-praise-for-texans-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662036\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers’ Mike Tomlin Shares High Praise For Texans Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has high praise for the Houston Texans\u2019 defense ahead of Monday\u2019s Wild Card game.<\/p>\n

The Steelers will host the Texans on Monday in an intriguing game, as Pittsburgh punched its ticket to the playoffs and won the AFC North with a Week 18 win against the Baltimore Ravens. Despite the Steelers being at home, Pittsburgh is a three-point underdog, and a large part is due to the Texans\u2019 defense, which is led by Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill Anderson and Hunter are simply the most dynamic edge rush tandem in the National Football League in 2025,\u201d Tomlin said <\/a>on Tuesday. \u201cThey got 27 sacks between them. I think it\u2019s 12 for Anderson, 15 for Hunter. They\u2019re a formidable group. You can talk about the things that you need to do schematically to minimize them and all that. It\u2019s nothing that they haven\u2019t seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe better stay out of a bunch of one-dimensional passing circumstances, because if we\u2019re in those circumstances, we\u2019re going to be in trouble. That\u2019s just the reality of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texans finished the year as the No. 1 total defense (277.2 yards per game) and No. 2 scoring defense (17.4 points per game). Houston, meanwhile, had four players with at least four interceptions in 2025, which is the most since 2017. <\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got a top-flight corner tandem on the outside, and so they rush very well,\u201d Tomlin added about Houston\u2019s defense. \u201cThey cover very well. They\u2019re not trying to split the atom schematically. They don\u2019t have to when you have corners and edge rushers like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

With how dominant the Texans\u2019 defense has been, Tomlin knows the Steelers will have their hands full on Monday night. But the coach remains confident that Pittsburgh will be able to get a win.<\/p>\n

More Steelers: Steelers\u2019 Mike Tomlin Gives Predictable Reaction To DK Metcalf Return<\/a><\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has high praise for the Houston Texans\u2019 defense ahead of Monday\u2019s Wild…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,221,253,2368,1255,6,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-662036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-texans","11":"tag-houstontexans","12":"tag-mike-tomlin","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115855790312025182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662036","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=662036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}