The Pittsburgh Steelers' defense is ranked last in allowing 100-yard wide receivers in 2025.

I saw this today on the McAffee show and then had to do a double take. Went online and verified that the story on McAffee was correct about McDuffie Trade.



The Pittsburgh Steelers' defense is ranked last in allowing 100-yard wide receivers in the 2025 NFL season. This ranking indicates that the Steelers have allowed the most yards to wide receivers of the 100-yard threshold, which is a significant concern for their defensive performance.
Pro-Football-Reference.com

So, why am I watching shows talk about bringing back James Pierre and Asante Samuels, so the Steelers can run it back for another year?

I thought the WR room was bad, but don't the Steelers need to blowup the DB room, and go out and make drafting a CB priority #1 this year?

How bad was Mike Tomlin's defense last year, and can the new Offensive Head Coach help this defense?

LOL.... And I actually thought JPJ had a good year last year, but maybe he was just surrounded by so many bad players they just made him look good.

 

A lot of that was the early season stuff though. They gave up 5 100 yard WRs in the first 7 games and 8 in their first 9.

I don't know that they were good after that but at least they stopped getting their doors blown off (until Zay Flowers was in the building anyway).

Week 1 - N
2 - Y (JSN, no JPJ)
3 - N
4 - Y (x2 Jefferson, Addison)
6 - N
7 - Y (Chase)
8 - Y (Kraft)
<——— Elliott hurt, Ramsey moves to FS ———>
9 - Y (x2 Pittman, Pierce)
<——— Pierre starts playing significant snaps ———>
10 - Y (McConkey)
11 - N
12 - N
13 - N
<——— Slay Cut ———>
14 - Y (Flowers)
<——— Samuel starts playing significant snaps ———>
15 - N
16 - N
17 - N
18 - Y (Flowers)
WC - Y (Kirk)

 

I do think you take corner any time you get a legitimate chance to. Elite corners are hard to come by and they're even harder to pay. And you need at least three good ones and another average one in today's league.

 

JPJ AND 32 MILLION WILL FIX THIS

 

We already had JPJ

So how is throwing 32 M at it going to change anything

 

So again, JPJ isnt the issue. The issue rests solely on two important factors. The first is the constant personnel change at the second Cornerback Spot. The second, and most important one, is the lack of a true outside Corner to pair with JPJ.


Granted, finding those types of Corners isnt easy. However, Pittsburghs efforts sans Peezy Jr have been okay at best to very questionable. Darius Slay wasnt a good signing even at the time of his signing and his release brings up more questions than answers for Omar Khan and his ability to bring in Free Agents though Slay was likely more so a Tomlin acquisitiom than anything else.

 

Aside from McConkey the list is a who's who of WRs in the NFL. And playing two games a season against Chase&Higgins is a tough out.

 

Yes they need a better CB2, but they also need better play from the safety position.

 

I thought Shula was a defensive mastermind who piloted his crew of scrappy underpaid out of nowhere guys to dizzying heights?

Turns out he's Terryl Austin with a better offense on his side?

 

I think if we compare this to last year, we'll see the impact that Minkah was making (even though he wasn't getting INTs).

I don't know about 100 yard receivers, but I do think we allowed the 2nd or 3rd (or something) fewest explosive pass plays in 2024. This was despite the fact that we were playing more single high S (Minkah) than basically everyone else in the league.

I don't think it would happen. But I'd poke around about bringing Minkah back (or get him as a UFA) if the acquisition cost wasn't bad and he wasn't hung up on continuing to be one of the highest paid S's in the league.

 

I don't know much for the rams,outside of the facts the rams had one of the lowest payroll in the league on defense and they were not good at the end of the season in 2025 but for Austin,it was bad.Too vanilla at time(How many times were our defenses beaten before the snap in recent years?).They were great at turnovers, and when they had them, they had a lot of them, but opponents never had a problem moving the ball easily. Butler and Austin were awful.
Austin was too conservative, and Butler was very aggressive. We had a lot of sacks because of that, but we also had too much blown coverage under him.

And the other problem, as Julian Edelman or Chase in Cincinnati have said in the past, other teams know often what to expect against our defense... How many times have players from other teams said that after the game?

Too often

 

Steelers allowed twelve 100 yd receivers in 2024 so not sure Fitz was the answer either. I suspect it's Austin and his non-schemes.

 

Why is this surprising? Steelers had the most overrated defense in the league for several years.

 

If you couldn't tell it was sarcasm and snark, sorry. You have taken this comment far too seriously. But since you brought it up...
You like to compare lots of statistics.

Go look at the defensive numbers for the Los Angeles Rams in 2025. Go look at the defensive numbers for the 2025 Steelers. They are not separated by all that much. Certainly not enough to elevate Shula to the status of defensive mastermind and Austin as a dribbling moron as the conversation as devolved to around here.

Edelman didn't even play in the NFL when Austin was coaching the Steelers I believe.

Were the Rams better on defense than the Steelers? Maybe. Probably. Was it this not even close thing that it is made out to be around here? Not at all. Think of how good the Steelers defense would have looked playing with a 2+ score lead and offense that scared the crap out of folks.

 

The difference is that the Steelers defense was the highest-paid defense in the NFL(same for 2024,they were also high in 2022 and 2023), while the Rams were one of the lowest-paid.Both defense were average at best last season,just a bit better for the rams but they had a huge collapse at the end of the season.Yeah Shula was not that great but not as bad that Austin in his career

I was talking about Butler too,one of the reason why I was talking about the comments of Edelman

 

dam shore plaid high

 

Several things:

Butler and Austin are two different coaches. Lumping the two of them together into some big stew pot muddles and confuses any useful analysis or statements that you may wish to make.

Austin didn't hand out contracts. I don't care how much the defense was or was not paid. Shula was billed as the next big thing. Many (man, many) posters on here were extolling his array of virtues. His on field results were 500 less yards and a tick over 2 points less a game. Either Shula was WAY over-rated by most Steelers fans or Austin was way under-rated. A bit of both? Not really sure.

As soon as the Rams pay their pass rushers, the rookie contract advantage they were on financially will evaporate. Does that mean Shula will be a worse coach? As soon as the Steelers have like 3 guys leave the roster one way or another, their financial obligations to their defense will plummet. Will their coaching get better?

There is little causation between things that are taken as canonical by the Steelers internet.

 

Yet we won 10 games.
Too many people worry about stats.
You can give up 100 yards in few plays easily, and still beat the team.
1. How many of those 100 yard wrs actually won the game.
2. No matter how bad people say our D was, name me one game the D wasn't Instrumental in us winning, and it was all offense that did it.

 

Don't even try saying anything even kinda negative about the Rams/McVay, or anyone on his coaching staff , or you will never hear the end of something from @Steelersfan43 , it doesn't matter what it's about.
Somehow it's hard for people to understand that only 2 contracts can make you the highest paid D, or Offense in the NFL, and they don't take in consideration of that out of 11 starters, and all the different guys playing D in different packages, and their backups.

 

There are like 5 guys on the Steelers defense making money. The rest are on rookie deals or near minimum vet contracts. When the Rams have to pay Young and Verse the 25-30 million dollar gap between their market valuation and their rookie deals....I think those numbers might change!

 

I mentioned the differences between Butler and Austin in another post, as Austin was very conservative and Butler was more aggressive, which is a big reason why we had a lot of sacks but more blown coverage.

For the defense, the expectation for some (like Tomlin) was to have a historically strong defense.

But they gave up 30 points or more five times and worse since 2002... Nobody wants to see a highly paid unit be just average at best... Too often the Steelers were beaten before the snap(like the first bengals game) and our pass rush had no chance because of it... it was so frustrating to watch.

They were better after the Buffalo game, when the Bills dominated the Steelers with only two or three running plays, but before that, it was awful, especially since the five 30-point games were all in the first 12 games.

 

Ok. So the Steelers defense made you sad as a fan.

Those are very different points than you were previously making.

Also, outside of Mike Tomlin, did anyone realistically have "historic" expectations?

The Steelers major player changes going in to 2025 were rookies along the DL and old DB's whose previous teams had all determined that they couldn't play man coverage any longer.

I mean, I do remember people on here commenting that Jalen Ramsey was still a "lockdown" CB....so i guess maybe there were others? But it never seemed grounded in reality to me.

 

pierre played pretty darn good. samuel didn't do bad coming in late like that. echols played pretty well too. we only have one of those 3 coming back at this point.

i still hope they go after kamron curl. elliott and sabastion castro will be fine at SS. ramesy could go as far as i'm concerned, especially if he's a safety only. that's way too much for a safety. curl is good and should only be around 10-11 mil. per..

d'shawn jamison is young enough as well and did not look lost in his small sample size. if we draft a safety and a corner we should be in pretty good shape. even cutting or trading ramsey.

 

Actually, the biggest issue with this is the pass rush. I don't care who your DB's are...if the QB has forever and a day to throw; the WR will get open, the rules of the NFL are built for this.

 

Not true. Yes a pass rush helps, but You can overcome that if the DB aren't good.
For example: Top 5 sack leaders this year only two were in the top 5 of how many passing yards they gave up. Because you can defeat a pass rush if they don't have the DBs to back it up.
They both go hand in hand, but one without the other can be beaten.