What are your expectations this year for the Steelers defense?

Top 16

 

Just like with the offense I’m excited to see a different approach. That being said you have to think Cam cannot possibly keep up his play and TJ is a shell of himself. Middle of the pack is probably accurate.

 

I expect them not to be owned in the middle of the field this season and not to give up as many 30+ point games. And I'm hoping the offense helps them keep up that end of the deal by possessing the ball more and scoring more.

OH, and I expect them to stop letting the other team score IMMEDIATELY following Renegade at home. FFS!

 

Interesting. I want to see personnel first.

 

Ever since TJ Watt signed that fat contract he has been very disappointing by disappearing. We all know he is not willing to change his approach at all from just pressuring from the left side. I really wanted to see him bounce along the line and confuse the opposing offense more but he seems to be content with being double teamed with a first block and then a chip to give the QB enough time to release the ball. Defense goes as he does. Middle of the pack.

 

Generational....or am I a year too late for that?

 

26

 

Even before that, he disappeared when it counted the most. Namely, in the playoffs.

 

I still don't understand this...
1. Why do people expect Watt to do something none of our other OLB did like moving up , and down the line. They are OLB not DL.
2. I laugh when people think Him moving doesn't automatically bring double teams wherever he goes, like if he move they forget who he is. LoL
3. I showed proof of they just move the double to wherever he moves in some stills I posted last year.

 

Just to be sure. You are basing this off less than about 75 attempts in his career?

 

This is a good question. A lot will depend on Heyward continuing to overperform his age again and Watt rebounding(which I think TJ will). I think Queen and Wilson will probably be better. Hard to say what Ramsey does as a FS in this scheme and it'll be interesting how they use Brisker and Elliott as both are more or less box safeties. Benton could end up playing better in a new system and that could help take pressure off of Heyward to perform at other worldly levels at his age. I'm intrigued by the thought of Asante playing at a high level again and him & JPJ being a tandem for years to come, but that's more of a hope.

 

My expectations for the Steelers defense this year?

I expect a step forward from last season. I’m looking for them to finish as a top-16 defense in yards allowed, and most importantly, a top-16 scoring defense. In 2025 they allowed 387 total points (22.8 per game), which ranked 17th in the league. That’s not the steel curtain-level defense Pittsburgh fans are used to. With the new coaching staff and some key additions, I think they have the talent and scheme to push into the upper half of the league this season. It will be better. But not top 5 good.

While we definitely upgaded the DB spot in free agency, our soft middle defense coverage and silly situatuional foobtball were major issue last year.

 

Historic.

 

Middle of the pack... where it was last year. Schemes may be better with new DC... but middle of the D is still a liability, DT & ILB.

 

It is hard to venture a guess. On paper it should be a good bit better than last year. Upgrades at safety (through Elliott returning and Brisker entering the lineup) and CB (addition of Dean) should help a good bit. The biggest weakness I think our defense had was schematic. We heavily relied on individual effort and wound up in disadvantageous matchups very frequently. Graham seems to bring a quality scheme to Pittsburgh that has had quality success with lesser talent, but how it translates here is certainly unknown at this point.

We HAVE to be better on 3rd down. We were a terrible pass defense despite having a very good lock down corner who had a great season, and were way too volatile in the run game (having quality outings and terrible ones). I am hoping the new scheme can help our ILB's look better than they have the past couple years, because that is the obvious weakness in the defense. The DL should be solid and the secondary on paper looks quite good.

 

Here's last year's rankings. I'm using the per game stats here because I think it's easier to understand real game performance that way (vs. trying to divide by 17 in my head).

Basically, I think people in the X poll here were over-rating the Steelers D because of the "brand". We were a below average D last year. I think mostly because we couldn't get off the field on 3rd downs.

On the whole, I think top 16 is probably a reasonable expectations. I think we should get better at allowing teams to convert on 3rd. But we will also likely have fewer turnovers.

The poll doesn't say how we're ranking them. So I looked at last year's results for YPG, PPG, and Turnovers.

Yards / game: 356.9 (26th). Median is ~327.3 (between 16 and 17). We sucked at getting off the field last year. This is the biggest area of improvement we need IMO. Hoping the vet CB2 works this time...8th time (or whatever) is a charm, right? Also having a different play caller hopefully makes us a little more difficult to game plan for. We were generally terrible at 3rd down conversions last year (43% allowed, ranked 25th). That's much worse than '24 where it was 37.4% (11th). Hopefully, we can get a reversion to the mean on 3rd down. That would dramatically improve the D IMO.

Trying to get to the median here (16th) is probably the target. But that might be overly ambitious. Note that unlike 3rd down D, YPG was also bad in '24: 359.9 (26th). But I think the reason then was more that the offense couldn't stay on the field. We did better there, but suddenly started sucking at getting off the field on D. Hopefully, we can get both of those things to average or above this year.

PPG: 22.8 ppg (17th). Here it would be nice to shoot for getting up toward top 12. Fixing the yards problem will help this. But IMO this number is as good as it is because of turnovers.

Takeaways: 27 (4th). This was the cornerstone of our defense last year. And while turnovers are massively important in games, you kind of have to wonder if the price of getting them last year was just being bad at normal defense (maybe taking too many chances on 3rd downs?). And while I do think there is skill involved in generating turnovers, there's a high degree of chance too. And if part of the turnovers is because of "culture" or whatever, that may also be changing with a new DC + play caller. But I'd trade getting worse at generating turnovers for being able to stop teams on 3rd down.

Stats from:
https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-third-down-conversion-pct
https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats/team/_/view/defense/table/passing/sort/netYardsPerGame/dir/asc [note that the turnovers stats need a different page, but I still used ESPN]

 

Between 12-15....It will help that they face the browns twice and the entire nfc south

 

I think part of this is (a) TJ declining and (b) us being totally unable / unwilling to force QBs to hold the ball...seems like every week was "<opposing team> had their lowest snap to throw times of the year when playing the Steelers".

If changes in personnel and playcalling can give the pass rush a little more time, I think TJ can be very good again (likely not DPOY level though).

 

I'm basing it off what I have seen. Where was all this move G. Lloyd, J. Porter, K. Green, J. Harrison, L. Woodley, and J. Gildon , and all the others around. They didn't do that, they played from their position, stunted, or dropped in coverage like Watt does. Matter of fact Watt has rushed from more points than any of the before mentioned. Yet for some crazy reason everyone expects Watt to do it even though none of the rest to play his position on our D did it. Why did some people get it in their head that now TJ should have to do it??

 

You do realize that turning the ball over is better than stopping 3rd downs right??
You can cause a turnover at any down.
What people seem to forget, and I'm not saying you are, but people in general seem to forget is every turnover is another shot for the offense, and if You are 4th in the league with causing turnovers well .....
Also with so many teams going for it on 4th down, stopping on 3rd down becomes ever less important.

 

i expect them to keep teams from scoring.

 

That's what I'm hoping.
I care less about yards.
I will repeat this until I'm blue in the face. In todays NFL three things are the most important on D.
Turnovers, Points, and sacks.

 

I feel like I have heard this before. Maybe from an outgoing coaching staff? Likely not. Since we know they were all know nothings.

I think the other thing that can be added to your list is defending a short field post turnover.