Teryl Austin

He got rid of the ball quickly because we were playing very soft coverage and Chase and Higgins were wide open very quickly. I dont recall ever seeing a Steeler defense allow a WR to be targeted 23X in a single game. Pair that with lack of pressure and this seemed like Tomlin took this game off or treated it as a preseason game. This was horrendous coaching and that cant be denied!!!

 

Huh? I think Steelers have a much better chance against Packers than Colts. Steelers don't match up well against either team... but Colts are a really bad mismatch for Steelers. Steichen owns the Steelers D as Colts HC.

Steelers will rally behind Rodgers vs his old team... but I don't believe it's gonna be enough for a win.

Steelers are 1-0 vs Jordan Love. And this 2025 version of Steelers is better than the 2023 version, IMO... but Packers are a lot better than they were then.

 

You do love your gloom and doom. The Packers damn near lost to a crappy Cardinals team. They did lose to the Browns. I'm not sure the Steelers are beating anyone playing defense like they did last week, but that's also a Thursday night on the road. They are far from the only team that has that issue.

 

There is a much bigger question here. Who runs this D? For years there have been rumors that Tomlin calls the plays. Does he? Whose playbook is used? Who calls the substitutions? If the answer to all these questions is Tomlin then Austin doesn't matter. He's just a guy who gives pep talks and instant gameday coaching when players come off the field.

It looks like there is someone else finally running the O. Making adjustments in-season to cover for weaknesses seems like it is Smith because the OL has been crap for years and these changes never happened. Unless someone has the autonomy to make adjustments to both the system and the gameplan on the fly, the title is irrelevant.

 

Who is our DB coach...what has he done for us lately?

 

Right, I'm tired of the "if we would just execute better" and no changes. This is PRO football, you practice and seek every advantage you can get. Mixing up the defense and fooling the offense gives additional advantages over just "perfect execution." Thinking that perfect execution is all you need, and disregarding what other advantages could do to help is just not smart.

Other coaches are playing chess while Tomlin is playing with a piece of dog crap he found on the ground.

 

No. That's incorrect. The defense tried several different things. Fans are constantly complaining that our defense does one thing and stubbornly sticks to it. That was not the case. We played man over zone, as well as strictly man. We rushed 4, and we also blitzed with 1or2. Chase and Flacco ate us up no matter what. If we started to have success dropping guys back, they ran on us for chunk plays.
You can rewatch it starting tomorrow with the all 22.
Obviously not every single play is going to be a good play call. But over most of the game we had a good plan.

 

They tried more things than some fans think, but they were too passive on some third-and-long situations early. They weren't going to cover that team well for any length of time. They needed to consistently attack Flacco. If that mean they got burned once or twice, so be it. They were getting carved up anyway.

 

I'm not a huge Teryl Austin fan either. But it's not an all or none situation. No coach calls a perfect plan without perfect execution by the players. Sometimes it's a bad play called. Sometimes the player just whiffed. That wild card game vs the Ravens last season, we looked silly out there. Bad plan and horrible execution. Thursday night was not that.

 

Ok. At least that's not a, 'we just suck' post without any glimmer of football to it.

 

I have every right to be "doom and gloom" regarding the defense. The Cowboys D was supposed to be 'much' worse than Steelers and they held the Commanders to 22 points. The defense has been Jeckyl/Hyde all year.... mostly inconsistent and downright awful vs Seahawks, Jets and Bengals. I don't think we have the personnel or coaching to fix the problems we have. Harmon is the only DL with potential to be consistent and good... but he's a rookie who gets limited snaps. We've seen enough of Heyward and Benton. Other than tipping passes 2 or 3 times a game... they haven't done much in the grand scheme of things, other than getting blown up in the trenches.

I hope I'm wrong and my doom and gloom is hyperbole... but my eyes tell me this is one of the worst defenses the Steelers have fielded in a long time. Rodgers, Metcalf and Warren won't be able to mask the elephant in the room... the below average defense against the run and pass. We got all of our starters back vs Bengals... and still blew chunks. That says it all.

 

I predict a steelers win against the packers even if I am not very confidant in my prediction but for the packers game in Arizona,yes the cards have a bad record but they also lost their last 5 games by a combined of 13 points and it includes games against very good team like the colts,seahawks and 49ers,all 5-2 or 6-1(4-1-1 in the case of the packers)