It’s the leaky defense stupid.

In the late 90's, Fred Taylor of the Jaguars and Jamal Lewis of the Ravens did not rack up the yardage on the Steelers..... like Dalvin Cook of the Vikings did in 2021 and Breece Hall did yesterday.

 

Eddie George of the Titans, also.

 

Stop it. Your logic would make sense if our defense played bad in the second half yesterday because of fatigue but we played bad the whole game. The Jets never punted the ball yesterday. This defense is highly overrated.

 

This is what I have been saying. We put in small athletic ILB’s and then ask them to shed blocks. You have to have big DL to protect smallish ILB’s and occupy blocks or go get Thumpers at ILB. You can’t have smaller gap penetrating D Lineman an expect your your smallish ILB’s to thrive. Queen is literally the size of a safety. Benton should not be a NT. Benton was on his back a ton yesterday. Either change the scheme to fit your players or get players to fit your scheme.

 

What game did you watch? Exactly how did they play well? When your safety is the leading tackler on your team that does not reflect well on your ILB’s. They played terrible.

 

Bingo ... you figured out what the all of the OC’s in the league already know about the Steelers.

 

It wasn’t fair to Slay to have him covering Wilson. He had no help over the top either. To me Highsmith has been average at best in outside contain and stopping the run throughout his career. Part of it is the way we ask these guys to play the run but in reality the real issue was the interior Lineman and the ILB’s were terrible.

 

I agree... the entire defense sucks... but so does the left side of the O line.

 

I disagree. Yes we have some aging vets on defense but we have young talent on the defense as well. Porter JR. Wilson, Queen, Benton... those guys didn’t show yesterday and in fact they all played pretty poorly. This is not a talent issue, it is a scheme and coaching issue.

 

Obviously... we need a new head coach, O line coach and defensive coordinator. We can agree on that.

 

This is not a Queen issue it is a schematic issue. They aren’t playing him right nor are they setting him up to succeed. Tomlin is infatuated with these small athletic linebackers but he is positioning them and asking them to play like a Thumper. You either get bigger up front and ask you Lineman to occupy multiple blockers and gap contain and run blitz or you get bigger ILB’s if your going to ask them to take on blockers.

 

Wholeheartedly.

 

Indeed it does.

 

I don't know what game it was I guess. Maybe it wasn't even football. I think I was watching the US Open. That must be it.


Queen was 2nd in tackles behind Highsmith and Wilson was 6th in tackles tied with Watt. You brought up tackles for some reason.

 

Perhaps, I am sure the tennis players you saw at the US Open were alot more physical than what I saw from our ILB’s. Just to keep you up to date, you didn’t miss much by not watching the Steeler game. Just watch anytime from the last four years and it was pretty much like those ones. At least on the defensive side of the ball.

 

Are you being serious?

 

No I was being sarcastic just like you were.

 

By the way Chuck Clark was the leading tackler. Juan Thornhill and Deshon Elliot were up there as well. When Queen did make a tackle it was five yards down field. Peyton Wilson was even worse than Queen.

 

The player stats on the NFL game site says something different apparently. But either way, it's not unusual for a Safety to lead in tackles in any game.


I still see Highsmith with 5/3 and 1sack, and Queen with 5/3 and no sacks. 1&2

 

I used NFL espy for stats. either way i think we both would agree the Line was low in tackles.

 

Everyone stop they kept running at a player that hadn't practiced since last year , and Highsmith (the most overrated D player on the team), also they will not be playing against a team that spent all year coming up with ways to beat us. It's the same reason you see teams like App ST beating Michigan, and stuff like that.
Come back later , and tell me about it. People act like this D hasn't been good in forever. Do you know what we were in D last year???
So stop crying.
I guess Ravens, and Bills D freaking suck also. I mean giving up 40 points a piece.

 

There were far more capable QBs playing in the Ravens game. Had we given up that many points to a Jackson or Allen I would maybe feel a little better. The Jets are not a good team. I'm glad we won but that defense played horribly. We get almost nothing out of our inside linebackers. Zero. That's not steeler's football. No idea what we were last year. Probably not bad. But that effort yesterday was abysmal. We'll see how the D holds up next week. But there is something wrong with this defense.

 

Some here will always defend Tomlin and this defense. you are correct - consider the opponent.

the JETS suck, they will be average AT BEST this season. it was a Tomlin-esque game yesterday, very expected - "let's get set up for a 60 yarder for Chris to bail us out". I am sure he drew that up in ...... April!

The Ravens and Bills will contest for the AFC Championship. We will not.


season is young. but LOTS of work to do - LOTS!

 

Overreaction Monday is fun.

Steelers defense was bad so it will be bad all year.

Rodgers was great, no way he can keep this up.

Did I get that right?

 

LoL. So we move the goal post to make our point??
We've kept both Qbs below 41 points before. Let's not act like we haven't.
I ask again what was our Defense ranked last year??