What are your expectations this year for the Steelers defense?

Graphically what you are describing for all 32 defenses. It is interesting that SEA faced a lot of 3rd & 4th downs but was really good at stopping them. Same with Texans.

The next layer down in the analysis would be what was the average yds to go on those downs?

 

Depending on coaching strategy, we can only hope that players can step up and
understand their responsibilities better than in the past. Must be able to stop the run a whole lot better
NT and ILB must do better than what we have seen in past.

 

Saw where Arkansas leads the nation in Farm Bankruptcies. That's gotta suck. Good thing you are a welder and guitarist.

 

This is great! Thanks.

Looks like I was wrong at us being bottom 3. 4th worst!!!

Again, this seems like the lowest hanging fruit for the new staff to try to fix. Particularly since we were good at stopping 3rd down conversions in 2024 (I didn't look at 4th down).

I agree re: SEA. You'd generally think that being able to stop 3rd + 4th down conversions would mean you'd see less of them. My guess is that this is where we were in the Kenny/Canada years. Good at getting of the field, but seeing lots of 3rd+4th because our offense was awesome at getting off the field . But the Seahawks were good, so I don't get why they also see this trend.

 

I would care about it less if we were around average instead of terrible in yards allowed.

If we were average in yards given up (because we sucked at getting off the field), this could have been a very good defense again.

I don't see how STD can't see the correlation between being terrible at getting off the field (which he apparently doesn't care about) and points allowed (which he lists first in things he cares about).

Seems painfully obvious that if we moved from bottom feeder to somewhere around the median in being able to end opposing team's drives, we'd allow less points.

Then we would have seen more of a benefit from all the turnovers we got. So we could have been above average in points allowed instead of basically average (median).

 

I am having a hard time buying the better coaching narrative that is being spun on this and other Steelers fan comment sites.

By far the most well regarded coach on the Steelers last several defensive staffs was the DB coach that left. As fans, we can see players that progressed and developed under his tutelage. From my seat on my couch, the group on defense that seems to be consistently the most adrift is the ILB room. That was the only holdover coach from the Tomlin era. The guy that helmed whatever it is that Queen has been doing and Payton Wilson's clear regression.

And, while I grant that we have no idea what Graham is going to do as a coach, he is not some NFL newbie. The man has a consistent track record of NFL mediocrity. I can only hope that it has been a roster issue rather than a coaching issue in his multiple previous stops.

I will try to stay positive throughout the summer....but I do not see the reasons for optimism on the defensive side of the ball. I can understand the excited anticipation for "different" but I am not seeing a case for the assumption of "better".

 

I donate my excess land for use to the next door dairy farm just as a small attempt to help keep them in business

I look at it as free landscaping in good faith I could not let them pay me

 

Looking at the stats....Steelers faced a load of third downs, allowed a high % of conversions, but only gave up a middle of the road amount of points overall and points per drive.

They must have been forcing long drives?

 

Key guys on defense are getting old (TJ and Cam) so the young guys Sawyer, Herbig, DB’s are going to have to step up. Overall i expect the D to be about the same or maybe a little worse than last year (i hope im wrong and Graham can make a difference).

to compensate i expect the Offense to be better.

 

Yes

 

That's the way the nation wants it to be. I can tell You a little something without getting too deep into all of it, but do you know the government has actually paid farmers for not planting a certain amount of crops. Now this doesn't count for little couple of 100 acres guys, but for farms that plant 1000s, and 1000s of acres of stuff. Crazy isn't it. Now think of why they do this, and it has been going on I know since the 70s, maybe longer, but I wasn't around farming before that.

 

I think this is probably true.

IIRC, we have been pretty good at limiting explosive plays recently. I had thought that Minkah was a big part of that (especially since we played a lot more single high than other teams).

I don't know the number, but I bet you're right re: long drives.

Being very good at forcing turnovers should also keep points down IMO.

 

You know how You see benefits from turnovers. The offense actually not going 3, and out when you give them the ball.
I keep hearing about getting off the field on 3rd downs, but nobody is adding the turnovers to that.
Example let's say a team is 5th in the league at getting off the field on 3rd down, but gets no turnovers. Now another team is 10th in the league in getting off the field on 3rd down, but is excellent in turnovers, then you have to add the turnovers to that.
It is no mistake that all of the teams in the top7 of turnovers made the playoffs, but only 3 of the top 5 in yards made the playoffs, and before anyone says turnovers are luck, then apparently our team is mostly lucky then, year in, and year out. LoL.
Points, Turnovers, and sacks. 3rd downs can be seriously misleading. You can give up many 3rd downs on a drive, you can give up many yards on a drive, and still give up no points, and or only 3 points. 3rd downs, and yards do not equal tds. Guess what, no matter when Yoi get a turnover, You automatically give it back to the Offense. Actually think about it.

 

Those governors eat tons of feed

LOL

 

Again...in general I agree with you that impact plays like turnovers usually decide the fate of games. But that's only true because most games are close. When you can't make the other team punt, games are much less likely to be close. So those impact plays are less likely to matter. If we were around average in 3rd downs conversion rate, 4th down conversion rate, or yards allowed I would agree with everything you say here.

But we were so bad in those categories (bottom 5 in the league in all three I think) that we were actually just below average in points allowed even though we were excellent in forcing turnovers.

Again...you keep trying to blame the offense for not staying on the field. But we were right around the median here. This wasn't the Canada / Kenny offense. Still below average, but not terrible.

How many of the playoff teams were bottom 10 in yards allowed? 2 (us and the Bears). And we only made it because two of the teams in the division lost their all-star QBs for significant stretches. I agree that turnovers are very important. Being average at giving up yards is OK if you're doing other things well (e.g. turnovers, sacks, etc). But being terrible at yards allowed is generally not OK.

 

Our ILBs leave a lot to be desired. Also, we don't have a legit NT. They are serviceable, but not what I call a Steed or Hampton type. The secondary looks average to slightly above. I don't expect much. I am hoping Graham can do something, but he has a track record of mediocrity.

The Steelers' 2025 defense ranked 26th in the NFL for third-down conversion percentage allowed. They were also ranked 20th for rushing yards allowed per game. They were ranked 18th for yards per carry allowed at 4.3 YPC. Among other things, the Steelers did have a good red zone defense, but unfortunately they allowed teams in the red zone slightly more than the NFL average. The Pittsburgh Steelers' defense struggled significantly with allowing big plays, finishing near the bottom of the league in several explosive-play categories. The Pittsburgh Steelers' defense allowed a total of 73 plays of 20 or more yards(25th in NFL).

They did well in sacks, but were in the middle of the league in hurries.

While the Steelers were not the worst defense last season, they do have a lot of room for improvement.

Hoping for the best.

 

Yards, and 3rd downs do not equal points.
You do know it's possible to give up 90 yards a drive, and 3rd downs all the way, and still not allow points, and only 3 at the most. That's why I don't care.
While turnovers no matter when done automatically give the offense the ball back.
Also You keep telling me that it wasn't the Offense fault, tell me why did we lose the playoff game??
Was it because our D held them to 7 points into the 4th quarter no matter the yards given up, or 3rd downs given up, or because our offense couldn't convert 3rd downs, and fumbled for a td, and threw a pick 6??

 

But in this case, it's pretty clear that this was the worst thing about the defense.

And it's the reason we were (slightly) below average in points allowed despite being so good at turning the ball over.

A 4th down stop also automatically gives the ball back. Sadly, for us 3rd down stops often led to 4th down failures. As shown above, we were very bad on 4th down. Even worse than we were on 3rd down I think.

I 100% agree that the defense played well enough to win the our playoff game. And that the offense was more to blame for the loss than the D. This might not be the conclusion someone would reach just by looking at the score, but almost half of Houston's points came when our D was on the sideline. It's really, really hard to win a game when your offense scores more points for the wrong team than the right team (even if we don't count the 2nd garbage time DTD). But "why did we lose in the playoff game against the Texans" isn't the same question as "how do we think our defense will rank next year" or "what do we think we need to improve on to get a better ranking on defense next year".

ETA: It doesn't really matter for this conversation because we still lost because of the O, but the D gave up a FG and a TD (10 points) in the 4th Q of that game not 7.

That's on top of the two DTDs HOU got in the 4th. HOU scored 23 points in that Q...they missed the XP on the 2nd DTD.

• Houston had 2 4th Q drives
• 7 plays 45 yards FG [drive started with 3:22 in the 3rd. Ended with 13:07 in the 4th 5:15]
• 11 plays 87 yards TD [went from 9:29 to 3:38...5:51 minutes if I did the math right]

Those two drives took up a total of 11:06 of the final 16:38 minutes. This is an excellent illustration of why not being able to get off the field is bad. I get that ToP isn't points, but again it takes opportunities away from the offense.

Even if we don't count the 3:38 ToP Hou had in the 3rd on that drive, they (7:28) almost had the ball as long as we (7:32) did even though their D scored twice (taking 2 possessions away from their offense)! This quarter in particular is an example of our defense not being able to get off the field AND our offense not being able to stay on it.
While the O lost the game for us, I wouldn't be using the 4th Q as an example of good defense. Houston had two drives in the 4th Q and they scored 10 points. They gave up 132 yards on 18 plays (7.3 Y/play) on those two drives. The D played poorly at the end of the game.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/playbyplay/_/gameId/401772976

 

Allowing yards between the 30s is one thing. Stack up the yards, don't care. But once in scoring position they got to stop them.

 

Exactly, and I believe we were top 5 in redzone D.
What I'm trying to get at is a D that is top 6 in Sacks, 4th inTurnovers, and 5th in redzone D is far from the reason you are losing.