Where has the Steelers’ defensive identity gone?

The Steelers have been all about defense since the early 1970s. What on earth has happened?

In Week 12, the Steelers were completely embarrassed by the Bengals, 41-10, in a game in which Cincinnati running back Joe Mixon traveled 165 yards and scored two touchdowns on 28 carries. Mixon gained 117 yards in the first half alone, and that marked the first time in Mike Tomlin’s 235-game stretch as Pittsburgh’s head coach that his team allowed 100 rushing yards in a first half.

Tomlin has been the Steelers’ head coach since 2007, so it’s a fairly noticeable end to a streak. What’s even more noticeable is that it took less than two weeks for it to happen again. Vikings running back Dalvin Cook absolutely eviscerated Pittsburgh’s defense in the first half on Thursday night, gaining 153 yards and scoring two touchdowns on just 15 carries, as Minnesota ran out to a 23-0 halftime lead. The Vikings gained 300 yards and amassed 15 first downs on 37 offensive plays, and had Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson not misfired on a couple of deep passes, the damage could have been even worse.

Per ESPN Stats & Info, the Vikings were averaging 11.8 yards BEFORE contact per run, which is… not good from a defensive standpoint. Cook, who was highly questionable to even play in this game due to a shoulder injury, had five carries of 15 or more yards. To put that into perspective, Jonathan Taylor of the Colts led the league with 17 carries of 15+ yards. Cook, who had 12 such carries this season, tied Taylor for the NFL lead… in one half of football.

The Steelers have enjoyed a rare and very long stretch in which their defensive identity has been above reproach for a number of NFL eras. There was, of course, the Steel Curtain of the 1970s. There were the Blitzburgh crews in the 1990s. There were the tough and wicked-smart defenses early in Tomlin’s tenure, and there have been the sack-happy defenses of the last few seasons. The 2020 Steelers finished first overall in Defensive DVOA; the 2021 version had plummeted to 27th before this Thursday night debacle.

This is still a defense with T.J. Watt, Cameron Heyward, and Minkah Fitzpatrick among its stars (though Watt was lost in the first half against the Vikings with a groin injury), and though lesser-known names like defensive backs Mike Hilton and Steven Nelson and edge-rusher Bud Dupree were lost in the offseason, and super-tackle Stephon Tuitt has been out all season with injuries, there’s still enough talent on the field to be better than this. Former Steelers have been less than subtle about their displeasure, and the extent to which Cook was able to slice through this defense made even the Mixon game look acceptable — which, of course, it wasn’t. Watt and cornerback Joe Haden have also missed time this season, which gives Tomlin and his crew some level of play, though they’re not looking for it.

Now, it’s just about fixing defensive disasters like this.

When you get smoked in-game by the opposing team’s Twitter account, that is a problem.

After the Bengals game, Tomlin was quite pointed about the need to get back on track.

“Like I said after the game, and I still feel this way, we just stunk the place up,” he said as the Steelers were preparing for their Week 13 matchup with the Ravens. “When you play the way that we played and the score is as lopsided as it is, that’s just the reality of it. We didn’t coach well enough, we didn’t play well enough, and you don’t get that stench off you in a number of days. It’ll be some time as we work our way back to respectability, and we understand that it’s gonna require good days; good focused days, good decision-making, good strategy, good play. We’re excited about that process, that element of it. I think, in order to start moving on from it—and notice I said “moving on from it,” because the times I’ve been involved in games like that, I don’t know that you get over it. I think you move on from it. I think you carry those lessons learned and I think, if you’re smart, you carry them in an appropriate way. It’s a catalyst for action, for thoughtful action, and I know it’s going to be for us, whether it’s strategic or whether it’s personnel-based. 

“We’ve got to comb through it. We’ve got to ask the critical questions: why? We’ve done that. We’ll continue to do that as we shape our next plan and make critical decisions regarding our next plan: the schematics that we choose to employ, the personnel that we choose to highlight or emphasize or de-emphasize. I think all of those variables are debatable at this juncture because what you can’t do is continue to do the things that you’ve been doing and expect a different result. We’re open to some schematic changes. We’re open to some personnel changes, obviously. They won’t be drastic in nature, probably more subtle in nature, but hopefully significant. Significant in a positive way.”

Pittsburgh’s defense was more aggressive in a positive way against Lamar Jackson and his teammates to the tune of a close 20-19 win, but it could be argued that whatever juice this defense showed in that game, none of it traveled to Minnesota.

“Well, yeah. It dadgum pisses me off too,” defensive coordinator Keity Butler recently said about a run defense that has obviously lost its way of late. “Yeah. I only look at it if we’re in the top 10. Otherwise, I say, “Later for that crap.” No, I’m not happy about it. I’m not happy about it. Anybody that’s a competitor is not happy about being where we are against the run and stuff like that. Yeah. I wanna do better. Everybody wants to do better. All of us want to do better.”

Wanting to do better is one thing. Doing better is quite another. Showing up for your second game in three with no trace of an identity your franchise has carried, for the most part, since the early 1970s? Well, that’s a much larger issue.