CHICAGO -- The Steelers' defense came into this game knowing it had one primary objective: to limit a Bears' offense that averaged just 12 points per game before they met. They did not accomplish that as the Bears beat the Steelers 23-17 in overtime with 220 rushing yards.
The Bears' season leader in receptions before and after the game was their rookie running back, Tarik Cohen, who had 103 all-purpose yards in the game.
Which means the Steelers had to know the Bears would look to those running backs, either in the running game or in the passing game, to win. We look into the particulars of what breakdowns happened to allow those backs to succeed:
The Bears' offense really didn't have a sophisticated approach as to how it planned to beat the Steelers.
Either they would run a wide stretch to the left, or they would run a wide stretch to the right.
From the Bears' 35 rushing attempts with their running backs, Cohen and Jordan Howard, 24 of them were either aimed at the tackle or around the end of the offensive line. Those runs gained 156 yards on the day, an average of 6.5 per attempt.
The clinching touchdown was but a symptom of what had been happening all game. The Bears' offensive linemen got off the ball and gave their running back a clean isolated look, one-on-one with a Steelers' defender at the second level.
On the last play, that defender was Ryan Shazier, and he just ran a little too far inside to be able to recover on Howard's one-cut move back outside the tackle:
But that pursuit cannot be placed solely on Shazier, because if you look closely at the interior of the line you can see there is a huge gap between Cam Heyward and Javon Hargrave in the middle of the defense. The other gap, between Heyward and Anthony Chickillo, was the one Howard would hit to score.
If Shazier doesn't attack the interior gap, Howard probably hits that for some serious yardage as well. It looked like Heyward was not able to cross the face of Bears' left tackle Charles Leno Jr. convincingly enough to let Shazier believe he had the gap.
But look even closer at the play and you can see that Heyward's inside arm (left) is free while his outside arm (right) is engaged with Leno Jr. That shows me that Heyward was pushing to close down his responsibility of B-gap (between guard and tackle), but Shazier only saw the space open and abandoned what was likely his responsibility of C-gap (outside the tackle) in order to provide help to Heyward.
When it came to the Steelers' defensive captain, Heyward, he took blame while also giving respect to the Bears' running backs.
"They have two different runners and they both did a hell of a job," Heyward said after the game.
"We have to get better at tackling. I missed some tackles, but I plan on learning from this."
Heyward said he would have to look at the game film to determine whether or not communication breakdowns or missed gap assignments played more of a role, or if it was more that the defense knew its job and just didn't get the job done most of the day.
When I asked Shazier about what they planned on doing before the game, he confirmed that the Bears really didn't do anything that wasn't expected of them.
"We had an idea of what they were going to do this game, but honestly we just didn't do a good enough job of what we need to do," Shazier explained after the game.
"I know myself, personally, there were a bunch of mental one-on-one battles I should have won and a bunch of tackles I felt like I missed. We just need to win as a team in those battles that we have."
When I asked about communication breakdowns or about the specific mental mistakes, Shazier refused to point fingers and felt like his teammates on defense had a general understanding of where to be during most of the plays.
"I have to go back and look at the film, but nobody came to me and said 'hey, I got the wrong call,' or 'hey, I'm in the wrong position.' They just out-executed us today."
One of those missed tackles came on a play where Shazier, once again, sniffed out exactly what was happening and shot through the Bears' offensive line like lightning, only to miss the tackle:
Credit must be given to Cohen for his beautifully timed juke out of Shazier's way, as the man who was called "the human joystick" at North Carolina A&T cutback against the defense to beat both Heyward and Joe Haden on the backside of the defense.
That run might be the best representation for how the Steelers' run defense played against the Bears. In position to make the play, but just missing by a small margin on multiple shots.
Despite the big yards surrendered and the mental mistakes Shazier might have made, he was still the playmaker the Steelers drafted him to be, as he forced two second half fumbles and recovered one of them. The fumble he recovered set up the Steelers' offense for their only touchdown in the second half.
The fumble that he recovered was Shazier at his best. He read the play, took on the Bears' fullback, Michael Burton, in the backfield and managed to plow through the block so that he could wrap up Howard and proceed to strip the ball:
Heyward also does a great job on this play, closing down on Howard to help Shazier lock the play down when the tight end, Dion Sims, gives him a free pass into the backfield.
For the most part, the Steelers were able to control runs to the interior of the Bears' offensive line, where they were missing their starting right guard in Josh Sitton and became even more shorthanded when Hroniss Grasu got hurt later in the game.
While the Bears had an average of roughly 5.5 yards per carry with their interior runs, more than half of that total came from Cohen's lone carry in overtime that gained 36 yards. Prior to that play, the Steelers had only surrendered 24 yards on 10 carries for interior runs, a much more acceptable total.
While it may seem too forgiving to minimize the importance of Cohen's 36-yard run in overtime, what hurt the Steelers more was the consistency the Bears' offense had at running the ball to the outside. In the first half, those outside runs went for 92 yards on 13 carries.
The last run was right before the Bears would use play-action to set up their second touchdown of the game.
When the Bears got into the red zone, the Steelers brought in reserve linebackers in Tyler Matakevich and L.J. Fort on the right side of their defense to get fresh legs against the run.
Both the newly-added players bit hard on the play action by Mike Glennon, leaving tight end Adam Shaheen wide open in the end zone for a touchdown:
When you give up big run after big run, each player on the defense starts to feel those yards and tries to overcompensate in order to stop the bleeding. So it was perfectly natural when two backups on the same side of the field rushed up and abandoned their zone coverage responsibilities in the end zone.
Despite all these problems, Glennon only completed one pass to a wide receiver all game. That's the same number of passes that was caught by the Steelers' defense thanks to J.J. Wilcox's interception.
Glennon finished with a pedestrian 101 yards with 15 completions on 22 attempts, a touchdown and an interception. This is the second consecutive victory he has had over the Steelers, with the other being when he led the Buccaneers on a touchdown drive to win at Heinz Field back in September of 2014.
However Glennon's success today should be looked at as more of a coincidence rather than a stellar performance. Most of his passes came from checking the ball down to his running backs, who collectively gained 73 of Glennon's 101 passing yards.
In fact, Glennon only targeted his receivers with six passes in the entire game. Only one of which was completed and it gained nine yards.
So for once, the Steelers' pass coverage and keeping fast receivers from getting behind them was not the reason for the team's failure, but rather in front of them where the defensive front had only allowed a 74 yards-per-game average through their first two victories and gave up over 200 yards in the loss.
Despite all this, the defense did not lose this game by themselves. 10 of the 17 points the Bears scored in regulation came from first half special teams turnovers that gave Chicago excellent field position. One was the muffed punt by Eli Rogers and the other the blocked field goal at the end of the half.
That means that despite all the yards surrendered, the defense only allowed one real touchdown drive during all of regulation and shut out the Bears' offense in the second half.
So with that, there is still explaining to do for the Steelers' offense.
OTHER GAME NOTES
- Ben Roethlisberger's stats won't show it, but the Steelers' franchise quarterback let his team down in a number of ways. Particularly when the defense managed to give his offense the ball back with an interception deep in Bears' territory, as well as forcing two punts in the fourth quarter. If the Steelers score a touchdown on any of those three drives, they win the game.
- Le'Veon Bell did not have the huge day that I expected, with only 61 yards on the ground and 37 through the air. His red zone drop in the fourth quarter came on a play with a blocker in front of him. If he catches that ball, he might score and also win the game.
