For the 2021 Steelers to be at their best, their defense has to be an elite unit that controls games and makes X-factor plays for decisive victories. That's only happened sporadically this season as they're 3-3 headed into the bye week.
The 2019 Steelers defense ranked sixth in allowed scoring and got better in 2020 when they ranked third in allowed scoring. But through six games, the Steelers have ranked 12th while allowing an average of 22 points per game. That's not bad, but it's also not elite.
So what's the problem that's led to this dip in play?
It's that the defense has been stretched too thin.
That's not to say it's purely on the injuries that have left the defense short-handed at different points of the season, including most recently with both Tyson Alualu and Stephon Tuitt on injured reserve. Those are problems, but the bigger problems are between the lines.
The way the Steelers are stretched too thin is based on many soft spots in their defense they have to compensate for with their biggest playmakers. That's been shown especially over the past several weeks.
Look back at how the Steelers have allowed long touchdown passes against the Raiders, Bengals and Broncos. Each time the Steelers' defense saw one of their cornerbacks beat by a deep threat receiver in either Henry Ruggs IV, Ja'Marr Chase or Courtland Sutton. In each situation, the Steelers left either James Pierre or Ahkello Witherspoon in one-on-one coverage while the rest of the defense worked on other assignments.
Here's the late touchdown bomb from Teddy Bridgewater to Sutton that beat Pierre down the sideline and got the Broncos back in the game. You can notice he didn't have any safety help on the Broncos' only legitimate deep threat with Jerry Jeudy on injured reserve:
That's how the Steelers have lived the last two years, trusting their cornerbacks to win those one-on-one matchups while allowing the defense's safeties Minkah Fitzpatrick and Terrell Edmunds to help in other areas to provide complicated coverage packages, find favorable matchups and confuse quarterbacks to help the pass rush get home.
But when big plays have now been given up several times early this season, the Steelers had to find a way to compensate for that weakness. It was a similar adjustment when the 2017 Steelers were more prone to giving up big chunk plays for touchdowns but the 2018 defense improved on limiting those plays. That next season the Steelers put a concerted effort to limit the big plays at the cost of not making as many splash plays because they were keeping the ball in front of them and not allowing offenses to get easy quick scores.
The arrival of Fitzpatrick changed the need for that as he became the final piece to the puzzle for a secondary Mike Tomlin could be confident with in Joe Haden, Steven Nelson, Mike Hilton, Edmunds and Fitzpatrick. That allowed Fitzpatrick to play more into the role that led him to be First Team All-Pro free safety in back to back seasons. This year, the Steelers have to try again to limit those big plays more and it might cost them leaving their safeties further back to provide support for their cornerbacks on deep balls.
The problem is when they're playing that far back, they can't be the supportive presence in different aspects of the defense like stopping the run, sniffing out underneath passes over the middle and keeping the defense whole. That's why Pete Carroll was reported on the NBC broadcast of the Sunday night football game that his team needed to run the ball better in the second half. He knew with Fitzpaatrick and Edmunds playing further back, Geno Smith was going to eventually end up taking a daring deep shot that could prove dangerous and fatal to the Seahawks' hopes.
The Seahawks did indeed focus on the run with Alex Collins exploding for 101 yards on 20 carries. But Carroll didn't just have Collins run the ball in any random direction. He had him attack the weakest parts of the Steelers' front, the parts that didn't have T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward and Alex Highsmith. That meant running to the gaps assigned to Isaiah Buggs, Chris Wormley and Henry Mondeaux up the middle. Watch how this 21-yard run by Collins was based off that exact plan, as Buggs was lined up at nose tackle, didn't get the center who leaked to the second level to block Joe Schobert. That beat that side of the Steelers' defense:
The Seahawks kept running to those same gaps to spark their second half success on offense.
But again, look how far back Edmunds is on that play and notice that Fitzpatrick isn't anywhere to be seen. Even if they weren't going to be the players making the tackles themselves, their support and presence would allow for the other defenders up front to be a little more aggressive knowing they had backup. It was something the Seahawks saw and exploited.
And that decision to live like that wasn't a bad one by Tomlin or Keith Butler in theory. For anyone thinking how the Steelers could be so concerned with Geno Smith, stop and think they weren't concerned with Smith as much they were with D.K. Metcalf breaking the game open. Metcalf was the undisputed top weapon for the Seahawks and the Steelers have been primarily concerned with taking top offensive threats away or at least neutralizing them as best they could.
Think about it, taking away the top option has been the focus of the defense this season. This year the Steelers allowed Stefon Diggs six catches for 69 yards, Darren Waller to five catches for 65 yards, Tyler Boyd to four catches for 36 yards, Davante Adams to six catches for 64 yards, Noah Fant to three catches for 20 yards, and most recently Metcalf to six catches for 58 yards. The only player of that group to score a touchdown was Boyd. Sure, Chase and Sutton did burn the Steelers on their big plays, but neither had been proven as the primary target of their offenses going into those games. Boyd has been the man for the Bengals for years and Fant is the first round draft pick they desperately need to emerge as a playmaker.
Stopping all those big names from breaking open their games was a concerted effort by the Steelers, but it also allowed for the opposing offenses to find other ways to win. For the Seahawks it involved running the ball away from Heyward's side. Eventually the Steelers did adjust to those efforts, making it harder on the Seahawks to run the ball.
You could still see the efforts of Heyward, Watt and Highsmith busting through to make plays like when Highsmith had this tackle for loss. The Seahawks are trying to run a zone run for Collins to cut back in hopes that Highsmith might over-pursue the play. But Highsmith was right on it for the immediate tackle:
But after a while, the Seahawks were able to pick at the Steelers' weaknesses long enough to get back into the game.
This became the dilemma for the Steelers on Sunday, as the Steelers kept coming out with their safeties playing further back and ensuring they would be in support to stop Metcalf, but not help a defensive front struggling with backups to stuff the run.
This is why they've been stretched too thin as a unit.
On one end the defense has to compensate for the cornerback giving up a big play, but then also have to find a way to support the defensive front struggling against the run. That allows offenses to pick a plan of attack to keep a defense from being truly balanced. When that starts to happen, mistakes come from other areas as well as players try to compensate for other jobs they don't see going well.
Watch this play action pass to Gerald Everett and how Joe Schobert was late to react to guarding the the tight end. You cans see the majority of the defenders up front are concerned for the run:
The Steelers did limit the Seahawks to just two touchdown drives, but it could've been worse if Watt and Heyward weren't playing superstar football.
But there are ways for the Steelers' defense to not be stretched so thin when the team returns from its bye week to play the Browns on Halloween; find an answer at either of those weaknesses that prevent you from having to overcompensate for both. If the Steelers can find ways to take away the deep ball threats or at least put themselves in favorable matchups down the field, that might allow for the rest of the defense to help more against the run. Vice-versa, if the Steelers' defensive front could improve in its gap integrity on the run, then their safeties could comfortably play back more and let the defense handle the run more.
There's potential for either of those to happen. In the secondary the Steelers could use Pierre to continue to improve or just have Cam Sutton live outside the numbers and defend the deep ball. In the defensive front, getting back Tuitt or Carlos Davis could help and it would serve the Steelers to maybe considering signing or trading for low capital to get a defensive lineman who can win at the point of attack more, keep Bush and Schobert clean.
Here's Watt's sack and forced fumble to basically close out the Seahawks game and you can notice the teamwork across the board to cover Smith's downfield threats while Watt worked against a triple-team and was still coming after Smith. Proper bracketing between the corners and safeties take away Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, forcing Smith to try to improvise before he's brought down by Watt:
That's the kind of complete defense the Steelers provided when they've been at their best.
If they can be a more consistent unit that takes away the big chunk plays and eliminates the run game being as gashing as it was from the Seahawks. But if both the deep ball and the run game are still issues in a few weeks, it could be the balancing act the Steelers can't keep up.
