The Steelers Defense Refuses to Make Any Grand Promises This Year
Among the lessons learned last season was that ‘talk is cheap.’
PHOTO BY ALYSA RUBIN/PITTSBURGH STEELERS
The Aaron Rodgers saga has ended as the Steelers intended, and as they suspected it would all along — with Rodgers signing a one-year contract worth up to $25 million with Pittsburgh to reunite with new Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy.
But with four passers now inhabiting the South Side campus, the quarterback situation continues to be an omnipresent narrative. There should be others though, with the team’s defense being perhaps the most under-analyzed among them.
That wasn’t the case as last season was set to unfold.
Last August, safety Juan Thornhill maintained the Steelers’ defense was positioned to become “one of the best of all time.” Then-head coach Mike Tomlin subsequently doubled down on that when he revealed his expectation for the defense to do “historic” things in 2025.
We all know how that turned out. They did not achieve those goals, and Thornhill and Tomlin are both no longer around.
Someone who is still around is safety DeShon Elliott.
Elliott only appeared in five games last season before suffering an injury that required surgery in one of the meltdowns that helped define the Steelers’ 2025 defense, a come-from-ahead loss to Green Bay on Oct. 26.
The defense ceded 454 total net yards in that one, including 360 passing, as a 16-7 halftime lead turned into a 35-25, head-scratching defeat.
Even Elliott had gotten caught up in the early-season bravado prior to that, having suggested following a 24-21 win over Minnesota on Sept. 28 in Ireland that the Steelers’ defense had the makings of what could be “one of the best defenses in the league.”
Shortly after that, the Steelers surrendered 470 yards in Cincinnati, including an eight-play, 52-yard drive for the game-winning field goal with seven seconds left in regulation.
THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS FACE THE RAVENS IN BALTIMORE ON JAN. 9, 2022. PHOTO BY JARED WICKERHAM | PITTSBURGH STEELERS
Then Green Bay happened. And then Buffalo ran for 249 yards, held the ball for 41:59 and steamrolled the Steelers, 26-7, on Nov. 30 at Acrisure Stadium.
It eventually ended with fourth-round rookie Woody Marks accounting for 112 of Houston’s 164 rushing yards in an all-too-familiar, 30-6 postseason exit in January at Acrisure. The defense was finally finished failing to live up to expectations, particularly its own.
“I would think with the talent we had last year we could have been a lot better, obviously,” Elliott acknowledged last week.
Much has changed since then, including, as it turns out, the need for the defense to announce how good it intends to be before the fact.
“I think I did that last year, that wasn’t good,” Elliott said with a chuckle.
Not that the Steelers’ defense won’t have intentions and aspirations this season — far from it. There also isn’t reason to believe the defense will be capable of a much-needed rebound. It remains a talented, and highly-compensated, collective.
It’ll be coordinated this time by Patrick Graham, who has announced there’s no “book” on how he likes to call a game and see defensive football played because he prefers to allow those things to evolve based on the individual capabilities of his players.
“Just play together, man, play together,” is how Elliott assessed what he suspects might be the most difference-making change in approach, “and play to your players’ strengths, which I think we’ll be doing that this year.”
The obvious inference was they didn’t a season ago.
Perhaps Graham deciding not to try to re-invent the defensive wheel or adhere to a preferred signature scheme for scheme’s sake will allow the Steelers defense to finally achieve the consistency it has lacked while admittedly underachieving.
Elliott is among the optimistic in looking ahead to the season, but not too far ahead.
“We will be a lot better on defense this year,” was as far as he was willing to go in terms of declarations or predictions.
Better to be that first, then let the rankings, accolades and historical comparisons take care of themselves for a change.
