The Steelers assembled a secondary this offseason featuring some of the greatest cornerbacks of this generation, and they failed the test. They signed Darius Slay and traded for Jalen Ramsey, believing they could match up with Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. The preponderance of the evidence so far suggests they can’t, and another great from the secondary ranks, Richard Sherman, doesn’t have the solution.
The Steelers, said Richard Sherman, “spent a lot of time, money, and effort on their secondary this year for this team, specifically for this divisional opponent. These two receivers, and Joe Burrow, and what they could do”.
“In the secondary, you paid Jalen Ramsey to come over here and deal with Ja’Marr Chase. You bring Darius Slay over to deal with him. Joey Porter deal with Tee Higgins”, he added of the Steelers’ secondary. “They’re built to deal with this team, and they just couldn’t. They had no answers for them”.
For just the second game all season, the Steelers had their entire secondary intact. They had Ramsey, Slay, and Porter out there with DeShon Elliott and their revolving cast at safety. Joe Flacco threw for 342 yards and Ja’Marr Chase set franchise records along the way. So what are they to do now?
“To deal with a quarterback that’s come in for 10 days and have him throw for 342 and three touchdowns, no interceptions, it’s really unacceptable”, Sherman said, blasting the Steelers’ secondary. “I know they’re gonna take a hard look at this take and try to come up with answers, but I don’t know what they are”.
One hopes this is the nadir of the Steelers’ season, and frankly, it should be. A division opponent on the road on a short week with some unpredictability with changing components in short order. If that doesn’t sufficiently explain why the Steelers’ bespoke secondary looked so bad, they’re in trouble.
Because it is, quite frankly, embarrassing. The Steelers literally said before the game that they built this secondary for Chase and Higgins. The Bengals didn’t even have Joe Burrow, and Chase and Higgins still torched Jalen Ramsey and company. What do you even do after that?
The only thing you can do, of course, which is the move on and try to be better. The Steelers should, in theory, be able to play better than they did the next time around. I mean, Chase wasn’t setting records against less talented secondaries the Steelers have had in the past, after all. Ramsey and Slay and Porter are still competent, at a minimum. But their egos have to be bruised right now after all the talk that couldn’t walk.
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