This time last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers struggled to stop a historically bad Cincinnati Bengals rushing attack. In the Thursday Night Football loss, they allowed the Bengals to run for 142 yards on 23 carries, a robust 6.2 yards per tote.
That performance by the Steelers’ defense left team captain and standout defensive lineman Cameron Heyward furious after the loss. A few days later on his podcast he continued to talk about how frustrated he was with the run defense as a unit, stating guys were out of gaps and not playing as a unit.
Heyward doubled down on that Thursday during his session with the media.
“Any guy can want to make a play. Sometimes you gotta temper that, just buy in,” Heyward said of the run defense issues, according to video via Steelers.com. “This defense has always been about just 11 doing their jobs, and we just gotta get back to that. It’s not old guy versus young guy.
“It’s just everybody’s got buy him.”
When the Steelers’ defense is at its best, guys are doing their jobs properly on each and every snap. If a rep calls for you to tie up blockers and maintain a gap, you have to do that. If it calls for penetrating and trying to make a play, go for it. When the Steelers have struggled against the run early in the season it has been a case of trying to do too much.
Guys get out of gaps hunting for plays, and a block here and a block there, you have a crease, and the running back is off to the races. That’s what happened last Thursday night against the Bengals, leading to a huge performance from running back Chase Brown.
“Sometimes we just, we wanna make the play so bad that sometimes we get out of our gaps, and it makes the defense susceptible,” Heyward said. “Our tackling has gotta be a lot better, but hopefully we can learn from it. Good teach tape and move on.”
The Steelers had better move on quickly as the Green Bay Packers come to town for a Week 8 Sunday Night Football matchup sporting an offense that is churning out 117.5 rushing yards per game behind star running back Josh Jacobs. The Packers have an underrated offensive line, and Jacobs is a workhorse.
Head coach Mike Tomlin called Jacobs a “nuts and bolts” running back who does it all for the Packers earlier this week, and the film lines up with that. Jacobs is a load and gets better and better as the game goes on. He’ll be a significant challenge for Pittsburgh.
The Steelers know that, and the players seems to understand that if they want a shot at rushing the passer, they have to stop the run. They have the talent to do it; it’s just about executing it now.
“I’m not just gonna crap on the team and say, ‘Oh, we’re feeling sorry for ourselves, so we’re not able to do it.’ No, I think we have the guys capable to do it,” Heyward said. “We got a lot of ball to play, and I just think we gotta learn from our mistakes. We still got a lot of ball to play and no one said it’s gonna be easy.
“We just gotta pick our game up.”
Picking their game up starts Sunday night in a marquee matchup. Talk is cheap, though, and the Steelers’ defense has done a lot of talking recently. It’s time to starts seeing some results; consistent ones, preferably.
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