The Pittsburgh Steelers have been trying to fix their secondary issues for a couple of years. They tried to pair veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson with a rookie in Joey Porter Jr. in 2023, but that did not work out. This offseason, they added two new corners to the mix in Darius Slay and Jalen Ramsey.
And with those additions, the Steelers thought they were going to be able to do something different with their coverages. They thought they had the players to match up with teams like the Cincinnati Bengals. Unfortunately for the Steelers, things haven’t gone to plan over the last two weeks. They gave up 238 passing yards to the Bengals two games ago. Sunday night they allowed the Green Bay Packers and QB Jordan Love to throw for 360 yards.
Insider Ray Fittipaldo thinks the Steelers have to switch things up. Otherwise, this two-game losing streak is going to be more than just a blip in the season.
“The talk over the summer was the Steelers have personnel now to play man-to-man, they’re not going to have to trick teams anymore,” Fittipaldo said Monday on the North Shore Drive podcast. “They’re not going to have to do those disguises to win football games. The whole thing about we’re going to man teams up, we’re going to do this, that’s over. You got to go to Plan B, and you’ve got to try to devise something here for the second half of the season to save your season.”
Through the first seven games of the season, the Steelers’ most commonly used coverage was Cover 1 man. That’s man coverage with a single-high safety. Not only was Cover 1 man their most-used coverage, but they also used it at the sixth-highest rate among all NFL teams.
Team coverage rates through Week 7
Via @FantasyPtsData pic.twitter.com/st3bFbFGhV
— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) October 21, 2025
And the Steelers have paid for it. They’ve given up the fourth-most passing yards in the league. Per Pro Football Reference, the Steelers allow 11.1 yards per catch. That’s tied for the eighth-most in the league with the New York Jets. The pass defense has been atrocious, and the Steelers’ inability to play man coverage at even an adequate level is a major part of that.
So, what do the Steelers do? Head coach Mike Tomlin attributed the defense’s failures against the Bengals to the run defense struggling. But that wasn’t the case Sunday night. The Packers only ran for 94 yards. They didn’t gash the Steelers the way the Bengals did.
No, the Packers and Love simply threw the ball all over the Steelers’ pass defense. The Packers made it painfully obvious that the Steelers’ defense is completely flawed and will continue to be so, unless the Steelers do something about it.
Tomlin said he’s open to everything from personnel to scheme changes to fix the pass defense. And Fittipaldo believes that the Steelers need to change their coverage scheme to have any chance at making 2025 a successful season.
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