Over the past five seasons, we’ve seen several Steelers teams limp into the playoffs with a struggling offense and a defense that carried the load. But during the five-game losing streak to end the 2024 season, the Steelers looked truly lost on defense. During that stretch, some of their stars in T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick were held quiet.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ray Fittipaldo thinks the Steelers aren’t getting creative enough with their star players on defense.
“I look at Minkah [Fitzpatrick] much in the same way I look at T.J. Watt,” Fittipaldo said Monday on The North Shore Drive Podcast. “In T.J.’s case, they’ve got to be able to move him around. Flip-flop him from left to right, get better matchups for him, so he could be a more impactful player. I think Minkah, the Steelers have to do the same for him. You can’t just sit him back there and have him be your last line of defense… They’re very comfortable in their roles… To me, the coaches have to not only be creative this offseason, but they got to be those motivators.”
The Steelers suffered from errors all across their defense toward the end of last season. They absolutely could not stop the run, culminating in an embarrassing loss to the Baltimore Ravens in the Wild Card round.
However, the Steelers have usually been able to get by thanks their star players creating turnovers or making massive plays. Two of their biggest leaders on defense, Watt and Fitzpatrick, simply weren’t able to make that happen down the stretch.
For Watt, the problem stems from being too predictable, as Fittipaldo alludes to. He’s been stationary on Pittsburgh’s defensive line, which allows teams to chip him relentlessly and take him out of the game in general. It’s never easy to contain Watt, but with him being so predictable in alignment, it’s certainly not as hard as it could be.
Watt has expressed an openness to this idea, which is encouraging. He understands more than anybody how difficult it is to do his job when he’s being chipped and getting extra attention every play. Granted, that extra attention will probably never go away. But by rotating him on the defensive line and making offenses have to guess what he’ll do, it could increase his production going forward.
As for Fitzpatrick, he’s also an interesting case. There’s been a ton of turnover in the Steelers’ secondary in recent years. With that in mind, Fitzpatrick has been forced into more of a stationary, center field type of role. He’s not making any splash plays, and teams are generally throwing the ball in his direction less than before.
With all that said, the Steelers do face a grim reality. Both Watt and Fitzpatrick are around the age of 30. At some point, their physical regression is going to start taking shape, and they just won’t be as impactful. Pittsburgh needs to take advantage of the window in which they have these two stars still near their primes. However, neither were good enough for the Steelers to have any shot at contention in 2024. For things to change this year, there will need to be some adjustments.
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