Behind the Steel Curtain
Well, that was a football game that happened. The Steelers lost 26-7 to a banged up Buffalo Bills team Sunday afternoon, falling to 6-6 on the season. As always, there are takeaways to be had:
Sunday’s loss was one of the most painful, hard-to-watch games I’ve ever seen from Pittsburgh. And I’ve written about this team for years now and have seen some real stinkers in recent seasons.
The run defense has been the central narrative, with the Steelers giving up a whopping 249 yards — the most they’ve allowed at home since 1975 — including 4.9 yards per carry. The Buffalo passing offense wasn’t firing on all cylinders most of the afternoon, but it didn’t really matter. What the Bills wanted on the ground, they got.
Pittsburgh was down Derrick Harmon during the game and his absence was clearly missed (that first round pick continues to look like the right one) but the Steelers still had plenty of experience and talent on the front seven. T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, Nick Herbig, Cam Heyward, Patrick Queen, Keeanu Benton, Payton Wilson — and yet they continually lost at the line of scrimmage.
Sure, the Bills have the best rushing offense in football right now. But they were also down their top two offensive tackles. This wasn’t some impossible assignment for the Pittsburgh defense.
It wasn’t exactly some futuristic schematics from the Buffalo ground game, either. Just simple concepts spammed over and over again, the Steelers failing to contain it, and James Cook bouncing each one outside for a chunk gain.
Watt said as much after the game, admitting he had “never seen” a team run the same play so many times.
And Watt, despite being the third-highest paid defender in the NFL in average per year, was part of the problem. Most of the time when the Bills ran successfully at the edge of the defense, it was on Watt’s side.
Reviewing the tape, if you dare, will reveal more of the problems. Some of it was clearly scheme, as the Steelers were presented with the same look over and over again and didn’t adjust to stop it. But some of it was as simple as players not winning their assignments.
On first watch, it looked like a brutal game for Yahya Black and Patrick Queen. And in NFL run defense where the margins for error are razor thin, a few bad performances can completely ruin an entire unit.
However, the Pittsburgh offense hasn’t been getting enough blame for the loss, either. While the defense had some truly pathetic moments, it still only gave up 19 points to one of the league’s most dangerous offenses. The Steelers’ offense, on the other hand, could only muster seven in what could’ve been a favorable matchup against the NFL’s third-worst run defense.
Instead, they looked the worst they have all season. Pittsburgh managed just 58 yards on the ground with 3.2 yards per rush. While some things worked,...
