Steelers Now
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin believes the biggest key to Monday night’s AFC Wild Card game against the Houston Texans will come in the trenches.
“I just think for us – and it’s not specifically about this night, but it’s about how we’re constructed – we’ve got to win games inside and up front on both sides of the ball,” Tomlin said in a one-on-one interview with Bob Labriola of Steelers.com. “We’ve invested a lot there. We’ve got quality players in our interior offensive line, and we’ve invested a lot and drafted guys and developed them, and it’s the same thing on the defensive line. And there aren’t stats for that. You can’t look at targets and tackles and things of that nature. But at the very infancy of this journey, when we put together our 53-man roster, you and I talked about how we constructed that roster, and I said when in doubt, we kept extra bigs. We kept extra bigs in the offensive line
“We kept extra bigs in the defensive line, because we realized that in terms of a mode of operation, in terms of a formula, it would be significant for us. And it certainly has been. We’ve dealt with some attrition on both sides of the ball. We kept Andrus Peat, who hadn’t been exposed to us long, and that ended up being beneficial to us. And we kept Dylan Cook on the practice squad, and he was in the program and we were able to elevate him when we needed him.
“And certainly, when you look at the defensive line and you think about the guys who are not playing for us this weekend, guys like Dean Lowry and (Isaiahh) Loudermilk and Dan (Ekuale), we fortified ourselves. And not only invested in terms of the acquisition of people, but even at the 11th hour when we were determining the 53-man roster, we kept additional people. There’s a scarcity of big bodies on the planet. That’s a component of football that we value, and we thought that we had an opportunity to distinguish ourselves. And so I’m not going to change my tune now. We’re on that hill, and we’re going to live on that hill.”
The Steelers’ defense has recorded 48 sacks this year, sixth-most in the NFL. The Texans’ offensive line will have to deal with the Steelers’ trio of edge rushers in T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig. The Steelers are also pretty stout in the interior with All-Pro Cam Heyward, Keeanu Benton and Derrick Harmon.
On the flip side, the Steelers’ offensive line will have a daunting task on hand in containing the Texans’ edge rusher duo of Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter. The duo has combined for 27 sacks this year, 12 from Anderson and 15 from Hunter.
Anderson has a 26.2% pass rush win rate this year. The second best single season mark in Pro Football Focus history. Troy Fautanu and Dylan Cook will have to...
