Steelers Now
ORLANDO, Fla. — The Pittsburgh Steelers have a historic identity of being a dominant defensive team. The Steel Curtain defense led the team to four Super Bowl titles in the 1970s and Dick LeBeau’s Blitzburgh schemes helped them to two more in the early 2000s.
The Steelers have had their offensive stars over the years, but the identity of the team has always run through its defense.
How much they’ve relied on that defense has varied depending on the talent then team has had all over the squad. In 2024, the Steelers expected to lean heavily on that unit.
They had good reason to think they’d be able to. In 2023, they spent most of the season either without or with a hobbled version of defensive stars Cam Heyward and Minkah Fitzpatrick and injury crises at linebacker and safety so extensive that they were starting players pulled out of retirement mid-season.
Despite all that, the Steelers finished 2023 sixth in scoring defense, a testament to a unit that probably could have been the best in the league with some better injury luck.
Then the Steelers went out and made it even better, signing linebacker Patrick Queen to the team’s highest-priced free agent contract, trading wide receiver Diontae Johnson — to the detriment of their offense — for cornerback Donte Jackson and making an extremely savvy free agent signing in DeShon Elliott. Add in Cam Sutton, Payton Wilson and Beanie Bishop and the Steelers defense was chock full of upgrades going into 2024.
With their performance in 2023, if the Steelers stayed mostly healthy, it was reasonable to think that they’d be among the best defenses in the league, and they had a chance to be an elite unit all-time.
In the end, none of that came to pass. The Steelers stayed relatively healthy, and started out the season strong, but when faced with condensed schedules and elevated levels of competition down the stretch run, the Steelers defense crumbled.
The unit’s best three games all came in September: allowing six points at the Denver Broncos in Week 2 and 10 points at the Atlanta Falcons and at home against the Los Angeles Chargers in Weeks 1 and 3.
Their three worst games all came in December, yielding 38 points to the Cincinnati Bengals on Dec. 1, 34 to the Baltimore Ravens on Dec. 21 and 29 to the Kansas City Chiefs four days later on Christmas.
The Steelers finished eighth in scoring defense, a significant decline despite their improved personnel. They weren’t any better on a yards or rate basis. They finished 12th in total yards and tied for 14th in yards per play.
The drop off at the end of the season was sudden, shocking and frankly, hard to watch. The Steelers defense that looked like world-beaters on paper looked disorganized, timid and in the playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens, like they were defeated before they ever stepped onto the field.
What happened, how it happened and how it...
