Saunders: To Save Their Defense — and Season — the Steelers Should Learn from the Ravens

The Pittsburgh Steelers are dealing with major issues on the defensive front, giving up 35 points to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday after yielding 33 to the Cincinnati Bengals last week.

To solve their defensive issues, the Steelers might need to take a page from their most vicious rivals, the Baltimore Ravens.

The Pittsburgh defense isn’t lacking in talent. The most expensive unit in the league by far, this year’s Steelers were expected to be one of the best defenses in the league, and were considered by some to be potentially historic.

Well, it has been historic. So far, the Steelers’ defense has been among the worst in team history. The worst Steelers defense over the course of a full season gave up 404 points in 1969 — 28.9 points per game. So far in 2025, they’ve yielded 25 points per game — currently in third place and rapidly climbing.

Last year, the Ravens were in a similar situation. They had a talented defense, with players like Kyle Hamilton, Marlon Humphrey, Nnamdi Mdubuike and Roquan Smith, but early in the season, they were struggling mightily.

Through five games, the Ravens had allowed 147 points — a whopping 29.4 point per game — even worse than the Steelers have been so far this season. Head coach John Harbaugh knew something had to change, so he went an added an outside voice to his defensive structure.

Last year on Oct. 9, the Ravens re-hired Dean Pees as a senior advisor. Pees had been with the Ravens as linebackers coach from 2010-11 and defensive coordinator from 2012-17, but retired from football in 2023. Harbaugh made the call, thinking that the veteran Pees could help first-year defensive coordinator Zach Orr do a better job of utilizing his talent.

Over the rest of the 2024 season, Ravens opponents averaged just 19.6 points per game. In three games, the Steelers scored 18, 17 and 14 points against the revamped Ravens defense. Baltimore was so encouraged by the results, they brought Pees back for 2025.

The parallels are not perfect. The Steelers do not have a first-year defensive coordinator. Teryl Austin has been in his current job for four years and has been a defensive coordinator in the NFL for nine seasons. There also isn’t an obvious candidate with ties to the Steelers or their coaches that would bring some kind of different knowledge back to the team.

The point is that the Ravens recognized that their coaching was not allowing the talent of their defense to shine through, made a major change, and saved their season as a result.

The Steelers have the talent. Their offense is playing well enough that if their defense was even remotely competent, they’d be running away with the AFC North.

They have time to save their season, if they act quickly and boldly as Baltimore did.

This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Saunders: To Save Their Defense — and Season — the Steelers Should Learn from the Ravens