Sacks are nice when you can get them. A pick-six or two is wonderful. Having a strong run defense and some solid cover corners will get you a long way. But there’s ultimately only one statistic that matters, whether on a defense or any other unit, or a team in general: Super Bowl titles.
Cameron Heyward has been a part of some very good defenses for the Pittsburgh Steelers over the past dozen years, and he’s been decorated annually because of it. He is one of the greats in franchise history. But he also knows that his teams were preceded by a Super Bowl-winning defense, and that’s what his Steelers are missing.
“Do we have the talent and the guys to do it? Yes. But it’s something that has to be answered every week”, he said on the 3 and Out podcast with John Middlekauff. “I don’t think the best defense is crowned after one week, and I don’t think it’s crowned after two weeks”.
“To be the best defense in our league, you need a crown on your head that’s saying you’re a Super Bowl champion”, he continued. “And do that, you’ve got to do it every week. We can’t be taking weeks off. We can’t have those blunders”.
The “dominant” defense isn’t necessarily always the best defense. What you really want is the timely defense, the one that steps up to make the plays that need to be made, whenever the situation calls for it. Minus the Larry Fitzgerald touchdown, granted, that’s what the Steelers had the last time they hoisted one of these trophies.
Of course, all of that good stuff I mentioned at the top of the article is desirable to have, as well. There’s virtually never an inopportune time to record a sack or otherwise make a defensive play. But ultimately situational football, and complementary football, is what is going to win you the most games.
Do the Steelers have that this year? it seemed as though they were slowly building that sort of unit in the second half of the season. They did not allow many points in the fourth quarter, for example. A rare lapse was a 53-yard field goal drive against the Baltimore Ravens that made it a two-score game with 3:19 to play. They let the Atlanta Falcons back into the ballgame in the second half the week before that, as well, but even in that case, they made the game-sealing interception.
The point is, it takes a lot more than a group of great players and a string of great plays to make a truly great defense, one that is worthy of winning the championship. The great defense is ultimately the one that makes the plays that it needs to make.
Will this Steelers defense have that closing instinct in 2023?
