At this point in the 2023 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers seem like quite the punching bag for Fox Sports talking head Colin Cowherd.
In previous weeks, he’s lamented the lack of change the organization has undergone offensively, sticking with Matt Canada. He’s questioned if Kenny Pickett can be the guy under center, and he’s even questioned Pittsburgh’s roster construction, spending big on the defense in an offensive league.
And yet, coming out of the Sunday Night Football win over the Las Vegas Raiders that was aided by three turnovers forced and four sacks by that star-studded, expensive defense, Cowherd has the Steelers inside his top 10 teams entering Week Four in the NFL, thanks in large part to their defense.
“The Steelers: there’s one way to win, defense, but T.J. Watt’s unblockable. They remain just a sparkler of a fireworks show offensively. 4.8 yards per play; no threat outside of [George] Pickens on the outside to beat you,” Cowherd said while discussing why the Steelers are in his top 10, according to video via The Herd’s YouTube page. “They lead the NFL — shocker — in sacks, defensive touchdowns, and again, T.J. Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick…they’ve got stars.
“But this is such a low-wattage offense that I think they’re limited.”
Though the Steelers showed signed of progress offensively on the road against the Raiders, rushing for 105 yards, throwing for two touchdowns in a single game for the first time in the Pickett era and really rolling until the final four drives of the game, it still isn’t exactly enough in today’s high-powered offensive game.
Know what’s enough though to do the most important thing each week, that being win? That star-studded defense on which the Steelers have spent quite a bit of money.
Through three games Pittsburgh has eight takeaways and leads the league in sacks with 13. That’s good for a season-long pace of 74 sacks, which is rather absurd.
There’s a clear way the Steelers want to play though, and when it works the Steelers win games. That means running the football consistently, hitting some big plays off play-action to keep defenses honest, protecting the football, getting after the opposing quarterback, forcing turnovers and creating short fields and winning low-scoring, ugly games.
The last two weeks that’s largely worked for the Steelers in primetime as they beat the Cleveland Browns on Monday Night Football, 26-22, in Week Two and then the Raiders, 23-18, in Week Three.
Is that sustainable? Time will tell. It’s just ironic that Cowherd changes his opinion on the Steelers week after week. One week they need to completely start over offensively and move on from some big names defensively to catch up with the times. The next week, they are in the top 10 due to another great defensive performance and doing just enough offensively.
The offense certainly needs to continue to improve to help complement a defense that is playing its tail off. Week Three was a positive step in the right direction. Now the Steelers need to keep building off of it.
