Running the football has not been easy so far for the Pittsburgh Steelers. While their fair chances to do so have been varied up to this point, the reality is that the quality of opponent has been an issue, as well. Head coach Mike Tomlin specifically acknowledged the gauntlet of decorated edge defenders with which they have had to contend the first three weeks of the season.
“There’s a lot of layers to that discussion. The defensive schematics, the defensive personnel”, he said during his pre-game press conference yesterday addressing the issues in the run game, via the team’s website. “The first couple of weeks, we’ve had some aliens on the edge. That might be a component of it as well whether it’s [Nick] Bosa or Myles Garrett or Maxx Crosby, for example. None of those decisions happen in a vacuum”.
These names are not new to the season-long discussion and concerns over issues for the offense. But we were mostly talking about them in the context of the possibility of rookie Broderick Jones starting at left tackle. We weren’t focusing as much on how they could impact the run game.
While their numbers may vary, all three of them graded out well against the run, including Garrett of the Cleveland Browns, whose lack of impact on the actual stat sheet versus evaluations of his performance has been a topic of conversation lately. I think most people who watched the game saw the impact he had without making the tackles himself.
It’s never easy to go up against that level of talent. The Steelers don’t necessarily get a huge reprieve this week with the Houston Texans on deck because their next challenge is rookie Will Anderson Jr., about whom Tomlin spent some time raving during his press conference after meeting him during the pre-draft process.
Anderson has logged 133 defensive snaps through three games for Houston. He does have a sack already along with five quarterback hits and 13 total tackles. He has graded out favorably against the run, though his best game was in the opener. He has eight defensive stops and has yet to miss a tackle, according to Pro Football Focus.
In this case, he spends most of his time on the defensive left side, so that would mean that he is Chukwuma Okorafor’s problem much more so than Dan Moore Jr’s. That isn’t inherently a good or a bad thing.
But there are always more factors at play as the Steelers look to continue to get their run game established. They still have too many negative plays, too much contact in the backfield, and most of that has come from pressure up the middle rather than the alien visitors from the edge.
