This offseason the Cleveland Browns made a splash when they signed DE Za’Darius Smith to create an EDGE rushing duo of Smith and superstar Myles Garrett. On Monday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers will face both Smith and Garrett, who wreaked havoc on the Cincinnati Bengals last Sunday. Today on The Mike Tomlin Show, which is streamed on the Steelers’ YouTube page, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said Smith is another name on a list of defensive ends signed to help elevate Garrett.
“[Smith] is an awesome complement, to be quite honest with you, to Myles Garrett,” Tomlin told Bob Pompeani. They’re always in search of that complement. Olivier Vernon, they picked up from the New York Giants several years ago. After him it was [Jadeveon] Clowney and now, Za’Darius. And so they’re always looking for that strong, capable veteran complement. All that does is highlight and accentuate the talents of Myles Garrett.”
Smith has been a very good player throughout his career. Now in his ninth season, he has tallied 54.5 sacks, 273 tackles, and has forced nine fumbles. Smith is already off to a good start to his Cleveland career, tallying four quarterback hits in the Browns’ Week One win over the Bengals as he looks to make his fourth Pro Bowl.
As Tomlin said, when you have a superstar like Garrett on one side, you want to take attention off him by adding another strong EDGE rusher. The Steelers do that with Alex Highsmith opposite T.J. Watt and the Browns have played Vernon and Clowney opposite Garrett.
Vernon and Garrett teamed up against the Steelers only two times and in those matchups, Pittsburgh was able to deal with both of them. Garrett and Vernon combined for two sacks over two games with each of them grabbing one in separate games and a total of two quarterback hits. While Smith is a better player than Vernon, Pittsburgh knows how to contain both Garrett and his complementary EDGE rusher.
In general, the Steelers do a decent job of keeping Garrett in check in their matchups. In 10 games against Pittsburgh Garrett has seven sacks, 33 tackles and has forced three fumbles. Likewise with Smith, he hasn’t wreaked havoc on Pittsburgh either, although most of his matchups against the Steelers were against a much better Pittsburgh offensive line. Smith has three sacks and 15 tackle against Pittsburgh in his career, his last game against the Steelers coming in 2018 when he was a member of the Baltimore Ravens.
It will be fun to watch how the Steelers attempt to neutralize Smith and Garrett, who could be one of the best pass-rushing duos in the NFL this season. For Pittsburgh to get on the right track, it will have to slow down both of them, but that is a much easier said than done.
