The Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense got walked all over on Sunday, with the San Francisco 49ers’ offense scoring early and often in their 30-7 win on Sunday. They put up 10 quick points in the first quarter and never looked back, with RB Christian McCaffrey running for 152 yards and QB Brock Purdy doing seemingly whatever he wanted, finding WR Brandon Aiyuk eight times for 129 yards. Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt, one of the only players on the field who bothered to show up, said the Steelers need to watch the film to figure out why San Francisco was able to have its way with the Pittsburgh defense.
“You go into a game feeling like you have a great plan and you get punched in the mouth. It’s all-encompassing. It’s not just one person, one play. There’s so much more that goes into it. You can either look at this film and make excuses or you can look at it and learn from it, and we damn sure better be learning from it,” Watt said in his postgame press conference via Steelers.com.
The Steelers and anyone who’s paid attention to San Francisco had to know what was coming. The team wanted to get the ball to McCaffrey and let him make plays and try to get the ball to their playmakers in space. But the Steelers still couldn’t stop San Francisco.
The Pittsburgh secondary was burnt toast for a lot of the day, with CB Patrick Peterson slipping and allowing an early touchdown and seemingly no one able to stay with Aiyuk or Deebo Samuel (five receptions, 55 yards). McCaffrey was picking up chunk yardage pretty much all game and then ripped off a 65-yard touchdown run early in the second half that more or less killed any hope the Steelers had after they scored a touchdown at the end of the first half to close within 20-7 of the 49ers.
It was just an incredibly ugly performance, with Watt the only real standout on defense with three sacks and two forced fumbles. They have to figure out what went wrong and why the game plan that they thought was sound just didn’t work. The road isn’t getting any easier with the Cleveland Browns on tap on Monday Night Football in Week Two, Cleveland coming off a 24-3 blowout win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Steelers need to learn from Week One and not let it define their season. After entering 2023 with high hopes, it was a deflating performance. Hopefully, they’ll figure things out quickly and avoid a dreaded 0-2 start. As Watt said, they damn sure better learn and figure out why they looked so flat on Sunday.
