The Pittsburgh Steelers have scored four touchdowns through the first two games of the 20233 season. Two of them, however, have been scored by the defense. The offense has been…not great. While the other side of the ball has certainly had its warts, it’s the only reason they have a 1 in the win column so far.
And the Las Vegas Raiders know it. They saw what this unit can do when it’s firing on all cylinders during Monday night’s win over the Cleveland Browns. Raiders offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi talked about the difficulties of game-planning for such an aggressive unit that goes far beyond T.J. Watt.
“Oh, there’s 10 other guys for sure. I think Watt plays a certain style of game where he plays hard, he plays aggressive, he plays fast. I think that’s their defense”, he said, via the team’s website. “Coach [Mike] Tomlin has done a phenomenal job his entire tenure there of making sure that’s the identity of his defense because they’re coming in here to make it a dogfight”.
That’s what the Raiders got when they came here late last year, though it was the offense that had to finish that one off with a big George Pickens touchdown with under a minute to play to claim the win. Las Vegas was held to 10 points and 201 yards of offense, taking three sacks and turning the ball over three times.
Minus the struggles against the run Monday night against the Cleveland Browns, that’s much how the Steelers’ defense played this week. Of course, they also had two touchdowns on their own, which would certainly be useful on the road. But all Lombardi knows is that they had better be prepared to match the Steelers’ energy.
“If your team is not ready to go in that fight, well often we’ll lose”, he said. “We have to do a good job of making sure we’re ready to know that and ready to go…They are all going to play as one and if you don’t play as one on that unit, you’re probably not going to play on the unit. We got to be ready to go because it’s an aggressive, fast, and physical defense”.
That is the defense this team needs right now because the Steelers are not getting complementary play from the offense. While they’ve had their moments, this doesn’t even look like the team that finished the regular season a year ago.
That team wasn’t very explosive, either, but the offense stayed on the field. It kept drives alive, it won possession downs, and it protected the football. The Steelers aren’t doing any of those things right now, with nearly half of their possessions failing to record even one first down.
At least until the offense sees a sizeable improvement, the Steelers are going to need the defense to carry this team, chiefly through Watt, Alex Highsmith, and S Minkah Fitzpatrick, because when this defense is great, it’s the stars making the difference.
