After struggling mightily against the San Francisco 49ers’ defense Week One in a 30-7 loss at Acrisure Stadium, the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t exactly get to escape that style of defense the rest of the season.
Making the trip to Houston on Sunday in Week Four for a matchup with the Texans, Pittsburgh will have to deal with a similar scheme once again on the defensive side of the football as the Texans are running head coach DeMeco Ryans’ defense. Ryans, naturally, came over from San Francisco this offseason and brought the scheme with him.
Houston will deploy a 4-3 scheme with some impressive pass rushers and will play a lot of two-high safeties, taking away the deep ball.
For second-year Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett, he sees a lot of similarities between Houston’s defense and the one San Francisco rolled out in Week One, which will be a tough challenge for Pittsburgh.
“You see a lot of similarities. Obviously, San Francisco kept a lot of the stuff that the head coach with the Texans did. Great coach. Did an unbelievable job in San Fran and now doing a great job in Houston. It’s going to be a tough task for us,” Pickett said to reporters Wednesday, according to video via 93.7 The Fan’s Jeff Hathhorn on Twitter. ” They do a lot of really good things, good players at all three levels, so it’ll be a tough challenge.”
Though Houston doesn’t have the same level of star power that the 49ers have at all three levels, Houston’s defense has been rather impressive early in the season.
Even though Houston is allowing 73% of passes to be completed through the first three weeks and is allowing 6.9 yards per attempt, the Texans have allowed just 670 passing yards in three games, giving up two touchdowns while picking off two passes. They have generated the third-fewest sacks in the league to date though with just four.
In the run game, Houston has allowed 352 rushing yards on 82 carries, good for a 4.3 yards per carry clip. The Texans have given up the most rushing touchdowns in the league though with seven, tied with Denver for worst in the NFL.
It’s a strong defense though, one that will be challenging for Pittsburgh with a similar scheme to the 49ers scheme that held Pittsburgh to just seven points and just 239 yards of total offense, sacking Pickett five times and picking him off twice.
Houston has some good players at all three levels, led by rookie pass rusher Will Anderson, veteran defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins, inside linebacker Denzel Perryman and safeties Jimmie Ward and Jalen Pitre. The Texans held a high-powered Jacksonville attack to just 17 points in Week Three in a 37-17 win, but they did allow 404 total yards on 69 plays, good for 5.9 yards per play. Two takeaways were key though.
After struggling in Week One against San Francisco with Pickett failing to hit some throws that were there and making some bad decisions with the football, we’ll see if the Steelers learned anything from that debacle against a similar scheme they’ll see in Week Four — and if those lessons learned will be enough to succeed against a strong Houston defense.
