The 2023 Pittsburgh Steelers defense has been a rollercoaster ride through the first three games of the season. With extreme highs, and head-scratching lows, PFF’s Steve Palazzolo believes the unit is the key to the team’s upcoming matchup against the Houston Texans.
“Pittsburgh’s defense is tough,” said Palazzolo during PFF’s preview of Sunday’s game. “They’ve been carved up, but also they’re creating big plays, turnovers, sacks, so what Pittsburgh defense do you get here?”
As much as Steelers fans push back against PFF and its metrics, this has been the team’s reality thus far.
On one hand, the unit has allowed the fourth-most rushing yards and 13th-most passing for the sixth-most total yards surrendered by any team this season.
On the flipside, the Steelers are tied for the third-most takeaways and have the most sacks in the NFL.
I liken it to being in a toxic relationship. You can see the bad. Heck, your friends and family can see it and try to warn you, but there’s that one intoxicating quality that keeps you around. The highest of highs outweighs the lows.
In life, that type of relationship is almost always destined to fail, and so too is it in football.
Over the past five years, every Super Bowl winner on average finished 15th in yards surrendered and 11th best in turnovers caused. While the Steelers are on pace to outrank most of the champions in turnovers, history shows that they will need to end in the middle of the pack for total defense to be real contenders.
Recently, PFF has praised several of the Steelers defenders calling Patrick Peterson a top-10, shutdown corner, grading out Keeanu Benton near the top of all rookie defensive tackles and continuing to rank T.J. Watt at the top of its charting.
Still, Palazzolo gave the nod to the Texans to beat the Steelers Sunday, a week after the C.J. Stroud-led team upset the Jacksonville Jaguars in impressive fashion.
While he has been impressive so far, Stroud will be without both of his starting tackles in the matchup and facing a significantly better pass rush in Alex Highsmith and Watt than last week.
Expect, as Palazzolo said, the Pittsburgh defense to be the difference in this AFC showdown.
