The Pittsburgh Steelers will play their sixth game of the 2023 regular season on Sunday afternoon, and this week it will be a road contest against the Los Angeles Rams. This week the Steelers will enter their game as road underdogs as well. Below are five key things that I believe the Steelers will need to do on Sunday afternoon at SoFi Stadium to come away with their fourth win of the 2023 season.
Hit Pressure Points – Overall, Rams QB Matthew Stafford has been up and down this season. After all, he only has six touchdown passes to go along with five interceptions in his six games played. While Stafford does have a passer rating of 83.5, his QBR is only 59.9 and his ANY/A is just under six at 5.96. He’s also been sacked 16 times in total in six games, however. Where Stafford runs into problems is when he is under pressure as his QBR is just 6.6, which is 29th in the NFL. Additionally, Stafford’s 31 percent completion rate when under pressure is ranked 31st in the NFL and his 3.7 yards per attempt is ranked 28th overall.
Obviously, this all adds up to the Steelers defensive front needing to put consistent pressure on Stafford on Sunday. To do so, however, the defense will likely need to get Stafford and the Rams offense in quite a few second-and-long and third-and-long situations. We might also see the Steelers defense blitz a little more than they normally do in games and especially with the Rams having a few new running backs in their backfield on Sunday due to injuries. Should, however, the Rams offense stay on schedule on Sunday, Stafford could wind up picking the Steelers defense apart. For whatever it’s worth, the Steelers defense enters Week Seven with the sixth-highest pressure rate in the NFL at 33 percent.
Duck Donald – The Steelers offensive line will have to contend with Rams DT Aaron Donald on Sunday and that won’t be an easy task. While Donald only has 2.5 sacks on the season entering Sunday’s game, the tape shows that the 32-year-old can still win quickly in the trenches and especially when it comes to obvious passing downs. Donald moves around on the Rams defensive line between the guards and he’s sure to try to get himself tasty one-on-one matchups on Sunday as the game progresses. For his career, the Rams are 19-6 when Donald registers 1.5 sacks or more in games and 14-4 when he has two or more QB takedowns. He can take over a game in a heartbeat due to his ability to provide quarterback pressures.
The Steelers offensive must figure out a way to control Donald on Sunday and to help in that, it would be advisable for the unit to stay out of obvious long situation passing downs. Steelers QB Kenny Pickett has already been sacked 14 times in five games this season and if Donald is personally able to add at least two more to that total on Sunday, odds are pretty good that the Steelers will lose. C Mason Cole, G Isaac Seumalo, and G James Daniels will have their work cut out for them on Sunday.
Tighten Up – The Steelers unfortunately won’t have TE Pat Freiermuth on Sunday due to him having a setback with his injured hamstring a few days ago. He’s since been placed on the team’s Reserve/Injured list and that leaves the Steelers with three backup tight ends in Darnell Washington, Connor Heyward, and Rodney Williams, who have combined to catch just six passes for 52 yards and zero touchdowns in the team’s first five games.
Even though the Steelers won’t have Freiermuth on Sunday the offense still needs to make a concerted effort to get their other tight ends involved in the passing game. After all, the Rams defense has allowed 32 receptions for 414 yards and three touchdowns to opposing tight ends so far this season. That 414 yards is the third-most in the NFL for that position group.
While it does seem like injured Rams ILB Ernest Jones will be healthy enough to play on Sunday, he’s sure to not be 100 percent with his knee injury. In short, the Steelers should have several opportunities to get one of their tight ends lined up against Jones, or any other Rams’ inside linebacker, during the Sunday contest. While undersized, Heyward has great hands, and he can get open. Additionally, Washington, who is oversized, can be a mismatch against any smaller inside linebacker. As for Williams, while he isn’t likely to see much time on offense on Sunday, if any at all, is essentially a converted wide receiver. There’s absolutely no reason for the Steelers not to use their tight ends in the passing game on Sunday even though they won’ have their top option in Freiermuth.
LA = Left Attempts – While the Steelers running game has struggled quite a bit this season, Sunday should be an opportunity to get it moving in the right direction and especially after it was likely studied quite a bit during the team’s bye week. The Steelers running game should probably have a focus on running to the left side on Sunday against the Rams defense and especially off tackle and around the end.
For the season, the Rams defense has struggled against runs going to left tackle and left end. In fact, on 29 non-quarterback runs to those two spots have yielded a 6.76 yards per carry average. Conversely, the Steelers have had some success running to left tackle and left end in their first five games as the offense has averaged five yards per carry on 23 non-quarterback runs. Like it or not, an extra jet sweep, running back toss, and an end-around might be in order on Sunday against the Rams. Maybe even a few extra if early success is achieved. Whatever the type of run, the tape and the stats say that the Steelers should run left on Sunday against the Rams.
Pick-ens On Those Familiar Rams Corners – The Rams starting cornerbacks on Sunday should be Ahkello Witherspoon, a former Steeler, and Derion Kendrick, who has had a busy week with an off-the-field legal issue. While both Witherspoon and Kendrick have represented themselves well overall this season, that doesn’t mean that Steelers QB Kenny Pickett should test them both down the field quite as many times as possible. Witherspoon doesn’t have a lengthy successful track record in the NFL, and we have seen a few other NFL receivers have their way with him in the past. The same essentially goes for Kendrick as he’s just a second-year player with 12 total starts under his belt to date.
If you think about it, Steelers WR George Pickens should know quite a bit about both Witherspoon and Kendrick at this point. Witherspoon was a Steeler in 2022 and thus Pickens practiced against him quite a bit. As for Kendrick, like Pickens, he is a Georgia product and thus those two probably tangled quite a bit in practice in college. Pickett enjoys throwing deep outside the numbers and Pickens has been his favorite target for such throws to date. There’s also those back shoulder throws from Pickett to Pickens that have been successful since both entered the NFL in 2022. In short, I expect Pickett to target Pickens quite a bit outside the numbers on Sunday and regardless of which cornerback is lined up against the wide receiver.
