Tackling. It’s seemingly a lost art in today’s NFL game as guys struggle with consistency doing the basics.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are not immune to those struggles, either.
When the Steelers are at their best defensively, they’re tackling well, avoiding self-inflicted mistakes. When they’re not, well, tackling is a major issue. It’s pretty simple.
All that said, Steelers’ defensive coordinator Teryl Austin believes the tackling is getting better from Pittsburgh as the team continues to put in work in that department, something not all teams do — or can do — due to health and padded-practice rules and regulations.
Speaking with reporters Thursday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on the South Side, Austin stated that the Steelers are tackling better and that there’s a correlation between playing well and tackling well.
“We’ve had our missed tackles. I think we’re starting to tackle better. We’re doing better at that. We’re working at it,” Austin said to reporters, according to audio provided by the Steelers’ PR department. “It’s not a lack of want to. We just gotta make sure we do it. And again, it’s gonna be real big, ’cause, again, yards after catch are gonna be big. Tackling the running backs are gonna be big, and that’s part of football.
“If you can’t tackle it, you suffer, and I think the games we didn’t play well, you probably look at our tackle numbers and they’re probably bad. The games we played well, our tackle numbers are probably pretty good.”
So far on the season, based on tracking done here at Steelers Depot, the Steelers have missed 45 tackles in five games. That’s 9.0 misses per game. That’s nearly double the number that the Steelers had over the entire season in 2022, in which Pittsburgh missed just 5.71 tackles per game.
That said, through the first five games last season Pittsburgh was averaging 8.8 misses per game before improving dramatically in the second half of the season.
Early on in the season the Steelers have been hit or miss, no pun intended, in the tackling department. In the two losses against San Francisco and Houston, the Steelers missed a combined 23 tackles, nine against the 49ers and 14 against the Texans.
However, in the three wins the Steelers have missed just 22 tackles, including marks of 12 against Cleveland in Week Two, just four in Week Three against Las Vegas and six in Week Five against Baltimore.
Therefore, Austin’s assessment that when the Steelers play well the tackling numbers are usually good and when they play poorly the numbers are bad.
Through the first five weeks, the secondary has really struggled in the tackling department, accounting for 26 of the Steelers’ 45 missed tackles, roughy 58% of the missed tackles. Patrick Peterson leads the Steelers with six misses, while Keanu Neal and Minkah Fitzpatrick have five misses each.
To go on a run in the second half and get back to the level of defense the Steelers played in the second half of the season in 2022, they’ll need to start by tackling better. They’ve improved in the last month or so. Now it’s time to carry that improvement into the second half.
