While the offense has been the Pittsburgh Steelers’ biggest issue this season, and they made a change at offensive coordinator this morning with the firing of Matt Canada, they haven’t been perfect across the board. On his All Things Covered podcast, cornerback Patrick Peterson talked about the need for the Steelers to play with more of an edge.
“We just gotta get that killer instinct as a team,” Peterson said. “When I say as a team, meaning all three phases. We talked about the juice, we gotta all be on that same tip when we step out on that field. We got the dudes to do it.”
That killer instinct isn’t something the Steelers have consistently lacked this season. While they haven’t buried teams at all, they’ve came up with plays in all three phases that have contributed to winning. For as bad as QB Kenny Pickett has been this year, he’s still led three fourth-quarter game-winning drives, and the defense has came up big with strip-sacks to help ensure victory against the Baltimore Ravens and the strip-sack that led to a fumble return touchdown to give the Steelers the lead over the Cleveland Browns in Week Two. Miles Killebrew’s punt block against the Baltimore Ravens that led to a safety could also fall into that category.
But the Steelers didn’t have one against the Browns in Week 11. They went three-and-out on offense late in the fourth quarter. A bad punt by Pressley Harvin III and poor defense followed, allowing the Browns to march down the field for a game-winning field goal. In their other three losses this season, they’ve been thoroughly outplayed from start to finish and there was zero killer instinct at all. So it’s something that the Steelers need to show on a consistent basis.
As Peterson said, they have the guys to do it. It’s a defense full of leaders who know what it takes to win with guys like Peterson, OLBs T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, and DL Cameron Heyward. On offense, Pickett has shown he’s clutch, even if his performances early in the game doesn’t match. We know Killebrew is capable of coming up with a punt block, although those shouldn’t be counted on. The punt game is something that needs to be more consistent and an area that head coach Mike Tomlin called out in his press conference today, but across the board, the Steelers need to put it all together and finish off games in the second half of the season.
The game against Cleveland was one that Pittsburgh really should’ve won, and while the Browns’ offensive game plan limited what the Steelers could do when it came to getting after the quarterback, the lack of pressure was an issue. Pittsburgh couldn’t get to Dorian Thompson-Robinson and pressure the rookie quarterback into making major mistakes, and the offense couldn’t capitalize when it had the ball with a chance to take the lead with 1:42 to go.
If that killer instinct returns, the Steelers have a favorable schedule in the weeks ahead of them. If the offense, sans Canada, can get rolling, the Steelers should be in a position to make the playoffs. If they get there, let’s hope they can finally make some noise and win their first playoff game since 2016.
