The Pittsburgh Steelers managed to squeeze out another close win against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, but the defense didn’t look pretty in the 23-19 home victory.
Head coach Mike Tomlin showed frustration in his defense in his postgame press conference, stating that his unit cannot give up two third-down touchdowns to the Packers like it did in the first half of the game. Those included a 35-yard strike from QB Jordan Love to WR Jayden Reed on 3rd and 16 to get Green Bay within three points of Pittsburgh near the end of the second quarter.
S Damontae Kazee said after the game that the chunk plays the Steelers are giving up in the secondary are a result of poor communication with younger guys mixing in as several starters have gone out of the lineup due to various injuries the last several weeks.
“I wouldn’t even say the secondary, it’s just we not on the same page right now,” Kazee said to the media via video from Steelers.com. “A lot of miscommunications, giving communication, a lot of people not receiving it and stuff, so we could do a whole lot better with that. Just younger guys stepping up now is making it more challenging, but I mean, that’s what we live for… the next man up.”
Kazee was a part of a big miscommunication in the secondary on Green Bay’s last drive of the game, the Packers looking to score a touchdown to take the lead with 59 seconds left. WR Jayden Reed broke to the left sideline after running vertically up the field as Kazee and another defensive back miscommunicated on who needed to carry Reed to the sideline, allowing him to get a step on the coverage and reel in a 46-yard completion to put Green Bay inside Pittsburgh territory.
DL Cameron Heyward also spoke about the importance of communication for the defense, especially at the inside linebacker position. Pittsburgh has had to adjust on the fly with LB Kwon Alexander going down with a season-ending Achilles injury, moving LB Elandon Roberts into the role of wearing the green dot and making the calls.
“Communication-wise at the inside linebacker position is ever changing,” Heyward said to the media in the locker room postgame. “Kwon Alexander goes down today, Cole Holcomb last week, Elandon Roberts had to step up. You had Mark [Robinson] in there a lot. There’s a hub of communication that comes from them that we gotta continue to keep getting better at. And that’s not just from them, that’s from the d-line perspective, the safety perspective. Everybody’s gotta communicate at a high level, especially to just take a lot off of their shoulders.”
The Steelers allowed nearly 400 yards of total offense on Sunday, surrendering 399 yards with a handful of splash plays coming in the passing game. Obviously, injuries are going to play a big role in the communications side of things as Alexander went down after being given the green dot this week after Pittsburgh lost Holcomb to a torn ACL the previous week, thrusting Roberts into that role on the fly. Alexander’s injury also pushed Robinson, the second-year linebacker, into a bigger role on Sunday as well as S Elijah Riley and Trenton Thompson. Both saw snaps when S Keanu Neal missed time briefly in the game.
Pittsburgh has had plenty of interchanging parts in its linebacker corps and secondary the last several weeks with S Minkah Fitzpatrick also missing time. That has caused new bodies to play significant snaps together after not getting much work together to develop that chemistry needed to defense the pass. Still, like Heyward said, it’s a total team effort with the whole defense doing a better job communicating to prevent Pittsburgh from having the lapses on defense that lead to splash plays for the opposing team. Hopefully Pittsburgh can get Fitzpatrick next week to bring another veteran presence back to the defense. But now with Alexander and Holcomb out for the season, the linebackers will be stressed even more to communicate at a high level with Roberts being this team’s green dot man going forward.
