The Pittsburgh Steelers have one of the most talented defenses in the NFL. There’s no question about that, and yet, fans are often frustrated when watching the Steelers because they still seem to struggle giving up big plays. Not every team is perfect, and big plays will happen because NFL players are extremely talented, but the Steelers seem to allow these explosive plays at the worst times possible. They should be granted a little leeway for the back half of the 2023 season because they had so many injuries at positions with major communicators, like inside linebacker and safety, but that doesn’t forgive everything.
To start the 2023 season, the Steelers were essentially at full strength, but this issue of surrendering big plays cropped up early. In Week 2 against the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh would almost suffer a heartbreaking loss due to its inability to limit Cleveland’s explosive plays. Although this game was one where the Steelers’ defense dominated overall, the unit was given no room to breathe due to the offense’s ineptitude. That’s not something that should surprise any fan who’s been watching for the past few years.
To start the fourth quarter, the Browns were up 22-19 and had started to drive down the field. If they were to score a touchdown, the Steelers’ chances of winning would be next to zero. Even though they started the drive backed up against their own end zone, they gave themselves some room to operate with an 18-yard pass play on third down. Two plays later, Deshaun Watson connected with Amari Cooper for a 23-yard gain, setting the Browns up at midfield with all the momentum.
On the most recent episode of his podcast, Watson broke down this play. Giving some insight into just how the Browns were trying to manipulate the Pittsburgh defense, he also revealed a bigger-picture strategy when playing against the Steelers.
”The biggest thing is get the defense in what we want to get the defense in, and that’s a base defense, especially a team like Pittsburgh. When they’re in base defense, they don’t play too many coverages. It’s very limited on what they’re doing. They kind of very schemed to how they play. So once we had this situation, alright cool, we got them exactly how we want it, and then you just run the play and react,” Watson said on the Browns coming out in heavy personnel with an extra offensive lineman in order to force the Steelers into their base defense.
Based on the results of the play, the Browns had Pittsburgh scouted perfectly for this situation. Much of play calling is a chess match, with one team setting up certain looks in order to confuse or trick the opposing side. In this scenario, the Browns laid the trap and the Steelers unfortunately fell right into it. This issue of their base defense being exploited by an offense going heavy has been present for some time now. Now with Watson pointing it out exactly as a weakness, it might be time for the Steelers to add some new wrinkles to their scheme.
Luckily, that long pass play ended up not mattering in the long run because the Steelers ended up forcing and recovering a fumble, but the point still stands. Just because the defense cleaned up its mess doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be in trouble for making it in the first place. Hopefully the offense will operate at a higher level and with more consistency this year in order to provide the defense with more support. If it doesn’t, fans may be forced to watch this exact situation play out again and again.
