If there’s a clear strength on the 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers, it’s obviously their defense. It’s rare to win a game without scoring a touchdown, but that’s exactly what the Steelers did during their 18-10 victory in Week One against the Atlanta Falcons.
The biggest reason Pittsburgh was able to come away with a win in Atlanta was because of their defense. On that unit, there’s no bigger playmaker than edge rusher T.J. Watt. Watt showed up in a big way on Sunday, with a sack, four combined tackles, two tackles for a loss, three QB hits and a fumble recovery. His stat line doesn’t even do his performance justice, as Watt was a problem for the Falcons throughout the game.
Watt’s talent is noticeable to all of us watching from home, but it’s even clearer to his teammates on the field. His longtime teammate, Cam Heyward, spoke about his talent in a recent appearance on The SiriusXM Blitz.
“Well, you know, I would say TJ is a relentless rusher. You know, it’s not just 1, 2, 3 plays. It is a full-time problem dealing with T.J. Watt,” Heyward said. “And so, when you go up there and you play a guy like him, you may have blocked him the first time. Let’s see if you, you can block second and third, uh, and you better have different schemes because once he’s able to time it up like he did on in Atlanta, you know, he is gonna have a lot of success.”
Heyward alludes to the idea that Watt is a player who gets better as the game goes on, and that was clear in his performance against Atlanta, as well as his career with Pittsburgh in general. He can be blocked occasionally, but as Heyward says, just because you can stop him one time, doesn’t mean he won’t find his way in the backfield again.
In a year where the Steelers are still trying to figure things out on the offensive side of the ball, it’s once again going to be up to Watt and the rest of Pittsburgh’s defense to win games for the team. We saw that happen in Week 1, as the Steelers limited Atlanta to just 10 points, cutting the Falcons’ momentum short every chance they got.
As the season goes on, Watt and his defense will need to be just as good as they were on Sunday for the Steelers to make a playoff push.
Pittsburgh’s next test is against the Denver Broncos this Sunday. Denver knows how great Watt is, but only time will tell if they’ll be able to stop him.
