Coming into the season, it was very clear that the Pittsburgh Steelers were going to need to lean heavily on their star-studded, highly paid defense under head coach Mike Tomlin.
Through the first three games, leaning on that defense while the offense gets into gear has paid off.
That was again the case on Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers at Acrisure Stadium in the home opener. The Steelers’ defense was downright dominant in the second half, holding the Chargers to zero net yards of total offense, allowing the Steelers to pull away for a 20-10 win to move to 3-0 on the season.
In the first three games of the season, the Steelers have allowed just 26 total points and have clamped down on opponents consistently in each game. Sunday’s second-half performance was the best of the bunch so far and has some media members comparing this defense to the original Steel Curtain.
Former NFL head coach Jason Garrett dropped that comparison on Sunday night on Football Night In America.
“Steel Curtain 2.0, right? They’re not the Steel Curtain of the 70s, but they play fantastic defense. They have elite players,” Garrett said, according to video via NFL on NBC on YouTube. “If you think about [Cameron] Heyward and T.J. Watt and the front line, [Minkah] Fitzpatrick on the back end. And it’s interesting to watch these teams. They’re very similar in their approach. Yes, J.K. Dobbins has been fantastic the first couple weeks. They wanted to come into Pittsburgh, they wanted to play bully ball with ’em. They [Steelers] weren’t having it.
“They controlled the line of scrimmage the whole game, minus-five yards in the second half for the Chargers. I get it, [Justin] Herbert came out of the ball game. But that’s hard to do. Yeah, that’s hard to do in Pop Warner, let alone in the National Football League. Really impressive.”
It was a really impressive performance from the Steelers’ defense, and it was yet another example that they are among the league’s best defenses, maybe even the best.
Right now, that defense is firing on all cylinders. The Steelers are not letting teams score, they’re generating a ton of pressure, and getting quarterbacks on the ground on a consistent basis. Plus, they’re stopping the run and forcing teams to be one-dimensional, which plays right into their hands.
There was some criticism throughout the offseason about how much the Steelers invested into the defense from a money and draft capital perspective, especially with the questions on the offensive side of the football. But through the first three weeks of the season, the Steelers appear to have made the right moves on the defensive side of the football.
It is an elite unit on paper, and on the field they Steelers are playing like it.
