The Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense entered the Week 3 contest against the Los Angeles Chargers with a very particular goal in mind. They wanted to prove that they were the better defense.
The Chargers held the No. 1 scoring defense in the league with just 6.5 points per game allowed over the first two weeks. The Steelers were in the No. 2 spot with eight points per game allowed. The Steelers are spending more on their defense than any other team in the league. They expect it to be good, and in the Week 3 win over the Chargers, they proved that they are currently the best in the league.
Head coach Mike Tomlin spoke about this after the Steelers’ 20-10 win over the Chargers.
“They just wanted to be the best defense on the field,” Tomlin said during his postgame press conference via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “They respond to those things and take those challenges very personally. And they played like it.”
The Chargers were held to zero yards in the second half. They had four drives, three of which resulted in negative yardage. Their one positive drive of 23 yards offset the losses on the other three to wash out at zero.
The Steelers were getting picked apart by Justin Herbert a bit in the second quarter, but a sack knocked him out of the game in the third quarter. Offensive tackles Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater were also injured, which allowed the Steelers’ edge rushers to feast in the late portion of the game.
“We talked about it all week. We knew we were in for a fight,” Tomlin said. “Styles make fights. They’re assembled like we are assembled, and so we knew it was gonna be an entertaining game. They’re playing great defense. We’re playing great defense. We had to challenge our defense to outperform theirs. I thought they did.”
It wasn’t just the heroic efforts of one guy like T.J. Watt, either. The Steelers finished with five total sacks from four different players. They also had seven tackles for loss from five different players. RB J.K. Dobbins was leading the NFL in rushing yards with 266 through the first two weeks, and he finished with just 44 yards on 15 carries against the Steelers.
In total, the Chargers were held to 168 yards of total offense and just 10 points. There are still games to be played this weekend, but the Steelers should come away with the No. 1 scoring defense in the league. They are now allowing just 8.7 points per game.
They also have a good chance to be the No. 1 defense in yards per game. They had allowed 260.5 through the first two weeks and allowed only 168 yards today. That gets them down to 229.7 yards per game allowed.
Entering Week 4, there should be no doubt who the best defense in the league is. That would be the defense of the 3-0 Pittsburgh Steelers.
