Through the first three weeks of the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense was outright dominant. The unit had held opposing offenses to just 26 points through three games, the fewest in the NFL at the time. Heading into a Week 4 matchup against the Indianapolis Colts, who had a struggling offense, that trend seemed primed to continue.
Then, Pittsburgh wound up struggling a bit themselves. The Colts started very quickly on offense, jumping out to a quick 17-0 lead in the first half. Pittsburgh would calm down a bit and make a game of it, clawing their way back to make it a one-score game late in the second half. Unfortunately, that proved to be too little too late.
Led by Anthony Richardson and Joe Flacco, the Colts’ offense seemed to be the first team to dent Pittsburgh’s defense. This was a bit shocking given the Steelers’ defense’s performance through the first three weeks. However, CBS Sports’ Kyle Long thinks things will be getting much better very soon for Pittsburgh, as he stated during the network’s Week 5 predictions segment.
“The defense, they’re gonna be looking for redemption,” Long said. “They had a backup quarterback throwing the football all around on them. They’re gonna be looking to make a statement against the Dallas Cowboys.”
Richardson was good when on the field, but ‘throwing the ball around’ might be a bit of an overstatement. He only threw the ball four times before exiting the game with an injury. Richardson did complete three of those passes, though, for 71 yards.
Once he left, Flacco took over. He continued his strong play, which goes back to the end of the 2023 season, playing very well against Pittsburgh. Flacco passed for 168 yards, completing 16 of his 26 passes. He threw two touchdowns and also compiled a 105.9 passer rating.
To be fair to the Steelers, they were put in some tough positions and managed to gain some steam to end the game. Pittsburgh went for it on fourth down in their own half of the field early in the game, and after failing to pick up the first down, Indianapolis was essentially given a free field goal.
The Steelers’ defense deserves criticism for immediately going down 17-0. However, the defense played much better from that point on. If it wasn’t for a brutal drive-extending penalty on Minkah Fitzpatrick late in the game, Pittsburgh might have completed its comeback.
Long thinks the Steelers’ defense will get some revenge this week, but they won’t have the easiest matchup. Dallas’ quarterback, Dak Prescott, is playing at a pretty high level right now. Prescott has completed 64.4-percent of his passes on the season. In addition, he’s thrown for 1,072 yards, six touchdowns, and two interceptions through four games.
Dallas’ rushing offense is struggling, though. The Cowboys currently have just 301 rushing yards on the season, the lowest total in the league. With that in mind, we’ve got a pretty one-dimensional offense that the Steelers will be facing this week.
Pittsburgh has been good on defense for almost the entire season so far, aside from the first half of their game against Indianapolis. If they truly are one of the best defenses in the league, which we’ve seen reasons to believe, they should prove Long right this week.
