The Pittsburgh Steelers will play their seventh game of the 2024 regular season on Sunday night at home against the New York Jets. They’ll enter that contest listed as a slight underdog. Below are five key things that I believe the Steelers will need to do in that home game on Sunday night to come away with their fifth win of the 2024 season.
Connect With Four But Might Need More – The Steelers defense better do a very good job of pressuring Jets QB Aaron Rodgers on Sunday night. We saw in the last three games that the Jets played the impact that pressure can have on Rodgers and their passing offense. The defenses of the Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings hit Rodgers a ton. Just so you know, the veteran Jets quarterback was sacked 11 times in the last three games and 16 times so far for the season.
The Steelers normally like to rush just four players on defense and on top of that the unit doesn’t blitz very often. While rushing just four players on defense might be a fine plan to start with on Sunday night, if no one is getting home regularly and hitting Rodgers, that plan needs to change and that likely means blitzing the veteran quarterback often. Rodgers gets the ball out quick enough as it is so several chances of getting good hits on him might not be very high unless he’s forced to hold on to the football in certain situations. The pressure to get pressure on Rodgers Sunday night should be paramount.
Stay Away From The Sauce – The Jets secondary will show up in Pittsburgh Sunday night as a banged-up unit as they will not have starting NCB Michael Carter II (back) and S Chuck Clark ( on IR with an ankle injury). Additionally, starting CB D.J. Reed (groin) is questionable to play after failing to practice all week. Even if Reed does play Sunday night, he won’t be 100 percent. The Jets will, however, have their top CB Sauce Gardner on Sunday night and he is one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. Because of that, the Steelers passing game against the Jets should probably be geared towards staying away from attacking him very often.
It’s hard to know for sure if Gardner will travel the field most of Sunday night in an effort to follow Steelers WR George Pickens around. If he doesn’t, Pickens should easily become a primary target in the passing game should he draw a cornerback not named Gardner in coverage and especially if there is not any safety bracket help. Regardless of the coverage used by the Jets, attacking any other cornerback not named Gardner should probably be the plan and that includes a less-than-fully-healthy Reed, who has played well in coverage so far this season.
Satisfaction Of Play-Action – The Steelers have been miserable so far this season when it comes to their play-action usage in the passing game. In fact, and according to Sports Info Solutions, the Steelers’ offense is averaging just 5.7 yards per attempt on play-action attempts with an average depth of throw just 5.3 yards past the line of scrimmage. To make matters worse, the Steelers have allowed a pressure rate of 50.9 percent on play-action plays and that’s the worst in the league.
Can a change in quarterbacks make a difference when it comes to play-action usage? Russell Wilson was a little better at using play-action over the last two seasons with the Denver Broncos and that’s really all we have to go on right now as he has yet to take any regular season snaps so far this season. By the way, defensively the Jets have allowed 7.4 yards per attempt on play-action plays so far this season.
Disable Automatic Static To Confuse Flight Plan – Defensively, the Steelers are running a lot of cover-3 zone this year and because of that they are near the tops in the league in middle of the field closed coverages. As you can imagine, the Steelers’ ability to disguise middle of the field closed coverages isn’t great at all and only the Dallas Cowboys are reportedly worse at doing so percentage wise, according to advanced analytics. In short, the Steelers are very static defensively, thus what you see is what you get.
When facing an experienced quarterback such as Rodgers, being static for most of the game on defense is probably not going to be conducive to success. If anything, the Steelers maybe should think about playing less zone against Rodgers and maybe more man as the older quarterback isn’t likely to take off running with the football very often. If Rodgers is able to easily see and dissect the Steelers coverages for most of Sunday night, especially if ends up being mostly cover-3 zone, he’s likely going to pick it apart very easily and much in the same way that Indianapolis Colts QB Joe Flacco did several weeks ago.
Stall Hall – The Jets have leaned heavily on RB Breece Hall in their first six games as they are getting him the football both on the ground and through the air quite a bit. So far this season, Hall is averaging nearly 14 carries per game and just over 5.5 targets in the passing game. He has averaged 4.7 yards per touch through six games.
The Jets will likely attempt to establish the run early on Sunday night with this game being played in front of a hyped-up crowd in Pittsburgh. Not stopping Hall early on Sunday night will allow the Jets’ offense to stay ahead of the chains and thus likely stay on the field for large chunks of time. Rodgers is already a great quarterback, and he becomes an even better one when he is in second and short situations. If Hall has a productive game, it could wind up being a long night for the Steelers’ defense and one that requires the unit to be on the field for more than 65 plays.
