The normally ferocious Pittsburgh Steelers pass rush has been muted this season. Usually sitting atop the NFL in sacks, they’re closer to the bottom in 2024. With just 25 through 11 games, they’re on pace to finish with 38 of them. It would be their fewest since 2016 and on a per-game basis worse since 2014. Speaking to reporters during his Tuesday press conference, Mike Tomlin explained why the Steelers’ sacks are down.
“Probably a lot of reasons, to be honest with you,” Tomlin said via the team’s YouTube channel. “We’ve had people missing at times. Often times, the strength of the pack is the pack. For a large portion of the early portion of the season, we were without Alex [Highsmith] and [Nick] Herbig, for example. Obviously, when you’re minus guys like that people can focus their energies on T.J. [Watt] and things of that nature.
But also, the nature in which people play us…They’re aware of our reputation.”
While T.J. Watt has stayed healthy all season, a critical component to the team’s success as a defense and as a team, the others haven’t. Alex Highsmith has been in and out of the lineup first with a groin aggravation followed by an ankle injury. Combined, they’ve cost him five of the Steelers’ 11 games this season. Tomlin kept the door open for him to return against the Cincinnati Bengals this weekend but there’s no guarantee he’ll be back.
Nick Herbig has missed a similar amount of time after suffering a hamstring injury in the second half of the team’s Week 5 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. He returned for the Steelers’ Week 11 win over the Baltimore Ravens, making an immediate impact with a forced fumble on the second play of the game.
Watt leads the Steelers with 7.5 sacks though by his lofty standards it’s a number below expectations 11 games in. DL Cam Heyward has five, the only other Steeler with more than three. Pittsburgh’s blitz rate sits lower than past seasons, too, with its secondary amassing just a half-sack this year from nickel corner Beanie Bishop Jr.
Tomlin noted that the defense often sees max protection on passing downs as teams chip and keep players in to protect their quarterback.
“It makes it easier to cover people on the back end, but it does make it more difficult to get home. If people choose to protect, we better win on the backend,” he said. “If people have five eligible out, we better win in terms of the rush.”
His points are salient and logical. Still, the Steelers’ pass rush has been their calling card since the 1970s. They went a five-year stretch of recording 50-plus sacks, an NFL record, and teams couldn’t slow them down despite planning for it. Pittsburgh has also benefitted by often playing from a lead, forcing teams to pass late, and their run defense has generally been strong this season.
Bengals QB Joe Burrow has been sacked 26 times this year and has his lowest sack rate of his career. But he’s been taken down six times in his last two combined games as Cincinnati has lost its last two games.
Sacks are just one component, pressure plays a role, but it’s a huge element of any defense. Especially Pittsburgh’s. Whether it means more blitzes, scheming up more 1v1 chances for T.J. Watt, getting healthier, or more likely, all of the above, the Steelers’ defense has to return to form when it comes to taking the quarterback down.
