The Pittsburgh Steelers will play their 16th game of the 2024 regular season on Wednesday afternoon at home against the Kansas City Chiefs. They’ll enter that contest as home underdogs as well. Below are five key things that I believe the Steelers will need to do to come away with their 11th win of the season on Sunday at home.
Third Of A Way To Winning – While the Chiefs offense isn’t overly explosive, just 44 plays of 20 yards or longer on the season, the unit is extremely good on third downs and putting together long drives. The Chiefs enter Wednesday’s game against the Steelers leading the NFL with a third-down conversion rate of 50.95%. That’s quite a success rate and certainly makes up for the unit’s lack of explosive plays.
The Steeler’s defense must get the Chiefs’ offense in as many third-down chances as possible on Wednesday at Acrisure Stadium and then get stops on well more than half of those. Even if those stops come inside the red zone, limiting the Chiefs to field goals instead of touchdowns could help keep the score down and thus give the Steelers a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter.
If the Chiefs aren’t forced into many third downs and if they are able to convert more than 50 percent of the ones they face, it will likely make for a long afternoon for the Steelers defense, a unit that’s already played quite a few snaps the last two games.
By George, Got To Make Pickens’ Return Count – After missing the last three games with a hamstring injury, Steelers WR George Pickens is set to return to action on Wednesday against the Chiefs, and boy, will he be a sight for sore eyes. Even though the Chiefs’ defense will likely try to limit Pickens throughout the game, the Steelers still must make as many attempts as possible to get him the football.
The Chiefs usually like to play a lot of cover-1, so there should be several opportunities for Pickens to win one-on-one, either in short areas or deep down the field. On Wednesday, QB Russell Wilson must take his shots deep to Pickens, even if that includes tossing some 50-50 balls his way. Quick slants and quick screens should also be mixed in on Wednesday in an effort to give Pickens as many chances as possible to make big plays.
Sure, the Chiefs haven’t given up a lot of deep pass completions this season. Even so, they have allowed an average of 13.18 yards on deep pass attempts to the left side of the offense.
Jonesing To Run Up The Middle – Will the Chiefs have DT Chris Jones on Wednesday? It’s hard to say for sure at the time of this post, as he ended Tuesday listed as questionable with a calf injury. Even if Jones does play on Wednesday, he surely won’t be 100 percent and thus isn’t likely to play a huge percentage of defensive snaps. With Jones ailing and possibly even not playing on Wednesday, the Steelers’ offense should make running up the middle one of their top priorities.
While the Chiefs’ run defense has been quite good this season, their weakness has been up the middle. On 76 runs scored up the middle so far this season against the Chiefs’ defense, opponents have averaged 4.84 yards per attempt. RB Jaylen Warren has a lot more bursts than RB Najee Harris so it might be advisable to see if he is able to produce a few explosive runs of 10 yards or longer right up the old gut on Wednesday.
No Communication Gaffe Gifts On Christmas – The Steelers’ defense certainly gave a few early Christmas gifts to Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson in Week 16. Two of the three touchdown passes that he threw in that game came as a result of poor communication, which led to busted coverages. Unfortunately, the Steelers defense had other communication gaffes outside of those two touchdown-scoring plays in that game, and those things just can’t happen this late in the season, especially against teams with experienced quarterbacks.
The Steelers will be back at home on Wednesday. Additionally, several previously banged-up players on defense, CB Donte Jackson, S DeShon Elliott, and DT Larry Ogunjobi, all figure to be back for this contest as well. Better communication and tackling have been stressed all this week, and we need to see both of those areas improved on Wednesday if the Steelers want to have a legitimate chance at handing the Chiefs just their second loss of the season.
The Chiefs’ offense is already good enough. Giving them more help, especially because of bad communication, just can’t happen on Christmas Day. There are no gifts for Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, only coal sacks.
Kansas City Likes Close Games, Give Them Another One – Yes, the Chiefs are 14-1 on the season and they lead the NFL with that record. Even so, Kansas City also leads the NFL in one-possession wins with 11 as well as comeback wins, also 11.
Of the Chiefs’ last eight wins, only one was by more than eight points, and that was against the Cleveland Browns. The Browns turned the football over six times in that game, and the Chiefs still only managed to score 21 points. For the season, the Chiefs are averaging just 23.7 points per game. The Steelers are slightly lower than that, at 23.5 per game.
The message, or key here, is for the Steelers to keep this game close late. If they can do that, they might just be able to get the Chiefs’ luck to run out when it comes to close games. The Steelers have the best kicker in the NFL in Chris Boswell and they will be playing at home as well. As daunting as the Chiefs’ record might be, they are not a juggernaut team compared to the previous teams they’ve had. The Steelers do match up well with Kansas City overall on paper, especially with several of their injured players returning to action.
