The Pittsburgh Steelers have always been known for having great defenses, and their salary cap investment strategy has largely been a reflection of that over the years. There was a brief period where Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and the offensive line accounted for a good chunk of the cap, but the Steelers have the most expensive defense and among the least expensive offenses at the moment, and it’s been that way for a few years.
Is that a viable strategy to win in a modern NFL that is dominated by offense? Flip on one episode of The Herd on FS1 and you’ll see Colin Cowherd state his case for why the Steelers will never win with this approach. T.J. Watt believes it can still work.
He was asked if their formula of dedicating so much to defense can work and get the Steelers where they need to go.
“Yeah, I mean, I think you saw with the Texans game, at least for the little bit that I watched, the defenses can still win at this level,” Watt said in a video on Steelers.com during locker clean-out day. “Obviously you need to be able to score points, but it comes down to taking the ball away and creating turnovers and holding offenses to a limited amount of rushing and helping have a true field position tug of war and we haven’t had that.
“We’ve allowed these long, 14-play drives continuously throughout a game.”
The offense didn’t hold up its end of the bargain, but the way the Steelers constructed their team, the defense was the big letdown in 2024. The unit was supposed to increase the margin of error for the offense, but oftentimes it ratcheted up the pressure on the offense by digging a point deficit early in games.
The Steelers allowed 28 drives of 10 or more plays in the regular season. Of those 28 drives, 24 resulted in either a field goal (13) or a touchdown (11). Two resulted in a missed field goal, one in a punt, and then the one against the Philadelphia Eagles where they kneeled out the clock to end the game.
Long drives that allow points are killers for defenses because they are forced to stay on the field for long periods of time. If the offense fails to play complementary football, the defense ends up right back out on the field while those players are still trying to catch their breath from the last drive.
The Ravens managed three drives of 10 or more plays in the Wild Card playoff game, including their first drive, which resulted in 95 yards and a touchdown on 13 plays.
It’s not that defense can’t win games, it’s that the Steelers didn’t play nearly well enough. When they were playing well at the beginning of the year, getting more sacks and taking the ball away, the formula worked.
Why was their highly paid defense unable to get the job done? That is a great question that they will spend the offseason trying to figure out. Many of the same pieces will return, so how can they engineer different results next year?
