The Pittsburgh Steelers went on a brutal five-game losing streak to end their 2024 campaign. Only one of those losses was close late into the fourth quarter, and aside from that close loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, the other four had something in common. Poor defensive play from Mike Tomlin and Teryl Austin’s unit.
The Steelers offense was humming when Russell Wilson originally took over, but it mellowed out quite a bit towards the end of the year. It certainly wasn’t explosive enough for the defense to be giving up as many points as they did. There’s obviously some blame going around to just about everyone involved in the defense’s struggles. However, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Gerry Dulac doesn’t think Austin should be scapegoated. Dulac shared those thoughts during The Steelers Wrap-Up Show via the team’s YouTube channel on Saturday.
“As of now, from my discussions, I think Teryl Austin will be back,” Dulac said. “And to me, that’s only fair. Anybody who knows anything knows Mike Tomlin is in charge of this defense. He runs the defense. He sets the defense. It’s his defense. He moved on from Dick Lebeau because he wanted to instill his defense. So, if Teryl Austin is hung out as a scapegoat, to me that’s not right.”
Austin joined the Steelers staff in 2018 as a secondary coach. He was soon promoted to defensive coordinator in 2022, and has held that position since. It now seems as if his job may be at risk.
Pittsburgh started the year strong on the defensive side of the ball. That helped them win some close games, and jump out to the impressive 10-3 record they once had. However, as the year went on the unit began to fall apart. Pittsburgh allowed 3,876 passing yards this year, the eighth-most in the league. They allowed more than the much-maligned Bengals, who gave up 3,799.
Pittsburgh did remain strong against the run, though. The Steelers ended the year allowing 1,678 yards on the ground, the sixth-fewest in the NFL. However, the biggest issue is that the Steelers offense just couldn’t keep up with the amount of points the defense was giving up over the last month of the year. During that five-game losing streak, the Steelers allowed 27, 34, 29, 19 and 28 points respectively.
The Steelers don’t typically move on from coaches still under contract, which Austin is. However, it’s likely that Tomlin has a large role in the defense again in 2025. It’s not clear how much say Austin has, but he’ll certainly need his unit to start next season better than they finished this one.
