For years, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense has been known as one of the best in the league. However, instances throughout the 2024 season, and now leaking into 2025, have shown that the mantle may be starting to crack.
Last Thursday, the Steelers put together one of their most disappointing performances in recent memory against the Cincinnati Bengals. At this point, Ben Roethlisberger is fed up with the lack of defensive changes.
“Everyone talks about that. How long have they been talking about that for our defense, that we’re not mixing anything up? We’re not doing anything unique,” Roethlisberger said on his Footbahlin podcast this week.
The lack of change on the defense has been frustrating for many. Mainly because the Steelers are struggling with the same issues that date back to last season. As early as the middle of the 2024 season, the Steelers started to struggle to stop the run. Those issues worsened as that year went on, culminating in an embarrassing playoff loss. And in just the seventh game in 2024, they allowed a terrible rushing offense to gain 142 yards on 6.1 yards per carry, with five of those carries coming from Joe Flacco.
It was ugly against the pass as well. The Steelers hoped to stop teams like the Bengals and thought they’d done so after acquiring Darius Slay and Jalen Ramsey to pair with Joey Porter Jr. All three struggled, and Roethlisberger was specifically worried about the latter.
“There must be something in Cincinnati that, Porter Jr., it doesn’t agree with him. Because he’s a penalty machine in Cincinnati,” Roethlisberger said. “We’re getting handsy in the secondary; we’re getting penalties called on us.”
Last year, Porter struggled in the same building, with six penalties called on him. He didn’t repeat that total this year, but was getting burned just as often as Ramsey and Slay did. The Bengals had their way with the Steelers, with 22 combined completions to Chase and Higgins. And that may have been more if not for a few pass interference calls on the Steelers.
People are starting to ask questions about Joey Porter Jr., now in his third season. But in totality, he really hasn’t been that bad. He’s allowing a completion rate of just 60.0-percent, giving up just 97 total yards, and has just a 79.0 passer rating allowed when targeted. Compared to Darius Slay’s 115.1 rating allowed and Jalen Ramsey’s 106.5, Porter hasn’t really been the weak link. He’s only played three games, so that may change as his sample size grows. But for now, it’s not a bad start.
Still, he’s part of a unit that’s playing much worse than they expected to. Playing Green Bay, Indianapolis and the Los Angeles Chargers in the next few weeks, it doesn’t get any easier. The Steelers then get their chance at revenge, hosting Cincinnati in Week 11.
