The Steelers rank 28th in the NFL in yards allowed per game, but that’s not the metric DC Teryl Austin uses to gauge the success of his unit. He talked about that a bit this week and how he measures his defense’s success or failure. Of course, yards only convert to points if they wind up in the end zone or lead to a field goal, so there is obvious logic.
“I know everybody looks at yards allowed in terms of whether you’re a top defense or whatever, but I look at a lot of different things that determine” defensive success, Austin said, via the Steelers’ website. “Sometimes those can be deceiving. But we’re always gonna chase turnovers. We’re never gonna sacrifice any of that”.
Austin fielded a question about turnovers and how to balance that aggressiveness to avoid giving up big plays. Basically, he said the defense isn’t taking its foot off the pedal. Instead, he views the big plays as isolated incidents they are eliminating from their game. He took the blame for the big one last week, chalking it up to overcomplicated play calling for a MASH unit.
The Steelers allowed 372 yards of offense to the Vikings, but it didn’t feel that way. They also allowed 21 points, but that included 15 in the final eight minutes with an 18-point lead. Obviously, the Steelers didn’t want to finish the game that way on defense, but they’ll take a yardage deficit in any game that ends with a point surplus.
“I’m not worried about the yards per game. I’m worried about points, I’m worried about third downs and getting guys off the field. And then the time and turnovers”, Austin said of the metrics he uses to evaluate the Steelers’ defense. “If we get people off the field, we’re good on third down, we turn the ball over, we play solid in the red zone, to me, those are better indicators than yards allowed of whether you’re playing good defense”.
Of course, the Steelers have not been great in time of possession this year, and they also rank 21st in the league in points allowed per game on defense. But they have the second-most takeaways and the second-most sacks, and they’re 3-1, so something is working.
The Steelers are not faring well on defense in some of Teryl Austin’s metrics, quite frankly. For example, they are allowing 3:19 per drive, which is 31st in the NFL. They are not getting their players off the field right now. Last week, the Vikings authored three drives of six-plus minutes, or near enough as to make no difference. Of their four drives under two minutes, two came at the ends of halves. And they had a two-minute, 99-yard touchdown drive, so…there is work to do.
