Where Do Steelers Stand In Week 9 Power Rankings?

Another week, another ugly Pittsburgh Steelers loss in which their defense couldn’t stop anybody.

After a busy offseason in which the Steelers heavily invested in that side of the football via free agency and trades, things have spiraled out of control for them defensively. There’s no pass rush, the turnovers have dried up, and coverage is a nightmare.

Not to mention, the Steelers’ tackling has been shockingly poor in their last two games. Things have gone from seemingly very good after Week 5, to very bad in just a span of a couple of weeks. And it could get a whole lot worse given the next two games on the schedule.

Where do the Steelers stand in the power rankings across the NFL landscape entering Week 9? Below is a chart of aggregate power rankings from several major outlets.

With a second straight loss Sunday to the Packers, one that was very similar to their loss to the Bengals, the Steelers are plummeting in various power rankings.

What was once a fringe top-10 team is now closer to the bottom of the top 20 than the top 10. It’s a good reminder of how quickly things can change in the NFL.

Just two weeks ago, CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco had the Steelers at No. 4 overall. Now? They sit at No. 18 in his power rankings.

“The defense is a major problem. That sentence is not something Steelers fans are used to seeing, but age is an issue on that unit,” Prisco writes. 

Coming into the season, the defense was expected to be the steady presence for the Black and Gold. There were far more questions than answers on the offensive side of the football, rather than the defense, primarily surrounding quarterback Aaron Rodgers and what he had left in the tank.

Rodgers has been quite good all season. He’s been the rising tide that has lifted all boats offensively. That unit is playing far, far better than anyone expected coming into the year. But the defense has been dreadful.

There’s no sugarcoating that.

Pittsburgh’s defense got older this offseason with the additions of Darius Slay, Jalen Ramsey and Juan Thornhill, but those veteran players were expected to fix the communication issues and raise the secondary after some struggles in recent years.

That hasn’t been the case. In fact, they’ve gotten worse. They were torched by the Bengals in Week 7, and then they couldn’t cover the tight ends in Week 8, nor could they tackle in space. With the inability to cover on the back end, it’s negated any sort of pass rush and has really hindered the defense as a whole.

The knee injury DeShon Elliott sustained Sunday is a major blow to Pittsburgh’s defense moving forward, and it doesn’t get any easier with the Indianapolis Colts, who have the NFL’s best record, coming to town Sunday. The defense is under fire, and rightfully so. The Steelers are old, slow, and sloppy on that side of the ball.

How that gets cleaned up in a week is anyone’s guess, but the Steelers need to find a way to fix things.