Sunday’s game agains the Patriots wasn’t a banner day for the Steelers’ defense, but it should have been good enough to win.
The Steelers lost, 17-14, to a New England team strapped with a lousy offense, but one that was able to do just enough to hand Pittsburgh its first loss.
Now, through two games, and having allowed just 37 points, are the Steelers’ defensive players trying to avoid frustrations over the lack of points being scored by the team’s offense?
“You just deal with it,” said defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi Monday. “You play complimentary football. Sometimes the offense will be good, or up, sometimes the defense will be up, or good. We just have to play with each other.”
Pittsburgh’s offense, in essentially nine quarters, has scored just 37 points — ninth worst in the NFL. The 255 yards per game produced is the third fewest in the league.
“We just have to handle what we do,” outside linebacker Alex Highsmith said. “That’s what we’re going to do this week. We know that, if there’s 17 points on the board, we’ve got to be better. And we will. No matter what happens, we have to keep points off the board.”
The Steelers defense wasn’t perfect Sunday, as it tried to cope with the loss of TJ Watt, who missed the game with a pec injury that will sideline him for at least three more weeks.
Pittsburgh allowed Patriots quarterback Mac Jones to work the middle of the field frequently. It allowed New England to run for 124 yards, and is allowing 128.5 rushing yards per game — ninth worst among teams that have played multiple games.
Along those lines, the defense was gashed by the Patriots’ ground game during the final drive of the game, allowing New England to run out the clock after getting the ball with over six minutes to play.
“We’ve got to be more solid,” Highsmith said. “Just being more physical at the point of attack. I know we will be… We played good against the run up until that point. But we have to put together four quarters of physicality.”
The Steelers also failed to produce a sack Sunday. It's just the third time that’s happened in the team’s last 93 games, and it came after a seven-sack performance in Cincinnati a week prior.
But, through that, the Patriots still scored just 17 points. And 17 points allowed should almost always be enough to win in the NFL. It wasn’t. And now the Steelers, with so many questions on offense, are hoping to avoid letting those bad vibes spread throughout the team.
“Everybody plays a role in wins and losses,” said Ogunjobi, who is readying for another game against a former team when the Steelers travel to Cleveland Thursday. “There’s never any finger pointing.
“It takes a team. Win, lose or draw, it takes a team. That’s the mentality I feel like we have here. Obviously I’m new, but I understand that we’re in this thing together."