PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The Steelers was a defense to fear. They were wrecking opposing offenses with pressure and turnovers. They clinched a playoff spot three weeks before the end of the season. Now they're looking around searching for answers.
After a 29-10 loss to the Chiefs where they had no sacks, no turnovers, two quarterback pressures and 389 yards allowed, mostly in three quarters as the game was decided, Patrick Mahomes dismantles the Steelers like he does no other defense in the league. He now has 12 touchdowns to no picks in three lopsided victories.
Different guys explained it a little differently, but with the same message. They are their own enemy.
In his first year with the Steelers, linebacker Patrick Queen said they came out flat Wednesday. Facing the world champions with a division title still in reach, they came out flat.
"Can't explain it, it's happening," Queen said. "We talking about it and nobody is doing anything about it. I don't know."
"I think it's a focus. When I go to practice, I look at Cam (Heyward) and see how long he's been here. Every single time I come out here I want to win for him, TJ and those guys. Whatever motivation you got to find, you got to find it."
"Guys got to want it," Heyward said. "Guys got to execute. 16-10 at halftime, you got all the opportunities in the world."
"We talk about execution. We talk about communicating. When there is somebody free, if 10 guys do their job and one guy doesn't. We are screwed."
Heyward said you can't bitch and moan about the schedule because the Chiefs had the same situation. The Steelers are not executing. He said he owns that and every player in the room needs to execute it.
"The last three weeks we've played like s---, simple as that," Heyward said as the team dropped to 10-6.
Safety DeShon Elliott said he saw guys with their heads down when they were still in the game. He said if they want to go where they want to go, they got to go grab it. And do it with everyone doing their job.
"Guys can't be (fudging) wide open," Elliott said forcefully. "That's the first thing, just do your job. I feel like we were communicating, guys just weren't doing their freakin' job."
"We shouldn't be having this problem in Week 18. This is a Week 1, Week 2 problem. I don't know when we started becoming a whole different defense than what we were."
He said he still believes in his teammates but says they don't want it.
"There's got to be a want to, there is not enough of that right now," said linebacker Alex Highsmith. "There has got to be a want to. We are going to find out who wants this. Everybody in this room has got to want it. That's the only way we are going to move on and get better. We just got to put our head down and work and got to want it."
"We got to hold each other accountable. For those guys that don't want it, hard lessons have to be learned."
"We need to continue to work, look ourselves in the mirror and get back to work," said captain TJ Watt. "We just need to continue to find ways to get better, and as the season goes on, the margins are smaller. We just need to continue to work."
"The ability and know-how is there," Heyward said. "That's where my confidence lies because we were able to get it done early in the season. The last three weeks we haven't been able to get it done. We need to find out what we were doing in the first part of the season and click that back on."
Can they?
Queen said the Cincinnati game is going to tell a lot about their team. But wasn't that said about the three previous games?
