PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It was such a paradox of a game for the Steelers defense Sunday afternoon-on one hand, they couldn’t get off the field on third or fourth down, until the end. On the other, five turnovers buoyed an offense that excelled early and at the very end but everything else was under water.
The Steelers had some urgency to get the football this week. They saw blood in the water with a pair of New England tailbacks who have an earned reputation for fumbling. Cam Heyward said from the first glimpse of the game plan early last week they were ‘steadfast into creating turnovers.’ They were locked in and it paid dividends.
TJ Watt said they work turnover circuit every day of every week, he said the only difference last week is that they had victims that fumbled a lot. So maybe it’s not that they did it more, but focused on it and what happened Sunday was when preparation met opportunity.
“We spend a lot of time on our ball search culture,” said Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin. “But it's just words, it's an agenda. The efforts of the guys make it real, not only on Sunday but during the course of the week. It just felt like we were heading toward a good game in that area, just the way we worked this week in that area.”
“We just talk about it,” said linebacker Patrick Queen. “We talk about it and preach about it. It’s something you have to live every single day. They put us through drills for that, every single day. You get tired of hearing turnover, turnover, turnover. It’s something they live by here and I love to see that.”
“It’s every day,” said linebacker Cole Holcomb. “It’s that culture we are trying to build. They come in bunches, once they start coming, they come in bunches.”
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The did indeed on Sunday, after three combined in the first two games, those five made up for the other glaring weaknesses on the defense.
For as much heat as there is on defensive coordinator Teryl Austin, he really brought turnovers back to the Steelers defense. Hired before the 2019 season as a Senior Defensive Assistant with the secondary, in one year the Steelers went from 29th in the league in takeaways per game to first (2.4). It was a philosophy preached by Austin. He constantly talked about it and worked different drills and really put emphasis on it.
Steelers rank in turnovers per game since Austin was hired:
2019 2.4 (1st)
2020 1.6 (3rd)
2021 1.3 (15th)
2022 1.4 (9th)
2023 1.5 (11th)
2024 1.8 (2nd)
There is still a lot to fix, but Tomlin and Austin’s ‘ball search culture’ got them a second win and time to work on other issues while sitting in a tie for first place in the division.