Instant analysis: Steelers defense is giving Pittsburgh life, but penalties are taking the life out of them
The Pittsburgh Steelers are 2-0 for the first time since 2020, and only the second time since 2017, and it’s all thanks to their defense.
The Steelers’ defense held the Denver Broncos to six points and didn’t allow a touchdown. If not for a bad offsides call on T.J. Watt in Week 1, the Steelers would have started 2-0 without allowing a single touchdown. And while it wasn’t pretty, Pittsburgh sits atop the AFC North two games ahead of the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals after two weeks with a 13-6 win over Denver.
The Steelers’ offense started off fast. They had drives of 12 and 11 plays that resulted in Justin Fields’ first touchdown pass as a Steeler, and Darnell Washington’s first touchdown reception in his career to go up 7-0. Unfortunately, penalties were the story of the game for Pittsburgh.
Broderick Jones had three penalties on one drive – a false start and two holdings. The last penalty negated legitimately one of the best throws I’ve ever seen when Fields was running to his right, torqued his body and threw a 51-yard dot on a string to George Pickens that would have set up the Steelers inside the 10. Instead, they had to punt.
An offensive pass interference took away a George Pickens touchdown that would have put the Steelers up 14-0 at the half, Instead, they settled for three and went into halftime up 10-0.
Calvin Austin got a third-down conversion late in the game that was taken away by a Dan Moore holding call. Overall, Pittsburgh had 10 penalties for 78 yards, but that doesn’t include multiple that were offset due to flags on the Broncos. Already, penalties are a massive problem for the Steelers, and it killed what would have been a far more productive day for the offense.
That said, the offense took a leap backward in the second half. After carrying over the long-established drives from Week 1 into the first half of Week 2, the Steelers didn’t have a drive longer than five plays in the second half, The aforementioned Moore penalty negated what could have been a longer drive, but the unit as a whole got sloppy in the second half.
The box score doesn’t quite show how well Fields played (13-of-20, 117 yards, 27 yards rushing). He had a terrific first half, completing 10 passes for over 100 yards and a score, as well as that negated dime to Pickens. In quarters three and four, though, he only had three completions combined.
While I’m sure there will be people freaking out and impulsively saying Fields played horribly or that nothing has changed with the offense, let me stomp that out because frankly, it’s a stupid thing to say. The offense is going to have hiccups. Every offense does. It’s still very early, and they still showed the ability to have long drives while Fields made several throws that no quarterback since Ben Roethlisberger could make.
While the offense sputtered, the defense picked up the slack. T.J. Watt had another sack and is just 1.5 away from 100 for his career. And before we go any further, how about Cory Trice? Coming in for Donte Jackson, he reads Bo Nix like a book and comes away with a huge interception in the end zone. Trice was a guy with a lot of hype last year in camp before getting hurt, and it was great to see his work to get back and throughout the offseason paying off — he’s a legit player.
DeShon Elliott may be the Steelers’ best addition of the offseason. He had a big run stuff on third down to force a punt and played very well in coverage all day. The defense as a whole only allowed 295 yards of offense, forced five three-and-outs, and had two takeaways – this is the best defense they’ve had since 2010.
Overall, the biggest issue the Steelers have is penalties. The offensive hiccups will get cleaned up, but it will mean nothing if big plays keep getting called back because of holding calls. And yet despite the second-half hiccups and the penalties, the Steelers are 2-0 ahead of their home opener; that’s a big win.
