Minkah Fitzpatrick has a fix for the ailing Steelers defense. But will Mike Tomlin take his advice?
While most NFL teams choose to spend most of their money on quarterbacks and other offensive players to compete in a league geared toward entertainment and scoring, the Steelers are going against the grain and spending boatloads on their defense.
The Steelers have a $100 million defense, the most expensive in the league — $126,742,666 to be exact for the 2024 season. T.J. Watt is one of the highest-paid defenders in the NFL. Minkah Fitzpatrick, Patrick Queen and Cam Heyward are among the highest-paid players at their positions.
A defense with that kind of star power can’t get gouged the way it did Sunday night against the Cowboys. The Steelers gave up 445 yards. They hemorrhaged big plays in the passing game. And they got gashed late in the game by a rushing attack that had done little in the first four weeks of the season.
But the biggest indictment against the Steelers defense is the simple fact that they can’t even get lined up right.
“They’re a good team, but we had a lot of busts,” safety DeShon Elliott said. “We weren’t communicating. Things weren’t going the way we planned for it to go when it came to sorting things out. We weren’t on the same page.
“It’s fixable, but these are things we can’t keep doing. Some things are repetitive. Communication should never be a problem in the secondary, or the defense period. We’re with each other every day.”
It’s not a new problem. In the first three games of the season, some big turnovers and other timely defensive plays helped the Steelers win to open the season 3-0. But the communication issues were still present in those victories. They were just swept under the rug because the Steelers won.
The past two losses have shined a brighter light on the problem. Colts quarterback Joe Flacco had receivers running wide open all over the field, and he led the Colts to a 27-24 victory over the Steelers week ago in Indianapolis.
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott also capitalized on the Steelers’ frequent mistakes. He had four passes of 25 yards or more and finished with 352 passing yards. It’s safe to say at least 100, probably more, came on blown assignments in the secondary.
Fitzpatrick is tired of it and had a message for Mike Tomlin after the game.
“We have to play simple defense,” Fitzpatrick said. “We have a lot of talent in the secondary, a lot of guys who can play man and play zone. We just have to make a play call, simplify it and it will allow us to play fast.”
On Prescott’s longest passing play of the game, Jalen Tolbert ran free down the sidelines for a 48-yard gain behind Donte Jackson with Fitzpatrick nowhere in sight to provide help. On a 27-yarder to tight end Jake Ferguson, slot corner Beanie Bishop appeared to be in man coverage while the rest of the secondary was playing zone.
Jackson is in his first season with the team after coming over in a trade in March. Bishop was signed as an undrafted free agent in May. Elliott is the third member of the secondary who is new. He signed as a free agent in March.
“We have to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing and everyone is on the same page,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s a new secondary, a lot of new faces, younger faces. We might not have that chemistry we’ve had in the past, but it’s something we have to work on.”
The Steelers can work on their run defense, too, while they’re at it. They went into the game with one of the best run defenses in the NFL, but the Cowboys ran at will on them in the second half, especially late in the game on their winning touchdown drive.
On the 15-play drive that put the Cowboys ahead, they ran five times for 30 yards. Elliott suggested the Steelers were caught off guard by the frequency with which Dallas coach Mike McCarthy called running plays on the final drive.
“We definitely didn’t think they’d run the ball in the four-minute offense at the end of the game,” Elliott said. “But they probably thought we knew they were going to throw the ball, so they did the opposite. And they did it at a high rate and efficiently. That’s not us.”
MAKE THE GODDAMM COVERAGE CALLS SIMPLER!!!! FUCK!!! THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE SO WIDE OPEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIELD. MAKE THE CALLS EASIER BASED ON HOW THE OFFENSE LINES UP!!!!!! 
fucc'n Jack-@ss.
