Reviewing the All-22 - Steelers Defense @ Browns
I fuckin hate Thursday Night Football.
I know yinz watched the same broadcast as I did, so surely you heard that obnoxious ass stat about the Steelers being 0-and-whatever (I think 7) on the road on Thursday Night Football as many times as I did. That trend held true in Cleveland as the Browns stole one from a red-hot Steelers team, 24-19. I debated, for a couple days, whether or not I would watch the all-22 of this game just because I thought that the Steelers shortcomings were fairly obvious during the live broadcast of this game. Knowing that, I elected to watch the game back anyway, and it turns out I was right. On both sides of the ball, the issue was in short yardage situations all game long. I have had a myriad of issues with our offense in recent weeks; so much so, that I’m going to address that directly in a post later this week. I came away from this game (wrongfully) deeply upset with our defense, so I decided to nitpick their performance against the Browns for the purposes of this post.
My first victim that I’ve hand-picked for my unsolicited criticism is Donte Jackson. Look, the Steelers have been pretty weak at corner for a long time. After Joey Porter Jr’s tremendous rookie campaign, with the addition of Donte Jackson, I had high hopes for 2024. Then, Donte Jackson had a few decent games to start the year off, and a few timely interceptions throughout the year, and then I started to feel cocky about this defense. I only bring that up to say that it’s not Donte Jackson’s fault that I can’t control my emotions, and I was ready to crown him as a significant piece of this defense based on such a small sample size of film. He has slid pretty badly in recent weeks, and it hurt us, at times, against the Browns.
Here we go: at this point it’s late in the third quarter, and the field conditions are terrible. On the first play of this Browns drive, Donte Jackson (#26 at the bottom of the screen), holds his ground on the play-action fake for WAY too long, and Browns’ TE Blake Whiteheart runs right past him. Jackson’s ability to recover on this play was actually pretty impressive, but when he got his head turned around, he was just unable to find the ball, and he got Mossed for 29 yards. I understand that NFL DBs have the hardest job in the world, because they can play immaculate football for 29 out of 30 defensive snaps, but that one snap where they played badly ends up being a huge, momentum-shifting play. If that was the case with Donte Jackson, I wouldn’t be criticizing him right now. But, the fact is, he had rough moments against the Commanders, he had rough moments against the Ravens, and this play was a rough moment against the Browns, on what ends up being a touchdown drive for them. With Beanie Bishop playing good football, and Joey Porter Jr. being who he is, Donte Jackson has become the weak link on this defense. And, I know that he got an INT in this game, but Jameis Winston threw the ball right at him, and it was probably the easiest INT of his whole life. It looks great on the box score, but it doesn’t take away from him getting burned week after week on film. I’m tapering my expectations for him as this season progresses, which is obviously not what you want to hear as the road gets narrow heading into December.
Later on during the same drive, the Steelers defense got a big third down stop, as they had done all game long. The only problem with that is the two-win-Browns didn’t have anything to play for, so on 4th-and-short, against a division rival, why not go for it every single time? They did just that, and they had a tremendous amount of success doing it. The Browns finished the game 1-10 on third down, but a perfect 4-4 on 4th down, including the video clip shown above. This was the first play of the 4th quarter, 4th & 1, and the Browns lined up with Jerry Jeudy as the RB and Nick Chubb lined up as a FB. They snapped the ball and gave it to Chubb, which I’m sure the Steelers saw coming. Elandon Roberts(#50) has a free shot to stuff the run and force the turnover on downs, but he missed the tackle, which he doesn’t do very often, and the Browns converted and got a fresh set of downs. This was just one instance, of many, where the Steelers defense got beat in a short-yardage situation, despite the fact that the Browns were on their 13th offensive line combination of the season. You have to credit their o-line for getting the job done against one of the better defenses, against the run, in the NFL.
Here we go, again. This clip is from the same drive as the two previous clips, as well. The Steelers defense holds up, yet again, on 3rd down; this time with goal to go, forcing a 4th down from the Steelers’ 2-yard line. So, 4th & 2, Jameis Winston dropped back to throw, and nothing’s open, so he takes off to his right and takes TWO hits as he dove into the end zone for a Browns touchdown. Nick Herbig was definitely held by Browns’ G Germain Ifedi, who was lined up at LT on this play, and he definitely would’ve made the play if he wasn’t held, but whatever. C’est la vie. The flag wasn’t thrown, and the Steelers defense folds in another short-yardage situation, this time for a touchdown. The Browns would go for two after this play, and convert, bringing the score to 18-6 at this point in the game…just to give you an idea of what our offense had done to this point.
I was ready to turn the game off, but the defense was able to force two turnovers in the fourth quarter: a strip sack by Nick Herbig, and the aforementioned Donte Jackson INT, and the Steelers offense was FINALLY able pull two touchdowns out of their ass, and take a 19-18 lead. So now, the Browns had the ball with just under two minutes left in regulation, and it’s 3rd & 6. The Browns have the ball (probably) right on the edge of FG range (taking the conditions into account). Jameis Winston dropped back, and hit Jerry Jeudy who was running across the middle for a 15-yard completion. I decided to show this play for a couple of reasons. The first reason is because this was the only time the Browns converted on third down in this entire game, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time for us. The second reason I picked this play, is because this is a play on the ball that I expect a player of Minkah Fitzpatrick’s(#39) caliber to make. When Jameis Winston begins his throwing motion, there’s no one else in Minkah’s zone besides Jerry Jeudy. In years past, Minkah Fitzpatrick was jumping that route and intercepting that ball. Minkah has caught a lot of criticism recently for his lack of splash plays, but I’ve stayed away from criticizing him, because he consistently takes away whatever area of the field he’s playing, and QBs simply don’t throw to him. Blind gunslinger Jameis Winston decided to throw in Minkah’s direction in the most crucial moment of the game, and Minkah was unable to make a play. In a lot of ways, this goes back to what I said earlier about DBs; that they can play extremely well 98% of the time, but the one time they don’t, it’s a bad look. I don’t know if the conditions prevented him from building up the speed to jump that route, or if he’s just not the ball hawk that he once was, but that play, paired with a bullshit delay of game penalty on Beanie Bishop Jr., set the Browns up for a 1st & goal from our 9-yard line. The Browns would, obviously, score a touchdown shortly after this play, and that’s your ball game. Minkah Fitzpatrick is my favorite player, and I just would’ve liked to see him make a play on the ball at that moment. OH, by the way, the Browns’ game-winning touchdown came on 2nd & goal from the 2-yard line; a 2-yard touchdown run by Nick Chubb. We. Couldn’t. Win. In. Short. Yardage.
As I have said several times in this post, the Steelers were bad in short yardage on both sides of the ball, but there’s one more thing about the defense that I have to address to wrap this up, and that’s the pass rush, or lack thereof. As I said in my ‘pregame thoughts’ on this game, and as I highlighted earlier, the Browns were on their 13th offensive line combination of the season. With that in mind, I expected our pass rush to create pressure and make life difficult for Jameis Winston, but he could’ve done some Christmas shopping and called his mother with all the time he had in the pocket. And, there’s no point in me putting out a bunch of clips of our pass rush doing absolutely nothing. Just go back and watch the highlights of the game. It’s evident. It’s not something I’m going to fret about right now, as it was just one bad game, and we’re about to get Alex Highsmith back, but on this particular night, we just weren’t able to generate any kind of pressure, outside of a strip sack by Nick Herbig and a blitz by Patrick Queen. This defense goes as this pass rush goes. Without it, we’re an extremely mediocre unit.
Obviously, the lack of production on offense made life difficult defensively, so there’s no need to jump ship right now. This was one bad game, on a short week, against a division rival. I still think this is one of the best defenses in the NFL. With that being said…T.J. Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Joey Porter Jr., where the hell are these guys lately? Their slumps are noted and felt, and it makes me nervous despite an 8-3 record. After the Raven’s win last night against the Chargers, we’re hanging now hanging on for dear life for first place in the AFC North. We still control our own destiny, but the loss to the Browns really stings. I can only hope that the loss fires up the locker room, and they all bring their absolute best for what is suddenly a massive game against a severely underrated Bengals team.
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