Tim Benz: Failure to fix known problems will lead to more 'catastrophic' days for Steelers' defense

If you were looking for answers from Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin on Tuesday regarding the state of his wobbling defense, you didn’t get any.

That might be because he doesn’t have them.

Or because he doesn’t want to say them out loud.

Or because he doesn’t want to admit them to himself.

Depending on which position group, player or ill-advised schematic aspect of the playbook we are talking about, any of those three options might apply.

There was a noteworthy moment during Tomlin’s weekly press conference when he brought up the defensive unit of Sunday night’s opponent, the Green Bay Packers.

“They’ve invested a lot in their edge people up front. They’ve reaped the rewards of it. They play behind that rush. Micah Parsons, I can’t say enough about him and his talents,” Tomlin said.

“We have our hands full, but not only with him. With (Rashan) Gary, (Lukas) Van Ness, they’ve got a lot of talent. They’ve invested a lot of resources in that position up front.”

Agreed.

That’s a big reason why Green Bay is sixth in the NFL when it comes to fewest total yards allowed (288.5 per game) and is No. 2 against the run (76.5 yards per game). Not to mention six sacks last week against the Arizona Cardinals.

But if anyone in the NFL should have “reaped the rewards” from investing in its defense by now, shouldn’t it be the Steelers? After all, they are spending a league-high $163 million on that side of the ball, according to OverTheCap.com. That’s to say nothing of the draft and trade capital they’ve poured into that unit over the last few seasons.

However, following their 33-31 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday night, the Steelers rank 28th in yards per game allowed (374.7), 31st against the pass (258.8) and 24th in first downs allowed (140).

Why?

With an overhauled secondary, an allegedly deep crop of linebackers and high draft choices along the defensive line to complement Cameron Heyward, why isn’t the defense on the path to becoming the “historic” group Tomlin suggested it could be back in August?

“It certainly hasn’t met my vision to this point,” Tomlin said in his first public comments since returning from Cincinnati. “I’m not discouraged. We’ve got good people there, good players — guys that have good relationships with the game. We’re just going to keep working.”

In that response, Tomlin was speaking specifically about the secondary. But whether it’s the defensive backs or the defensive front, the Steelers have to get out of this rut of simply identifying what’s wrong and actually fixing it.

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That’s the case for communication issues, poor tackling, soft coverage, winning pass rush battles, an inability to get off blocks in the run game or … whatever else.

Steelers coaches and players have never backed away from admitting their faults. They’re just apparently rotten at addressing them.

“They had a 25-yard run and a 37-yard run. That’s all that’s required,” Tomlin said of the Bengals’ offense. “Those big runs, they flip the field. They put them in scoring position. They change the trajectory of your strategy, etc. It’s not 60 snaps we’re talking about here. In our business, at this level, one or two plays are the difference between having a good day and a catastrophic day.”

That’s an accurate statement, but it’s not at all a representative characterization of what happened Thursday.

It wasn’t just those two runs from Chase Brown. It was a 37-yard pass from Joe Flacco to Andrei Iosivas. It was a 29-yard pass to Tee Higgins and a 25-yarder to Noah Fant. It was 16 separate catches by Ja’Marr Chase for 161 yards, averaging a first down per reception.

The Bengals ran 72 plays Thursday; only three of them resulted in a Steelers tackle for a loss. Cincy racked up 470 yards and 27 first downs. Flacco threw 47 passes. He was sacked just twice.

As “catastrophic” as they may have been, two good runs by Brown didn’t cause all that — especially when the team had halftime and more than 32 minutes of game time to adjust to what they were seeing from the previously dormant Bengals rushing attack after those specific plays.

A real catastrophe would be failing to build on a 4-1 start to the season and letting the rest of a struggling division off the mat.

If Tomlin and his defensive coaches don’t start fixing problems instead of constantly trying to explain them away, that’s exactly what they may experience.

Listen: Tim Benz and Joe Rutter discuss what Mike Tomlin had to say during his Tuesday press conference