Cam Heyward puts his teammates on notice after calling out a key group of defenders for being the reason why the Steelers lost
The Steelers defense was an embarrassment on Thursday, and Cam Heyward lets his teammates know about it.
There is plenty of blame to ago around anytime a team loses in the fashion that the Pittsburgh Steelers did on Thursday night. To let a 40-year-old Joe Flacco come in and look like a bona fide MVP candidate against the highest-paid defense in the league is a full-blown travesty.
And if you watched the game, you probably wondered why it looked like the Pittsburgh Steelers secondary was getting beat like a drum for the majority of the game, with Cincinnati Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase just giving it to Pittsburgh.
Well, Cam Heyward had an answer and it had very little to do with who was playing on the backend of the defense.
Cam Heyward calls out the defensive front in Pittsburgh
“It’s not the secondary, that’s a cop out. I think front line, we got to control line of scrimmage a lot better,” said Heyward via Brooke Pryor on X-Twitter. “I’m pissed off. We didn’t take care of our job. They were last in rushing, and the way we gave it up today that takes the cake. We don’t stop the *bleeping* run, that’s as simple as that.”
To me, that was the most egregious of all the abnormalities from the Steelers’ defense on Thursday. Sure the fact that Chase looked like the second coming of Jerry Rice wasn’t great, nor was 40-year-old Flacco slinging it, but to let the worst rushing offense in the league go for 140 yards on the ground is wild to me. To see if I was the only one thinking that way, I spoke with Adam Holt, an AFC North contributor at A to Z Sports, to get his perspective.
“Think the frustration makes a ton of sense and is warranted here. The Steelers, along with nearly every spectator at the game or watching on their television, knew what the Bengals were doing when it mattered most. They were going to let Joe Flacco attack any sort of potential one on one matchup for his top wideouts in Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase. Yet, they still couldn’t find a way to slow it down.”
“Whether it’s on coaching, execution, effort, or anything else in between – you need these veterans to be frustrated after a game like that one. In the AFC North, an offensive performance like the one the Steelers got tonight cannot go to waste.”
“Unfortunately for Mike Tomlin’s team, they lacked the wherewithal to make the necessary adjustments to come out victorious. That’s a trend that must come to a close if Pittsburgh wants to make any postseason noise.” – Holt
So there is a lot to clean up in Pittsburgh and certainly on defense. But as the weather turns and the Steelers get into the dog days of their schedule, they’d better continue to run the ball, and they better make sure to find a way to stop the run, or they are in for a long fall but a short winter.
Pittsburgh Steelers News
Mike Tomlin and the Steelers’ defense spoil Aaron Rodgers’ historic night following an embarrassing showing against the Bengals
It was a night to forget for Pittsburgh.
