Steelers Pro Bowler exposes Pittsburgh’s coaching staff with telling comments that explain defensive performance against Bengals
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense came out flat and looked uninspired all night against the Cincinnati Bengals in its Week 7 loss. It looked as if Joe Flacco and Ja’Marr Chase were playing pitch and catch in the backyard, both putting up some of the best stat lines of their respective careers.But what was more concerning […]
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense came out flat and looked uninspired all night against the Cincinnati Bengals in its Week 7 loss. It looked as if Joe Flacco and Ja’Marr Chase were playing pitch and catch in the backyard, both putting up some of the best stat lines of their respective careers.
But what was more concerning was what happened on the ground. Despite having the league’s worst rushing offense before the game, the Bengals and lead back Chase Brown surged for over 140 yards.
But if you ask Steelers green dot and Pro Bowl middle linebacker Patrick Queen, he says he had no idea that was coming.
Steelers weren’t prepared for Bengals’ rushing attack
“I don’t think we were physical enough,” Queen said Monday via the Steelers YouTube channel. “I don’t think we was expecting them to run. ‘Cause the whole ranking and all this and that, like, hey, they’ll run the ball this amount of times, whatever. So I think we got pretty complacent with thinking they wasn’t gonna run a lot… Definitely can’t have that, definitely gotta get better at that.”
If a player, much less the defensive signal-caller, says the team is complacent and didn’t need to prepare for the run game, we have a big problem. I know the Bengals didn’t have a single game before Thursday where Brown rushed for over 50 yards.
But common sense alone should have told you that the Bengals would at least try and run the football. A home game on a short week against a divisional opponent and with a QB still learning his teammates’ names feels like prime conditions for trying to establish the run. And the Bengals and Brown did just that, to the tune of almost 10 yards per carry.
“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 Cam Heyward after the game via Brooke Pryor on Twitter (X). “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.”
So maybe the coaches just had a brain burp. Maybe that’s the last time all year that the Steelers defense will look like and play like they are unprepared. But we have precedent that suggests otherwise. And as long as players are openly admitting to being complacent, there will be problems that need fixing.
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