How Offensive Is the Pittsburgh Steelers' Offensive Line?

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

The teams that the Steelers struggled the most against were the teams from the NFC East.

Here is how the Steelers offensive line did against the NFC East.

Philadelphia Eagles - Nine, 2.5 by Juqua Parker.

New York Giants - Five, three by DE Mathias Kiwanuka.

Washington Redskins - Four, 2.5 by Demetric Evans.

Dallas Cowboys - Five, by five different players

This totals 23 sacks in these four games, three of them after the line lost both Smith and Simmons.

In the AFC, only Tennessee produced five sacks against the Steelers.  And only Baltimore and Jacksonville recorded three each.

In an interesting note, the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns recorded zero sacks in their final three games against the Steelers.

When you look at the teams that recorded three sacks or more against the Steelers, four of them are from the NFC, Tennessee and Baltimore who were both in the top-five defenses, and three to the Jacksonville Jaguars, in Jacksonville on Sunday night.

Even though there are no excuses for giving up the kind of sacks to those teams, Pittsburgh does see the importance of the line coming together as a unit.

The Steelers used their third round pick on Guard Kraig Urbik, acknowledging that there needs to be improvement on the line.  If a team isn't getting better, they are getting worse.

As Pittsburgh prepares for the 2009 season, the line has been addressed as the Steelers see fit.  Hopefully, they are right, and all of those skeptics are wrong.  We will find out as the season unfolds.

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