Pittsburgh Steelers Defense in Need of Major Overhaul at Every Level

Though the Pittsburgh Steelers offense was certainly lacking in the team's 26-6 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night, the defense was also a major weakness. As defensive end Brett Keisel said after the loss, "We've got some work to do." 

Just as the defense couldn't stop the Cleveland Browns offense in the second half of what eventually became a three-point Steelers win in Week 1, it had few answers for Baltimore's offense this week. And the Ravens offense is not a juggernaut this season—they were shut out 15-0 in the first half last week against the Cincinnati Bengals and ultimately lost, 23-16.

It wasn't as though the Ravens shredded the Steelers offense using quarterback Joe Flacco's big arm. Instead, it was a series of shorter passes and runs that wrecked the Steelers, who couldn't tackle, bring pressure or make any type of high-impact or aggressive plays on defense.

Or at least, aggressive plays that didn't end with a penalty.

Stat	Value
Yds. Allowed	323
Pass Yds. Allowed	166
Rush Yds. Allowed	157
Yards Per Rush Allowed	4.4
Points Allowed	26
1st Downs Allowed	25
1st Downs via Penalty	5
TOs Forced	0
BAL Time of Poss.	35:08

Flacco ended the day completing 21 of 29 pass attempts for 166 yards and two touchdowns. For the second week in a row, the Steelers gave up well over 100 rushing yards—157 this time, or 4.4 yards-per-carry on 36 attempts. There were seemingly no answers for Steve Smith Sr., who had six catches for 71 yards and a long of 23, and who was prolific at earning yards after the catch.

The two touchdowns allowed to tight end Owen Daniels were even worse. Daniels, who hadn't caught a touchdown since September 2013, was wide open on his two scores, both coming from play-action passes.

Tackling was lacking, as were impact plays at the line of scrimmage. The Steelers logged only three tackles for a loss and had no sacks nor quarterback hits. Coverage lacked as well, with only two passes successfully defensed.

The cause is simple—an older, slower defense that ages and loses speed every year.

Yes, Ryan Clark is gone, replaced by the 27-year old Mike Mitchell, and younger players like Jarvis Jones and Ryan Shazier are among the starters in the front seven. But many of their players at key positions, like safety Troy Polamalu (33), cornerback Ike Taylor (34) and defensive end Brett Keisel (35) are on the wrong side of 30 years old.

And even the younger players, Shazier excepted, don't have the requisite speed to run Dick LeBeau's blitz-heavy defense. As a result, Flacco's jersey remained clean on Thursday night; the Steelers defense hasn't taken the ball away once yet this season. Nose tackle Steve McLendon leaving the game with a shoulder injury also didn't help matters.

This isn't a mess the Steelers will be able to get out of this season. They aren't going to magically get faster or younger. The Steelers' fatal flaw of remaining too loyal to players past their prime has created this situation, and it doesn't help that recent drafts haven't proved fruitful in terms of high-impact starting-capable players.

It's been known for at least a season that the secondary was fast becoming a liability. However, the Steelers haven't drafted a defensive back in the first round since Polamalu in 2003. And instead of turning away from Taylor and toward a younger replacement, they instead convinced him to take a pay cut and have continued to start him, despite him being Pro Football Focus' 98th-ranked corner in 2013 out of 110 (subscription required).

A slower, older defense such as this one has a hard time getting off the field. The Ravens had over 35 minutes of possession on Thursday.

The longer the Steelers defense played, the more gassed it became, as evidenced by the increasing chunks of yardage the Ravens were able to pick up as the game wore on. Those included a 24-yard reception by tight end Dennis Pitta in the third quarter, the 23-yard catch by Smith Sr. and a 41-yard Justin Forsett run near the end of the game. The Baltimore Sun's Jeff Zrebiec had this to say:

As Grantland's Bill Barnwell points out, this loyalty to past-their-prime defensive players comes at a price—salary-cap issues that have pervaded for years. So, unless these struggling players miraculously turn their quality of play around in-season, this isn't something the Steelers can address until the offseason.

And considering their loyalty—despite it being detrimental to the team's growth—who knows if the Steelers' front office will finally come to grips that its adoration of the likes of Polamalu and Taylor has actually cost them. 

Rob Carr/Getty Images

Pittsburgh's offense has scored only nine points in its last six quarters of football. The Steelers cannot afford lackluster defensive performances to accompany a struggling offense. This is a defense that, at many positions, has been screaming for an overhaul for two years, and the Steelers have not done enough to address that. 

As such, the Steelers may be in for a long season. There are many high-powered offenses ahead for the Steelers defense to face—the Cincinnati Bengals twice, the New Orleans Saints, the Indianapolis Colts and the Atlanta Falcons among them.

The Steelers cannot play defense against those teams as they did against the Ravens (or as they did against the Browns in the second half last week) and think it will be enough to win. But with the makeup of the roster and depth chart as it stands now, it's going to be an uphill battle.

This isn't the Steelers defense of 2010, no matter how much they want to believe it is.

If it cannot make the necessary adjustments in-season, then 2015 will require Pittsburgh to make critical decisions. The younger players need to put it together faster because the Steelers can no longer lean so heavily on the elder statesmen to get the job done.