The Steelers dropped a second game in a row Sunday night following a brutal second half against the Packers, falling 35-25 at home. As always, there are plenty of takeaways to be had:
1. The defense is officially in trouble
Here’s an ugly statistic for you: The NFL’s highest-paid defense, the Pittsburgh Steelers, have now allowed more 30-plus point games than not to start the 2025 season.
A not-so-big-surprise: They’ve lost three of those four 30-plus point games.
I doubt that’s a trend even the front office’s most fervent doubters would’ve
expected following an offseason where the Steelers retained T.J. Watt and Cam Heyward and added big-name defenders such as Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay.
For a second week in a row, the highly-touted group collapsed in primetime.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, with major issues at every level. Up front, the defensive line allowed a respectable 94 rushing yards (3.6 per carry), but couldn’t record a single sack — or many pressures, for that matter. Sure, Packers quarterback Jordan Love heavily used the quick game like he has all season, but the Pittsburgh front was largely toothless on numerous blitzes and longer-developing pass plays.
For how much star power the Steelers have on the defensive line, you just have to see more production.
But the coverage players behind the pass rush were the much larger problem.
Love posted the hyper-efficient passing line of 29/37 for 360 yards and three touchdowns, with no interceptions. The Steelers were once again allowing wide-open receivers all over the secondary, and for the second straight week they looked like they forgot how to tackle.
While the Steelers had problem defending downfield targets, Jordan Love’s passing chart backs up the eye test: The Packers were passing at or around the line of scrimmage a lot and depending on yards after catch to do damage.
The Pittsburgh looked unorganized at best and disinterested at worst Sunday night, including this particularly ugly rep from Darius Slay on Green Bay’s second touchdown of the game:
And after safety DeShon Elliott went down, it just got worse. The fill-ins, largely Juan Thornhill and Chuck Clark, were repeatedly out of position and outran by the Packers’ pass catchers. Green Bay tight end Tucker Kraft looked like he was playing on Madden’s rookie difficulty. It didn’t matter if the throw was a lame duck from Love — the Steelers made Kraft look like the strongest and fastest player on the field Sunday night.
Scheme is an issue. For as much talent as he has to work with, defensive coordinator Teryl Austin has served up one of the worst defenses in the league over the last few weeks. But plays like the ones above show that the talent the Steelers added defensively this offseason might not have been as great as we thought.
The early signs were there. Pittsburgh allowed just seven points in the first half but was were bailed out by some offensive miscues by Green Bay and a two-miss game from Packers kicker Brandon McManus. Then the floodgates opened up with the Steelers allowing a whopping 21 points in the fourth quarter.
Sure, the Packers offense is good. But this was yet another unacceptable performance from a relatively healthy Steelers defense — that, again, is the highest-paid in the NFL. It’s only Week 8, but it’s looking like Pittsburgh’s big bet on defense in 2025 is starting to blow up in the team’s face.
2. Coaching was a problem
The Steelers were actually winning against the Packers entering the fourth quarter, 19-14, even if it seems like a distant memory now. But by the end, both sides of the ball collapsed in dramatic fashion to allow a comeback Green Bay win — by 10 points, too!
I’ll spare criticizing Teryl Austin any more in this article, but head coach Mike Tomlin isn’t blameless either. The late-game breakdown had shades of the team’s disappointing stretch to end last season, and the postgame sound bites matched as well.
“There’s not a lot of fight in us right now,” defensive captain Cam Heyward said after the game per TribLive’s Chris Adamski.
That’s something you never want to hear, but especially not from a team that’s still in the playoff picture and even leading in its division.
On the field, discipline eroded in the final 15 minutes, from D.K. Metcalf’s eye-poke penalty to a Kenneth Gainwell fumble to Jonnu Smith’s drop on a must-have two-point conversion.
The early-season jitters are long gone. This is the part of the NFL season where the playoff-caliber teams start to separate from the rest, and the Steelers are falling apart.
And despite a few extra days of preparation following a Week 7 Thursday Night Football game, Pittsburgh ultimately struggled with the exact same issues that led to last week’s loss to the Bengals. And offensive coordinator Arthur Smith failed to adapt later in the game (more on that later).
But unlike past rough stretches, the Steelers don’t have much of an injury excuse to fall back on this time around.
Mike Tomlin’s value, of course, is determined by a whole lot more than the latest frustrating loss. But on Sunday night, the Steelers looked far from a well-coached team.
3. The offense showed some cracks
Entering Steelers-Packers, the running narrative in Pittsburgh circles was that for once, fans were worried about the defense and not that concerned about the offense. And after losing 35-25 Sunday night, you could argue that take was spot on.
Still, while Pittsburgh’s defense will and should bear the brunt of the blame, the offense didn’t deliver like it should have.
For one, even when it was clicking, the Steelers could not get the ball in the end zone. Pittsburgh had a total of six scoring drives with only two ending in touchdowns Sunday night. The team is lucky to have a truly elite kicker in Chris Boswell, but even then, three-point increments aren’t going to win games against offenses like Green Bay’s — especially given the state of the Pittsburgh defense.
The run game was clicking for the first half, but the downfield offense remained painfully inconsistent. A growing trend to watch is that Pittsburgh doesn’t really have a contested-catch specialist on the team.
Metcalf has the frame for it but it has never been his game. The rest of the receiving room is largely filled with shorter speed threats (even Roman Wilson’s first-career touchdown catch was on the verge of being a drop). And Pat Freiermuth and Jonnu Smith don’t have bad hands but don’t always reliably pull in the tough grabs.
Even the popular Darnell-Washington-is-bigger-than-your-guy jump ball hasn’t worked all that well in recent weeks.
Due to Pittsburgh’s struggles to get long and intermediate gains, the offense tended to sputter when it was put behind the sticks, which occurred a lot in the second half. The Steelers didn’t look like they were built to win the shootout.
Part of those second-half struggles were due to the run game success slowing down. After starting left guard Isaac Seumalo went down with injury, the team had to pull swing tackle Spencer Anderson from his sixth-offensive lineman spot to the starting lineup. The Steelers didn’t seem to have a contingency plan for such an injury, and the team’s signature jumbo package on offense all but disappeared from the gameplan afterwards.
Pass protection seemed to worsen after the Seumalo injury as well.
The Steelers’ offensive line has outperformed expectations this season and has even sparked some optimism for the foundation they’ve built for future years. But depth has been a noted cause for concern since the preseason, and the team’s injury luck up front wasn’t going to last forever.
I wrote earlier this week that the Arthur Smith offense has been a lot of fun but it can feel gimmicky at times. All it took was an injury to one offensive lineman and a few tough down and distances, and it seemed like the entire offensive identity the team had built in 2025 was abandoned.
If Seumalo misses future games, the Steelers have to figure out how to keep their jumbo package alive throughout the season. And don’t even get me started on what could happen if D.K. Metcalf misses time.
The bones are still surprisingly solid for the Steeler offense: Pass protection wasn’t spectacular, but it was up to par against Green Bay. Aaron Rodgers played fairly well. Pittsburgh averaged 5.2 yards per run on the league’s second-best rushing defense. And the team still put up 25 points on a top-10 scoring defense.
But as should be expected after a 10-point home loss, there’s still plenty to work on.
4. Odds and ends
- The Steelers’ throwback uniforms looked even uglier than I expected on TV. Still, they fall into the “so bad it’s good” category for me. A successful throwback look needs to be either the coolest uniform I’ve ever seen or some abominable recreation of a fashion we rightfully left behind decades ago. Pittsburgh’s look Sunday night fell firmly into the latter category. I hope the team brings it back sparingly in the future, and maybe against a team with better contrasting colors than the Packers.
- Returning to Arthur Smith’s funky Steelers offense, opening up the passing game with a toss to Spencer Anderson was a fun wrinkle to keep defenses honest. Anderson seems to have natural hands as well. Aaron Rodgers lovingly referred to him as a pass catcher in his postgame press conference as well.
- Outside of a contested drop that should’ve been negated by a defensive offsides (if the referees had seen it), wide receiver Roman Wilson had another good game with a career-best stat line of four catches for 74 yards and a touchdown. His two biggest gains of the night came on extended plays as well, showcasing a nice strength of his game.
- The NBC broadcast noted that 131 of Tucker Kraft’s 143 receiving yards came after the catch on Sunday. Tackling remains a massive problem for the Steeler defense.
- The refereeing was awful across the league on Sunday, and the Steeler game was no exception. There were multiple missed or questionable calls against both sides — I’m not implying it led to a Packers win — but it was frustrating to watch regardless.
- Another rough outing on the Nick Herbig snap watch: He saw just 24 to T.J. Watt’s 59 and Alex Highsmith’s 47. On a day when the Steelers could’ve used more pass-rushing juice, it’s surprising they didn’t spread the playing time more evenly.
- I’ll have to watch the all-22 when it drops, but Jalen Ramsey, and especially Joey Porter Jr., don’t worry me much in coverage. Of the cornerbacks, it was the performance from the Darius Slay/Brandin Echols spot on Sunday that was rough, and it was made worse by poor safety and linebacker play in coverage.
- Aaron Rodgers’ nifty spike to avoid a second-half sack was a smart, veteran play — but future NFL rules should probably make sure those antics result in an intentional grounding.
- He is far from the biggest name on the Pittsburgh defense, but if DeShon Elliott is out for an extended period of time it could be a big issue. The secondary is notably worse when he’s out of the lineup, and Elliott has been the rare spark plug in a unit that’s generally lacked physicality over the last few weeks.
- Pittsburgh hasn’t forced a turnover on defense since Sept. 28 against the Vikings. Not what you want to see from a group so dependent on splash plays.
- The Steelers continuing to use Spencer Anderson in motion and even adding a Broderick Jones pull to the run game are welcome sights. Jaylen Warren has been playing out of his mind this season and the Pittsburgh ground attack has legitimately been fun to watch most of the time.
- It goes without saying, but Chris Boswell continues to be one of the most elite players in the entire NFL. He went four-for-four Sunday night with three makes of over 50 yards. He makes it look easy, too. Don’t take the greatness you’re watching for granted.
- To end on a more depressing note, the Steelers’ upcoming schedule is anything but kind. The next five games are against the Colts, Chargers, Bengals, Bears, and Bills. Despite coming off a two-game losing streak, it really doesn’t get easier from here for Pittsburgh.
The Steelers will take on 7-1 Indianapolis Nov. 2 at home.
What are your takeaways from Steelers vs. Packers? Agree/disagree with the ones above? Join the Behind the Steel Curtain community and let us know in the comments!
