Unpopular Opinion: The Steelers run defense was not bad in 2024

When the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the dreaded long offseason, there are plenty of ideas to debate. As part of the triumphant trio on the Steelers Preview podcast, I’ve been known to often give a “Dave answer“ to various things as I often like to argue both sides of an issue. With this in mind, a new weekly segment has been born… Unpopular opinion.

There are plenty of arguments both for and against the Pittsburgh Steelers that might not go along with the majority of fans. Oftentimes I believe in these arguments, while other times I simply like to pose a counter argument for ones that are taking it too much to the extreme. For this reason, I’m going to offer some points about the Pittsburgh Steelers that go against the general fan narrative, or at least how I have heard things.

Next up is an opinion where the worst performance being the last thing that happened makes fans forget about everything else…

The Steelers run defense was not bad in 2024

Obviously the Steelers run defense failed them in the playoffs last year. After giving up 220 yards to the Ravens in Week 16, the Steelers let the Ravens get the better of them even more in the postseason with 299 rushing yards. Both of these outings are not acceptable, especially against a division rival. The Steelers need to do better and improvement needs to be a priority for 2025.

But thinking that the Steelers run defense was always bad in 2024 is a mistake. It simply isn’t true.

While acknowledging the Steelers came up massively short against the run in these two instances, it should not be overlooked how they did extremely well against the run in most other cases. When looking at the regular season, the Steelers only had four games in which a team rushed for more yards against them than they did their season average from 2024.

Obviously the Week 16 matchup where the Ravens rushed for 220 yards was one of them as they had an NFL-leading average of 188 yards per game. Another team that rushed more than their season averaged against the Steelers was the Cleveland Browns in Week 14 in a 27-14 Steelers victory. The Browns rushed for 104 yards, not a very impressive total, but their season average was 95 yards so technically it counts.

The other two games in which an opponent rushed for more than their season average came in the first half of the 2024 NFL season. I remember Steelers fans losing their mind over the bye week of how the Steelers couldn’t stop the run because they surrendered 157 yards against the New York Giants. The Giants only averaged 105 yards on the season, so it was not a good day for the Steelers run defense. But ultimately they won the game and the run defense did not regularly falter. In fact, coming out of the bye the Steelers held the Washington Commanders to 60 rushing yards, a team that finished third in the NFL with 154 yards per game.

The final team that rushed for more yards against the Steelers than their season average came in Week 5 when the Dallas Cowboys rushed for 109 yards. Once again, it was not an overly impressive total but the Cowboys only averaged 100 yards rushing per game.

There was one game in which the Steelers held their opponent to their season average of rushing yards. The Bengals rushed for 93 yards against the Steelers in Week 13, and 93 just so happened to also be their season average. Every other team the Steelers faced they held below their average rushing total for the season.

There were a couple other significant rushing totals against the Steelers last year. The Indianapolis Colts rushed for 133 yards in Week 4, but they averaged 137 yards on the season. Additionally, the Philadelphia Eagles rushed for 131 yards against the Steelers in Week 15, but that was well below their 179-yard per game average.

Honestly, the Steelers being the sixth-best rush defense in the NFL is not where I was concerned. I have much more concern over their 25th passing defense from 2024. But because the Ravens ran the ball so well with the playoffs, that’s what people remember. And it’s not that they should forget, it just doesn’t define the Steelers season in a way where the belief their run defense is broken to a point they need to start over from scratch.

Part of the reason that the Steelers struggled to stop the ravens is because the ravens run the ball better than any NFL team. There was only one game this season where the Ravens didn’t rush for 100 yards when they had 99 yards against the Cincinnati Bengals in a Week 10 shootout they won 35–34. Their second lowest total was 124 yards, a tie between the Ravens Week 8 loss against the Browns and their Week 11 loss against the Steelers. So even though the Steelers gave up a lot of yards to the Ravens on the ground late in the season, they held them to fewer yards in their first match up.

When it came to that first matchup, I think the Ravens learned their lesson. They simply didn’t rush the ball enough. That was not an issue against the Steelers going forward as they had 50 rushing attempts in the Wild Card round of the playoffs against the Steelers. It also didn’t help that the Steelers leading tackler had the flu and reportedly had four IV treatments of fluids before the game. The Ravens saw Patrick Queen was not on his game and they didn’t let up.

But other quality run defense struggled against the Ravens last season as well. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that finished fourth against the run last season, gave up 244 rushing yards against the Ravens. Both the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills saw the Ravens run for over 270 yards early in the season. After the ravens ran for 220 yards against the Steelers in Week 16, they followed it up with 251 rushing yards against the Houston Texans and 220 rushing yards against the Browns.

I don’t want to seem like I’m making excuses for the Steelers as they need to be better at stopping the run than what they were against the Ravens their last two matchups. But it’s not like they’re giving up a lot of rushing yards to a team that isn’t one of the best in recent years at rushing the football. The Ravens ran the ball very well last year regardless of the opponent.

Even when the Steelers gave up 220 yards rushing against the Ravens in Week 16, although it was bad but it wasn’t the end of the world. They bounced back the next two weeks of not allowing the Chiefs or the Bengals to even rush for 70 yards. The ultimate disappointment came when the Ravens had hit 300 rushing yards before taking a knee on the final play of the game to drop to 299. Baltimore had one entire drive where they went 85 yards and every play was a rush, even if it wasn’t originally designed to be one. It was a terrible performance stopping the run.

But putting it in perspective, it’s notthat the Steelers had a bad run defense last year. They had a horrible game in the playoffs, the one time you don’t want to have a performance like that, against the team that runs the ball better than anybody else. They also didn’t have a good performance in Week 16. The Ravens took the earlier loss to the Steelers that season and learned from it.

Now the Steelers need to take those two losses against the Ravens and learn from them in order to improve their run defense against them next year. But it’s not like the Steelers were trying to stop them as this terrible run defense that couldn’t stop anyone the second half of the season last year. That’s just not the way things went down.

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