The Pittsburgh Steelers’ Achilles’ heel—or at least, arguably, their biggest one—was the complete devolution of their run defense over the course of the year during the 2021 season. They finished with the worst run defense in the league, despite having two All-Pro players up front being a part of it.
There’s no simple answer for why things were as bad as they were last season. But the good news is that there is a simple answer about how to fix it. At least, that’s the approach that head coach Mike Tomlin is taking to address the problem.
When asked yesterday during his media availability at the annual league meetings yesterday how they can fix the run defense, his answer was concise, to say the least: “Whoop blocks and make tackles”.