The Pittsburgh Steelers exit their bye week with the top-ranked red-zone defense in the NFL. On 24 trips inside their 20-yard line, they have only allowed nine touchdowns. At a 37.5-percent rate, nobody in the NFL is allowing a lesser percentage of touchdowns in such opportunities. To what does DC Teryl Austin attribute that? Not himself, apparently.
“Obviously we got some good players that are able to make plays. They don’t shrink up when it gets tight and crunchy down there,” Austin said on Thursday, via Steelers transcript. “I think our guys are doing a good job of working at it, recognizing some tendencies of other people, seeing what they do, putting themselves in position to make plays and finishing it off.