The smartest move Mike Tomlin made during the week was not using one of his mantras — “Next man up” — to describe what the Steelers have to do without T.J. Watt. Even he knows that would sound foolish.
The Steelers without their All-Pro outside linebacker is like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger. There is no replacing him, no matter who you might have in reserve.
So now the question is: What do they do without him?
Do they change their scheme? Do they blitz more?
The answer is no.
Oh, there might be the occasional blitz where the Steelers bring a fifth rusher. But mostly they will continue to do what they did on Sunday against Joe Burrow, who was sacked seven times and forced into five turnovers. Without Watt, they know the Patriots will be waiting for the blitz and prepared to handle it.
But what the Steelers will rely on against the Patriots is their inside linebacker coach, Brian Flores, who had remarkable success against his former team when he was the head coach with the Miami Dolphins.
Flores faced Bill Belichick six times in three years with the Dolphins and, after losing the first meeting in 2019, won four of the next five. Two of those victories were in New England, where Flores was an assistant coach for 11 years.
Granted, Flores has been away from the Patriots for four years, so it’s not like he has intimate knowledge of their personnel or knows their schemes. And long-time offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is gone, having left to become head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders (Belichick has elected not to give out the title of offensive coordinator to one of his coaches).
But what Flores does know is how Belichick might think and his thought process in key situations.
“He understands the culture and what they’re trying to do and how they try to do things,” defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said.
It might be difficult to quantify how that might help the Steelers. But, based on the way the Dolphins handled the Patriots for the three years Flores was their coach, it can’t hurt.
Keeping it short
For those already accusing Mitch Trubisky of running a dink-and-dunk offense, it should be noted he had as many completions of at least 20 yards in Week 1 as last year’s teammate, Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
But it should also be noted Trubisky has never been known as a gunslinger who attacks downfield, even in Chicago.
In four seasons with the Bears in which he started 50 games, Trubisky had only 17 completions of 40 yards or longer, including just three in his final two seasons. He averaged 29 completions of at least 20 yards with the Bears, the most coming in 2018 when he had 40. The following year, he ranked tied for 27th with 35 completions of 20 yards or longer, the same as Mason Rudolph.
It wasn’t as though Trubisky didn’t try to attack downfield against the Bengals. He failed to connect on deep passes to Miles Boykin, Chase Claypool and rookie George Pickens, though he said he purposely threw the ball out of bounds to Pickens to avoid an interception.
“We’ve just got to hit those,” Trubisky said. “We hit those in practice, we hit a couple in the preseason. The one early to Boykin, if we hit that one, I think it opens up a lot of different stuff for us and maybe it’s a different story on third down or a different feel on how we feel about the offense.”
Halftime adjustment
For most of the first half in Cincinnati, it looked as though the Steelers solved their run-defense issues from last year about as well as the offensive line solved their blocking issues.
The Bengals had 72 yards rushing on 16 carries in the first half, 67 of those by running back Joe Mixon. But 31 yards came on a 4th-and-1 play from the Steelers 35, setting up a field goal.
That, though, all began to change after halftime.
Mixon started the second half with a 5-yard run — and never had a longer run after that in regulation. He had a 7-yard run in overtime, but six of his carries after halftime were for 1 yard or fewer.
It was a baby step for the run defense, which ranked last in the league in 2021.
“It’s a long season and we’ve got to continue to do that,” Austin said. “Nobody gets patted on the back because we’ll find out at the end of the year how good we really are and if we achieved our goal, which is to be way better than we were last year.”
And in case you’re wondering ...
When it appeared the Steelers might lose to the Bengals, despite enjoying a 5-0 advantage in turnovers, it wouldn’t have been the first time a team lost a game with a turnover margin of plus-5 or better.
In fact, according to Elias Sports Bureau, it has happened many times.
That doesn’t mean it still wouldn’t have stung.
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac.
First Published: September 16, 2022, 1:58 p.m.
