EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —The Pittsburgh Steelers won their 2025 season opener against the New York Jets on Sunday, going on the road to earn a 34-32 victory.
You wouldn't know it to talk to members of the Steelers defense.
"We played like shit," Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen said succinctly.
Alex Highsmith was less profane, but no less critical:
"That's not the standard for our defense."
It's not the standard, but it has become a concerning trend. The Steelers ended the 2024 season with one of the more embarrassing performances defending the run in franchise history, giving up 299 yards rushing yards in a playoff loss to the rival Baltimore Ravens .
The Steelers spent most of the offseason focused on fixing what ailed them in that Ravens game. They spent three draft picks on front seven players that are primarily run defenders in Derrick Harmon , Jack Sawyer and Yahya Black . They made a huge upgrade in physicality at slot cornerback by adding Jalen Ramey.
And yet, in the 2025 season opener, it was more of the same. The Jets ran all over the Steelers with Justin Fields and Breece Hall . Hall had 19 carries for 107 yards. Fields ran 12 times for 48 yards and two scores. The Jets finished with 182 yards on the ground.
It's no 299, but that was the team that most people consider to be a Super Bowl favorite in 2025. The Jets are coming off a 5-12 season that caused them to fire their head coach.
If the Steelers can't stop this New York offense, how could they possibly hope to deal with the top offenses in the NFL?
"If we keep playing like that, we are going to get our face mashed in," Queen said. "It's that simple. I call it like it is, and we played like absolute trash."
The worst part is that the Steelers knew it was coming. While there were some schematic wrinkles they had to deal with, the Steelers knew they'd be facing a heavy dose of some combination of Hall, Braelon Allen and Fields running the ball.
"They had over 100 yards at half time," outside linebacker T.J. Watt said. "That's obviously not acceptable. Especially when we knew that was the game plan coming into it."
"We got punched in the mouth coming out of the gate, and that's not the standard for us," Highsmith said. "So, we just got to get in the lab, we got to digest this film, and you know, we got to come out and play more physical from the jump. We got the W, but it obviously wasn't good enough from our part."
So what happened? Did the absence of Harmon open up a hole the Steelers couldn't fill in the heart of the defense? Were Mike Tomlin and Teryl Austin too slow to adjust to wha the Jets were doing schematically? Or are veteran Steelers stars like Watt and Cam Heyward simply washed up?
The end of the game should put some fears at ease when it comes to the final question. When the game got to crunch time, the Steelers defense finally looked like the unit it was supposed to be.
The Steelers offense had a rare struggle of a possession in the fourth quarter, punting the ball back to New York with 5:29 to play. With the way the Jets had been running the ball all day, that seemed like it might've been the end of the game.
Instead, it was a three-and-out the other way. Brandin Echols made an open-field tackle to hold Josh Reynolds to a five-yard game, Heyward stuffed Hall for a 2-yard gain, and then Chuck Clark came free to stop Fields for a 2-yard loss.
After Chris Boswell 's 60-yarder to give the Steelers the lead with just over a minute to play, the Steelers stopped them on four straight plays to win the game. There's a strong defense in there somewhere, but why did it take 55 minutes for it to come out?
"It was small things," Queen said. "Just staying in gaps, being physical and not getting off blocks," he explained. "Every now and then, someone's got to make a play. Sometimes we chase plays."
That is the biggest issue that was coming up for the Steelers against the Jets. They were not operating in sync.
"In the beginning, game one, everybody's a little anxious to make the big play," Payton Wilson said. "Once we kind of honed in and realized, OK, we have to make a stop, we have to make two big stops, we kind of simplified it, played what we know, and played fast."
Heyward was a little more colorful.
"Bluntly, we got our heads out of our asses," Heyward said. "We were doing too much, thinking too much, not getting off blocks early on. We were feeling too much in the first half. Second half, I felt like we settled down a lot more. Not as many stops as we wanted, but there was definitely a change in energy in the second half."
It wasn't just mental. The Steelers also made some schematic adjustments to make it a little bit easier for players to get on the same page.
"We kind of simplified things," Wilson said. "Everybody doing their assignment instead of trying to play hero ball. Just be where you need to be and if the play comes to you, it comes to you. If not, somebody else makes the play."
Was it too little, too late from the Steelers' coaching staff? Probably. But it's a sign that the defensive malaise that was the first three and a half quarters on Sunday probably won't last the rest of the 2025 season.
And once the Steelers got the lead, and forced Fields and the Jets into a one-dimensional passing offense? Well, that was game over. The final fours plays of the game for the New York offense didn't come close to competing with the Steelers defense.
"It just felt like blood in the water," Watt said.
They'd do well to get there a bit earlier next week.
Pittsburgh Steelers tackle Broderick Jones celebrates a touchdown against the New York Jets on Sept. 7, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
Lots of things that we didn't expect to happen ended up happening across the NFL in Week 1.
Like the improved-on-paper Steelers run defense falling apart, we should probably be skeptical of things we didn't expect to continue, at least for now.
But when an issue that looked like an issue on paper is a big problem in Week 1, that's a red flag.
That's what happened with the Steelers pass protection, particularly that of left tackle Broderick Jones .
Jones, the team's first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, had an up-and-down first two seasons at right tackle, with a propensity to give up some big sacks. Now being moved to the left side for the first time at the NFL level, he gave up three sacks against Jets in Week 1.
Aaron Rodgers , the Steelers' 41-year-old starting quarterback, was sacked four times and hit seven, and with respect to Will McDonald, a promising former first-round pick in his own right, the challenges are going to get tougher as the Steelers' schedule goes on, with the likes of Myles Garrett , Trey Hendrickson and a Minnesota Vikings team that finished in the top five in sacks last year all coming early in the season.
The Steelers had better hope that Jones can learn from his early misadventures and develop, or they're going to have to dedicate more playing time to Darnell Washington giving him a helping hand.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers after a game against the New York Jets on Sept. 7, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
Rodgers had a very successful Steelers debut, throwing for four touchdowns. I've seen enough of him at training camp to know that he still has more than enough arm talent to have success at the NFL level.
He didn't look fast out there running from the pass rush, but if the Steelers can protect him, he can be a dangerous passer.
I was less sure about the intangible quality that Rodgers always seemed to possess throughout his years. The little bit of magic that always seemed to result in him coming up with the right play at the right time.
He caught the Jets in a change once, getting a free play as he is famous for. But more importantly, he came up big in big situations.
The Steelers got the ball late in the first half and scored a touchdown on a two-minute drive. They got the ball back after a special teams turnover and scored a touchdown in just two plays. They moved the ball just enough to get Boswell into range on the final drive.
I'm not expecting four touchdowns every week, but if he can keep coming up big in moments, he'll have a very strong season for the Steelers — if they can keep him standing.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Steelers Takeaways: 'We Played Like Shit:' What Happened to the Steelers Run Defense, and How They Plan to Fix It
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