Expectations need to be lowered for the 2018 Pittsburgh Steelers defense
By Nick Frost
The 2018 Pittsburgh Steelers defense are starting to have unrealistic expectations thrust upon them.
It might be surprising to see that a team that gave up 45 points to the Jacksonville Jaguars in their final game of the year in the 2017 season is ranked as a top 10 fantasy defense for the 2018 season (with an average draft position of the 9th defense taken off the board according to Fantasy Pros). The hype is not completely unfounded as there are legitimate signs for optimism.
The front office signed Morgan Burnett and Jon Bostic to improve the starting lineup, or at the very least give more depth at positions that were weak points of the team last year. The team used their first overall pick to help bolster those positions some more with the athletic Terrell Edmunds, and the team is hoping they got one of the steals of the draft with Penn State product, Marcus Allen. And with all of the new safeties joining the team, it has allowed Keith Butler and Mike Tomlin to move Sean Davis to a new role that the coaches feel he is more naturally suited.
But even with all of these changes that should bring optimism to this defensive front, there are still issues. One of those glaring issues was brought up by Pro Football Focus when they named Bud Dupree the Steelers’ “biggest weakness.” Dupree has underperformed as a first-round pick to the point where the coaches are going to move 2nd year Outside Linebacker TJ Watt around the formation to improve Dupree’s chances of getting sacks (potentially motivated in part because of the team’s decision to pick up Dupree’s fifth-year option). And the statistics Pro Football Focus brought up in their argument against Dupree were compelling.
"Drafted with the expectation that he would become the next great Steelers outside linebacker, Bud Dupree has failed to live up to his draft billing so far. From 354 pass-rushing snaps in the 2017 regular season, he produced just 40 total pressures, and he has just 83 total pressures since he entered the league in 2015."
But the Steelers are not going to be worse because Dupree is on the team. After all, he was on this team in 2017.
One area the Steelers will definitely be worse off going into the season will be inside linebacker and it’s pretty obvious to see why. Ryan Shazier’s injury last year created a gigantic hole in the middle of the Steelers’ defense that the coaching staff and backup linebackers could not fill.
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This is not a knock on Vince Williams because he was part of the two inside linebacker sets for the Steelers when Shazier was on the field, but Tyler Matakevich and Jon Bostic are not going to produce in the same way that Shazier did when he was on the field last year. You can make the argument that the defense is better prepared to fill that hole this year, but at this point last year, there simply wasn’t a hole in the middle of the field because Shazier was healthy.
But, the biggest issue that people are overlooking when ranking the Steelers defense for this upcoming season is the strength of offenses the Steelers are scheduled to play this year and the luck the Steelers received when it came to weaker offenses and specifically injured opposing quarterbacks last year.
This year, the Steelers are projected to have the fourth toughest strength of schedule in relation to defense and special teams. In addition to this fourth toughest ranking, the list of starting quarterbacks the Steelers are projected to face include the past three NFL MVPs (Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, and Cam Newton) along with Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, and Derek Carr.
In addition to the tough starting quarterbacks, the Steelers will have to go up against that Jaguars offense that beat them twice last year and divisional opponents who focused their offseasons on improving their offenses.
These improved offenses will most likely put up more points against the defense this season, but it will also make it harder for the Steelers to create turnovers this year, and they were a middle of the pack team in the NFL when it came to turnovers last year, which is shown by ESPN where the Steelers defense was one turnover ahead of the 16th ranked Dallas Cowboys defense.
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I think the Steelers will be a more talented defense than they were last year, but the defense last year had the benefit of playing a much weaker schedule than they’ll play this year. And because of this tougher schedule, I recommend staying away from the Steelers defense for at least one more year in fantasy football.