Steelers new hefty contract to Alex Highsmith brings positive and negative outlooks

In an offensive driven league the Steelers still invest heavily into their defense

Defense wins championships used to be a true statement, but that truth has faded in the past decade of the NFL. Offense is the name of the game now and defenses struggle to contain offensive attacks each week. The Steelers have stuck with a dated approach to the game of football, and it has not worked out too well.

Mike Tomlin likes to play a hard brand of defense that gets after the passer, which leaves a lot of issues in the secondary. He also likes to make the ground and pound run game one of his biggest tools to push the ball down the field. Those ways of thinking of the NFL are over and it will not get you closer to beating some of the top offenses in the league.

Fans have been getting more agitated by this philosophy of football that Tomlin has been implementing since getting here. The franchise has found success with this type of football in the past, but things have changed a lot since the 2000s. Investing heavily in the defense to try and stop the opposition's offense to try and win games is an ongoing concern.

Offense wins nowadays and the Steelers have not seemed to focus on this change of football. They have invested a lot of their cap space into their top defensive stars but have lacked any offensive firepower that has gotten big contracts like their defensive counterparts. Perhaps that has somewhat to do with the offense being young, but it is an issue that has been persisting.