PITTSBURGH — As the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense took the field midway through the fourth quarter on Wednesday, the video board at Acrisure Stadium faded to black, and “Renegade” blared through the speakers.
Typically, this is one of the magical moments at every Steelers game. Fans wave their Terrible Towels and scream in full throat, trying to will the defense to a critical stop.
Not this time. With their team trailing the Kansas City Chiefs 29-10, fans responded by actually booing their own defensive anthem.
As much as anything else, that moment summed up the state of the Steelers. Once in the driver’s seat to win the AFC North with a two-game lead over the Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh embarked upon a pivotal three-games-in-11-days stretch against the Philadelphia Eagles, Ravens and Chiefs. Considering the quality of the competition, these 11 days were going to tell us plenty about how the Steelers stacked up against legitimate Super Bowl contenders.
What did we learn? Well, the Steelers didn’t just lose all three. They were out-coached, out-played and out-matched in embarrassing fashion, resulting in a combined margin of 90-40. The Steelers had three chances to prove they’re a contender. And struck out.
GO DEEPER
Chiefs handle Steelers 29-10 on Christmas to secure AFC top seed: Takeaways
“The last three weeks, we played like s—,” defensive co-captain Cameron Heyward said. “Simple as that. I own that. Every player’s got to own it in here.”
The AFC North championship hats and shirts that were printed ahead of last week’s game in Baltimore can probably be thrown in the trash now. Unless the Ravens (11-5) — who stomped the Houston Texans later Wednesday — are stunned by the lowly Browns for a second time this season and Pittsburgh (10-6) beats Joe Burrow and the Bengals in the finale next week, the Steelers will have to go on the road to start the postseason. When they do, it’s hard to imagine them advancing very far unless the product on the field changes dramatically.
HOLIDAY TOUCHDOWN FOR TRAVIS‼️ pic.twitter.com/sqgtsd0r1K
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) December 25, 2024
“There’s gotta be a want-to,” outside linebacker Alex Highsmith said. “You know what I mean? There’s not enough of that right now. It’s that time of the year where, we got two guaranteed games left. We’re going to find out who wants this. Everybody in this room, gotta want it.”
As recently as this week, former Steelers coach Bill Cowher spoke on national television about how Pittsburgh has a formula to win in the playoffs: Run the ball and play great defense. That’s the brand of football that travels, the Steelers will tell you. Well, right now, they aren’t doing either one of those things well enough.
At one point, sure, they did have the defense to travel. They won two games this season in which the offense failed to score a touchdown, including in Week 11 against the Ravens’ top-ranked offense. The current iteration of the defense looks nothing like that.
“I don’t know where we went down the line and started becoming a whole different defense than what we were,” safety DeShon Elliott said. “But we got to get back to who we are.”
Patrick Mahomes makes a lot of defenses look bad. But usually not this bad. The two-time NFL MVP played arguably his best game of the season against what’s supposed to be one of the best defenses in the league. He completed 76.3 percent of his passes for 320 yards and three touchdowns. The yardage was second only to a 331-yard performance against the Saints earlier this season, but he threw no touchdowns and an interception in that game. On Christmas Day in Pittsburgh, he produced a season-best 0.43 EPA per dropback, according to TruMedia, and a season-best 127.1 passer rating.
But more than what Mahomes did to the Steelers, this is about what they did to themselves. A defense predicated upon pressure and turnovers never sacked Mahomes even once and failed to produce a takeaway. More than that, the same miscommunications or missed assignments that have plagued the Steelers over recent weeks reared their ugly head again.
“First off, guys can’t be f—ing wide open,” Elliott said. “That’s the first thing. Just do your job. I thought we communicated. Guys just weren’t doing their freaking job. So get back to the drawing board. It’s Week (17). We shouldn’t be having these problems in Week (17). This is a Week 1, Week 2 problem.”
That started with the opening drive. Coach Mike Tomlin screams “Don’t get beat to the flat” so often in practices that the Steelers printed shirts with the slogan. Yet, on the Chiefs’ opening drive, they lined up speedy receiver Xavier Worthy in the backfield and — guess what — he beat safety Minkah Fitzpatrick to the flat.
Xavier Worthy gets the Christmas scoring started ‼️#KCvsPIT on @Netflix pic.twitter.com/MzEGMz0p4K
— NFL (@NFL) December 25, 2024
“We preached that all week,” inside linebacker Patrick Queen said. “We knew they were gonna go pace and put one in the backfield. We had a check for it. We got to the check. We just ain’t do our job. It comes down to just doing our job.”
After allowing the Chiefs to march down the field for a touchdown on the opening drive, the Steelers’ defense allowed a second touchdown drive on the following series for an early 13-0 hole.
Against an offense like the Chiefs’, the Steelers would have needed to play a near-perfect game on offense. Instead, Pittsburgh again shot itself in the foot, especially in the red zone.
Late in the first quarter, running back Jaylen Warren sliced into the end zone, but a holding call on tight end Darnell Washington brought the touchdown back. On the next play, quarterback Russell Wilson tried to thread the needle to Pat Freiermuth against a two-high, pre-snap look and was intercepted by Justin Reid.
The QB might not have been completely at fault. It appeared receiver George Pickens stopped running his route when he was jammed at the line of scrimmage, failing to draw Reid’s attention by going vertical.
“A GIFT FOR YOU!”
Justin Reid with the Christmas pick! 🎁#KCvsPIT on @Netflix pic.twitter.com/vA9YoCh8dY
— NFL (@NFL) December 25, 2024
After the game, Wilson admitted he thought Pickens was going to go vertical, but the QB also shouldered the blame.
“Yeah, I think you know he’s gonna go vertical,” Wilson said. “But at the end of the day, (the interception) can’t happen. I tried to give Pat (Freiermuth) a chance. He’s done a good job for us in the red zone, and they made a good play.”
Facing a different five-man front than Pittsburgh anticipated — the Chiefs were without star defensive tackle Chris Jones — Wilson was under constant pressure. He was sacked a season-high five times, completing 23 of 37 passes for 205 yards with an interception and no touchdowns for a season-low 65.7 rating.
Perhaps the only positive of the game was that Jaylen Warren averaged 6.5 yards per carry, toting the ball 11 times for 71 yards. But even that feels like a symptom of a problem, as you have to ask why he’s not getting a heavier workload. With Najee Harris shouldering the load this season, the Steelers’ collective rushing attack entered the day as the NFL’s second-least efficient, averaging just 3.9 yards per carry.
Now, after losing all three games, the Steelers go into a mini-bye week with 10 days until their season finale. The eternal optimist, Wilson tried to find positives in the adversity.
“I think that’s gonna be really critical how we approach it,” Wilson said. “There’s all these teams that we can beat. We can play better. And when we do play better, I think we’re going to be a scary team to play. We got to make sure that’s the case.”
After the way the last three games unfolded, it would be hard to play much worse.
(Photo of Russell Wilson: Justin K. Aller / Getty Images)
