Steelers at Chargers (Week 10) | Pre-game Discussion

[Charge!]

Pittsburg's D is just a little bit better than the Charger D against the run (you can run on them), but horrendous against the pass.
Which means there is someone consistently exploitable in the Steeler coverages, you just need the weapons to expose it, and some time.
Pittsburgh has the 3rd most sacks per game, but if you look at their totals, they seem to get a lot of it from sending 5 or more, exposing their secondary.


Cincy and Green Bay have multiple weapons (Cincy having a struggling Oline); they both recently ran up the score on Pitt's D.

New England and Cleveland have few weapons and coincidentally, Pitt's D had their best games.

Charger O will most probably feed, will it be enough?

Indy could not run on therm, Chargers will not be able to run either(except for Herbert)... NE would beat Chargers today..... Chargers would likely beat cleveland....Herbert can and will beat the PIT secondary.....IF HE HAS TIME!..... but unfortunately he likely will not...

[Charge!]

Here's the link again to Pittsburgh individual pass rusher stats:
https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/pittsburgh-steelers-team-stats?category=defense&season=2025&sort=def_sck&so rtOrder=desc


Looking at it, Heyward seems mostly a run defender now, and Harmon isn't doing a whole lot - he's a rook.

Their two leaders are TJ Watt (who seems to have taken a step down after the injury and getting paid),
and Nick Herbig ... who got multiple sacks last year, off an injured Slater and on a blitz, if I remember correctly .... which seems to be about half of his season's total last year.

Unlike Steeler teams of the past, TJ Watt is their only pass rushing threat, and the other's get it more through scheme.
This ain't your Stealer's Ds of the past.

but steelers have not played an OL this bad yet!.......and Chargers have allowed lots of pressure from guys who are not supposed to be pass rushers, like the ex Charger, Day, who sacked Herbert twice!!!....Steelers are MUCH better than titans!

[powderblueboy]

Colts destroyed Chargers in EVERY possible way.... and Steelers beat up colts...... this season does not make sense.... so anything can happen each game!
Our defense cannot stop the run and our pass defense leaves guys uncovered.....
Steelers are in first place despite not having a great offense because they are physically tough and do not make boneheaded mistakes....
Chargers are NOT in first place because we make boneheaded mistakes every week! Herbert is special!....but our interior OL sucks so bad they get our OT's hurt by knocking DL's into back of Alt's legs??? Our Run game sucks without Harris or Hampton.....Herbert IS our running game!...
Our Defense does not stop the run very well..... and blows coverages too frequently....
Our ST's are horrible... and our long snapper is about to miss so badly our punter cannot catch the ball..... punter has saved us many times already....by handling bad snaps!

This game against PIT is a game we could win IF we play mistake free football!(have we done that this season?).... but if we play like yesterday, we will lose and it will not be close!

Chargers crushed Minnesota and Detroit lost to them at home ..... irgo, the Chargers will play in the NFC championship game.
Very excited!!

Tough to call a team very tough when their D gets boat raced most games, and quirky Aaron Rodgers is the commander on the opposite side of the ball.

[Riverwalk]

we beat Titans because their QB cant hit the borad side of a barn!.... he missed multiple wide open targets.... if Rodgers was playing, he would have hit those passes and we would have lost....to a bad team....and they would have scored at the goal line.....

What was disturbing was how open those receivers were.

Tarheeb Still was out and could miss more games with his MCL injury. IMO, he’s the best of the CB pool which includes Cam Hart, Ja’Sir Taylor, Donte Jackson, and Benjamin St. Juste.

Fortunately, Cam Ward couldn’t exploit that.

[Heatmiser]

It is not the first game for that, unfortunately. The first couple weeks of the season, Minter could do no wrong, the way the entire defense played assignment sound fundamentals, the way the secondary rotated and passed guys off was flawless. Minter was a genius. A shoe in for a head coach job in 2026. Since then, it has been quite a few guys left all alone, often on third and long for the first down. Not sure what is happening.

TG

[dmac_bolt]

Its Monday, so TPB doom and gloom is at a peak. I'm not sure that the Charger team described today could beat the Aztecs. We'll see the actual Charger team that plays on Sunday - I feel better that most. not cocky confident, but better. We can win. we may not. Steelers are not a dominant elite team, yesterday's Indy game for them seems like an outlier to me. +5 turnovers, and they barely won. A +5 differential usually is a 21+ point win in this league

Minter's horrible defense gave up 6 points yesterday. Talk about the horrible defense is over-stated.
Herbert threw a horrible P6. He then proceeded to outplay the Titans the remainder of the game and put up enough to win it.
Ficken's ST gave up a bad return for 7. Even with below average return coverage, returns for TDs are still very rare. I don't expect that every week and nobody else should

[jamrock]

Somebody show Bozeman the tape of Heyward punching Herbert in the stomach at the end of a long run at SoFi so he's ready to go nuclear on him

[Velo]

Pittsburg's D is just a little bit better than the Charger D against the run (you can run on them), but horrendous against the pass.
Which means there is someone consistently exploitable in the Steeler coverages, you just need the weapons to expose it, and some time.
Pittsburgh has the 3rd most sacks per game, but if you look at their totals, they seem to get a lot of it from sending 5 or more, exposing their secondary.

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/pittsburgh-steelers-team-stats?category=defense&season=2025&sort=def_sck&sortOrder=desc

Cincy and Green Bay have multiple weapons (Cincy having a struggling Oline); they both recently ran up the score on Pitt's D.

New England and Cleveland have few weapons and coincidentally, Pitt's D had their best games.

Charger O will most probably feed, will it be enough?

Good composite, the part in bold sums it up.

[CanadianBoltFan]

Its Monday, so TPB doom and gloom is at a peak. I'm not sure that the Charger team described today could beat the Aztecs. We'll see the actual Charger team that plays on Sunday - I feel better that most. not cocky confident, but better. We can win. we may not. Steelers are not a dominant elite team, yesterday's Indy game for them seems like an outlier to me. +5 turnovers, and they barely won. A +5 differential usually is a 21+ point win in this league

Minter's horrible defense gave up 6 points yesterday. Talk about the horrible defense is over-stated.
Herbert threw a horrible P6. He then proceeded to outplay the Titans the remainder of the game and put up enough to win it.
Ficken's ST gave up a bad return for 7. Even with below average return coverage, returns for TDs are still very rare. I don't expect that every week and nobody else should

I expect TJ Watt is licking his chops

[Velo]

Its Monday, so TPB doom and gloom is at a peak. I'm not sure that the Charger team described today could beat the Aztecs. We'll see the actual Charger team that plays on Sunday - I feel better that most. not cocky confident, but better. We can win. we may not. Steelers are not a dominant elite team, yesterday's Indy game for them seems like an outlier to me. +5 turnovers, and they barely won. A +5 differential usually is a 21+ point win in this league

Minter's horrible defense gave up 6 points yesterday. Talk about the horrible defense is over-stated.
Herbert threw a horrible P6. He then proceeded to outplay the Titans the remainder of the game and put up enough to win it.
Ficken's ST gave up a bad return for 7. Even with below average return coverage, returns for TDs are still very rare. I don't expect that every week and nobody else should

I read somewhere today the Titans are the first team in something like 25 years to score a defensive and ST touchdown and lose.

[Riverwalk]

Charger O will most probably feed, will it be enough?

Chargers didn’t even have time to set the table last year without Slater and Alt. What’s different with their DL and Edge players?

[Topcat]

Somebody show Bozeman the tape of Heyward punching Herbert in the stomach at the end of a long run at SoFi so he's ready to go nuclear on him

I'll just be happy if Boze reduces his pressures and doesn't get pancaked like he did vs. the lowly Titans...