The Pittsburgh Steelers have one of the strongest defensive rosters in the league. This makes it all the more puzzling that the unit hasn’t consistently been able to make the expected impact. As the team prepares to face a similar challenge against the Bills, defensive coordinator Teryl Austin recently addressed the issue, dissecting their counterattack.

Austin explained that the opponent teams switch to quick throws, screens, and fast decisions when playing the Steelers to avoid getting crushed by their pass rush. And he expects the Bills’ QB Josh Allen to do the same.

“I think, analytically, teams get the ball out faster versus us than they do a lot of other people,” Austin shared. “Just going back and looking at it through the course of the season that teams that sometimes traditionally hold the ball, they get it out. And so that’s a way to combat our rush. You get it out with quicks and screens and not allow our guys to rush.” However, he did not give an insight into what the defense will try to do differently in their next game.

Meanwhile, the Bills are without their best tackle, Spencer Brown. So, with new tackles Ryan Van Demark and Alec Anderson, Allen is most likely to throw the ball quickly. That is how he can avoid the Steelers’ defense and their elite player, T.J. Watt, putting pressure on him.

Due to a lack of protection, Allen was sacked 8 times and hit multiple times in their loss to the Houston Texans. So, this can be one option for Allen. Austin, however, identified the issue correctly.

As per the trend in their last few games, the Green Bay Packers have made sure to throw the ball quickly to avoid the impact of the Steelers’ pass rush. The Chicago Bears did the same. Their quarterback, Caleb Williams, got the ball out in about 2.6 seconds, which is quite fast for him. He threw for 239 yards, with 172 of those coming on quick passes.

The QB had a 113.0 passer rating, and his quick-game approach over the middle helped stop the Steelers’ pass rush. So, this is clearly one of the other issues that the Steelers would look to fix in the next game. And this also led head coach Mike Tomlin to admit yet another glaring mistake by the Steelers.

Mike Tomlin opened up about the Steelers’ one old mistake

In the game against the Bears, quarterback Mason Rudolph’s chart showed a glaring lack of throws to the middle of the field. However, it isn’t new for the Steelers. Even their quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, has followed the same approach.

He targeted the middle six percentage points less than he did last year with the New York Jets. Looking at the trend, it is quite obvious that the Steelers do not seem to use one of the most productive yet dangerous areas of the field often enough.

And Coach Tomlin finally acknowledged it when he was asked about it.

“It’s week-to-week depending on the schematics that the team or the teams that we compete against choose to deploy. But certainly larger, if you look at the large body of work, there’s probably some more opportunities for us in the interior portions of the field,” Tomlin said.

So, that’s one more issue added to the team’s woes. The Bears clearly took advantage to move past the Steelers. Now, the Steelers must be more than careful when the Bills come to town this week. They will look to target any vulnerability they can find.