Steelers Digest

Defense could be just getting started

Associate Editor

The last time an 8-8 team went into the offseason with legitimate reason for excitement?

Might have to check the last time a team returned its quarterback from a season-long injury.

That’s why the .500 Steelers opened as the No. 9 favorite in Las Vegas recently, because Ben Roethlisberger is coming back from an injury.

Of course, Roethlisberger will be 38 and no one knows whether his rebuilt right elbow will return to its former glory.

The Steelers have little available cap room as they head into free agency, and as for the draft there’s no first- or third-rounder in the till.

But the excitement over next year’s Steelers lies on the other side of the ball. The Steelers have a legitimate defense, a defense that gives them the very real possibility of playing its way into the Super Bowl.

We saw the signs in the 2019 season when the Steelers once again led the NFL in sacks, and also in takeaways.

Their 38 takeaways led the league and more than doubled the previous season’s 15. It was also the most for the Steelers since 1996, when

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Steelers Digest

Steelers Digest4 min read
Just My Opinion
From the notebook of a sportswriter who hasn’t loved sports this much in at least the past decade: • It’s not the back-to-back offensive eruptions, or the playoff chase, but the beauty and the light of redemption that sports allows to shine through t
Steelers Digest5 min read
It Was Not A Pretty Day At Acrisure Stadium
It was a long day, a very long and ugly day for the Steelers when they hosted the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at Acrisure Stadium. Some of it was attributable to a freak of nature, an act of God. But way too much of it was their own doing, and that w
Steelers Digest5 min read
An Undrafted Rookie At The Start, Harrison Worked His Way To Greatness
I covered James the very first day he showed up in the locker room for rookie minicamp in 2002, and I was there the day he walked back in after being re-signed late in his career, and then I was there for his induction into the Steelers Hall of Honor

Related