Mina Kimes Details How the Steelers’ Defense Has Changed This Season
The Cincinnati Bengals will host their AFC North rivals the Pittsburgh Steelers on “Sunday Night Football” this weekend.
It’s expected to be a good matchup as both teams are 6-2 thus far into the season, meaning the lead of the AFC North is up for grabs. Both teams have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the game could be close.
When speaking with ESPN‘s Mina Kimes ahead of the matchup, she highlighted how the Steelers’ defense could be the key for Pittsburgh to win on Sunday night. Kimes used Next Gen Trends to discuss the ins and outs of Sunday’s matchup. This is a newly accessible tool for fans to use on NFL.com to track the trends in various statistical categories for their favorite teams.
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“First of all, the [Steelers’] defense has been awesome. They’re seventh in EPA per play, fourth in points per game,” Kimes said before detailing the team’s defensive identity tab on Next Gen Trends. “I think something kind of cool is I’m going to their defensive identity and it’s really changed this year under [defensive coordinator] Patrick Graham. One of the things that jumps out to me is they’re playing way more split-safety coverage, way more zone.”
Kimes then discussed the team evolution tab, in which she highlighted how the Steelers have shifted from a single-high coverage team to a split-safety coverage squad.
This defensive strategy will work better when facing the Bengals, Kimes argues, as Cincinnati has an explosive offense. Split-safety coverage helps eliminate bigger passes thrown by the opposing quarterbacks, so in this case, Joe Burrow throwing passes for star receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
“You click on split-safety coverage, it shows you how from 2022 through 2025, they really were a single-high team, and this year they’ve gone all the way in the opposite direction in terms of playing more of those two-high shells, which I think is very useful against Joe Burrow, Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase,” Kimes said.
Higgins ranks fifth in the NFL with 758 receiving yards so far this season. The Steelers’ defense will need to be performing at a high level on Sunday night if they want to stop players like Higgins and Chase making giant catches.
These two AFC North teams already faced each other once this season, with the Steelers winning 30-27. Pittsburgh allowed the Bengals to score three receiving touchdowns in that game, though, which they won’t want to do again come Sunday night.
