Pittsburgh Steelers DL Cameron Heyward released an episode of his “Not Just Football” podcast to address the firing of offensive coordinator Matt Canada, and he also recapped the team’s loss to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday
.
While Pittsburgh’s offense scored just 10 points in the 13-10 loss, Heyward places some of the blame on the defense for getting off to a poor start, failing to make a final stop at the end of the game and allowing the Browns to close the score. end of the game. winning basket.
“Our first and last attacks were, in my opinion, our biggest mistakes on defense. We got off the field on the first drive, it wasn’t a three-and-out, but then they limited our offense to eight.
And then you look at the first series with the offense not really getting going, and in the second series they got a touchdown at the end of the drive,” Heyward said.
While acknowledging that the defense was better in the second half, they still didn’t do enough.
“I think we needed another stop. I know we had two stops at the end of the game, but as a defense you have to be hungry for more.
As a defense you can’t run away, you can’t blame the offense, we have to stop the defense,” Heyward said.
He also briefly tackled late in the game against Keeanu Benton on Pittsburgh’s final defensive drive, which helped set up an easier kick for Dustin Hopkins to give Cleveland the win.
He said the Steelers will keep the edge on defense, which means taking a look and then moving on to the next one.
He was upset about the call in this situation and said the Steelers were on the official testing tape before the game for the same play because it wasn’t a football game.
Heyward argued that it was a football decision, but he had a problem with the way the refs handled it so far.
“The crazy thing is we had several long distance calls. We didn’t call him every time. So they choose when they call it,” Heyward said.
Benton’s penalty came on 2nd and 8 with 20 seconds left and Cleveland had the ball at the Pittsburgh 24.
This moved the ball five yards upfield and made it easier for Cleveland to kick, but the Browns were already within field goal range, so it didn’t have much impact on the game.
Interestingly, Heyward took more of the blame for Pittsburgh’s first defensive possession than the second, in which they allowed the touchdown.
The Steelers were forced back and had to run out of their own end zone on offense, and while that gave the Browns a short field, the defense was at least able to stop the first possession.
The Steelers offense failed to capitalize on their first possession, putting the defense in a more difficult position.
The fact is that the Steelers defense was fine and only allowed the Browns to score 13 points. Scoring 10 points in the NFL isn’t going to win many games, and while Heyward, as the team’s leader and captain, will shift the blame to the unit on him.
The fact remains that the crime did not yield enough.
That’s why offensive coordinator Matt Canada is not with the team today. Offense has been a consistent theme throughout the season.
Even though the Steelers pulled off this save at the end of regulation, nothing on offense on the day suggested they could have taken a winning lead in overtime if they had the chance.
But it’s clear the defense takes some responsibility, as cornerback Patrick Peterson said today that all three phases need to step up and give the team a killer instinct.
Hopefully the offensive coordinator change will strengthen this unit, and the defense and special teams unit can also step up and get this Steelers team into the playoffs.
