NFL Week 8 reactions and overreactions

The Pittsburgh Steelers have problems on defense and offense.

Talking about some football….

1. Had a chance to go to my first Pittsburgh Steelers game of the season on Sunday night, and before we get into the mess that took place on the field I want to discuss my biggest takeaway from that game — the Steelers no longer have a home-field advantage.

At least not much of one.

Nothing like they used to have.

It is GONE, my friends, and I am not sure when it will return.

Walking into Acrisure Stadium on Sunday night was a surreal experience. If you did not know any better it would have been easy to assume that the game was actually taking place in Green Bay, Wisconsin and that you were in fact at Lambeau Field. It was shocking. And what is most shocking is this is not the first time this has happened lately. And it is only getting worse.

There were so many Packers fans that the Steelers had to resort to using a silent count on offense at home. This is what Steelers fans typically do to other teams (and still do for the most part). Now it is happening here. Over the past decade or so there have been some random games like that.

NFC North teams in general have always traveled well. I remember a Sunday night game against Chicago back in maybe 2014 or so that was overrun with Bears fans. Buffalo fans have done it. Dallas fans have taken over. San Francisco fans turned it into a sea of red in the season-opener back in 2023.

It is so much easier to do this now with StubHub and SeatGeek and ticket re-selling apps and it’s only going to get worse.

When I was talking about this on Twitter before the game, somebody responded and brought up an interesting question that asked how many Steelers season ticket holders actually still live in Pittsburgh, and how many of them are people that have since relocated away from the city, held on to their seat licenses and tickets, and then simply re-sell them every year?

While that number is probably not overwhelming, I am guessing it is not zero, either.

Even among the season tickets holders that DO live in the area, I am sure there are thousands — THOUSANDS — that do that exact same thing and never go. I know several first-hand in my own small circle of people.

When we first started going to Steelers games at Heinz Field back in 2001, you knew who was going to be sitting around you every week. It was the same people, and when one of them was not there it caused general concern in the section.

“Hey, where the hell is Frank at today? That dude never misses a game.”

It was like that for at least 10 years. Then, slowly but surely, the people around you started to become randoms every week. Now it is to the point where there are really only two consistent people near us, and even they miss some games.

I imagine Sunday’s game against an Indianapolis Colts team that is suddenly one of the best in football will be similar. Steelers fans are slowly giving up on the season, the Colts are good, and it is also a really easy drive from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh.

The game that is going to be REALLY bad is the late November game against Buffalo. The Steelers might be playing a road game that day.

What is interesting about this is that it is not simply a Pittsburgh thing. The Seattle Seahawks have long-boasted one of the NFL’s best home-field advantages and have realized over the years they are also starting to lose it. That has prompted them to start monitoring what their season ticket holders are doing with their tickets. They basically told season ticket holders that their ability to renew could be impacted if they find their tickets are primarily being used to re-sell them. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Colts have also taken steps to try and limit ticket re-selling.

2. As for the game itself, we have to start with the defense. This group is no longer under-performing. It is no longer disappointing. It is no longer just going through a tough stretch.

It is just bad.

It is slow. It is bad. It has been bad for a while.

After the Cincinnati game Mike Tomlin made a big deal about how their inability to stop the run caused their issues against Joe Flacco and the Bengals’ passing game.

On Sunday night they completely stuffed the Packers running game … only to allow Jordan Love to absolutely skewer them all night long passing the ball. It was a clinic. He did whatever he wanted and made easy throws, difficult throws, off-balance throws, throws under pressure, throws with time, quick throws …. every throw you can imagine. He made it. And he usually made it to somebody that was wide open.

Add in horrendous tackling and it was a recipe for another 30-plus point game against the defense.

From a yardage standpoint, the 2025 Steelers rank 30th in total yards against per game, ahead of only the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals. That is not the company you want to be keeping on defense. They rank 32nd (out of 32 teams) in passing yards against per game, allowing 273.3 yards per game. No other team in the league is allowing more than 256 passing yards per game. They are allowing 25 points per game, which is 22nd in the NFL.

They have not created a takeaway in three weeks. The defense is BUILT on takeaways. If they are not getting those, they are not doing anything.

The sacks have dried up.

The only quarterback they have actually slowed down this season is Dillon Gabriel, who might be the worst current starting quarterback in football.

Going back to Week 10 of the 2024 season, a stretch of 17 games, which is a full season’s worth of games, the Steelers are allowing 25.3 points per game and have allowed six opponents during that stretch to score more than 30 points.

They have limited just five opponents to less than 20 points, and two of those games involved the Cleveland Browns.

These numbers are not lying. This is who they are on defense. This is what they are. Something needs to dramatically change in the very near future to fix that, whether it be schematic, personal or coaching. Or all of the above. Something is broken, and I am not sure Kyle Dugger coming over in a trade from the New England Patriots is going to fix it.

3. As bad as the defense is, the offense is not without its blame, either. Drives keep stalling. The passing game is still inconsistent, and I am not going to let some garbage time yards and a garbage time touchdown swing that opinion.

But what really makes no sense over the past two weeks is the way they completely abandoned the run at a time when it was working. In both games. In fact, if you go back over the past three weeks Jaylen Warren is averaging six yards per carry. He is not only flashing big-play ability, he is also showing power and running over people when given the opportunity.

He has carried the ball 30 times those three games.

My math tells me that is only 10 per game.

Kenneth Gainwell is averaging 4.7 yards per carry in those games.

He has 14 carries in those three games.

My math tells me that is only 4.6 per game.

Those numbers are unacceptable in terms of carries, especially given the context of each game.

Everything the Steelers tell you is that they want to be a running team, a ball control team, a physical team. They want to bully you and overpower you. They employ four tight ends, regularly have two or three of them on the field at the same time, and love using six-man offensive lines, which becomes a seven-man offensive line when Darnell Washington is on the field.

AND IT WORKS.

So why have they stopped doing it?

And it’s not like they needed to stop doing it. They came out of halftime on Sunday night with a two-possession lead and the football. Their first offensive series resulted in three incomplete passes.

In the third quarter they only ran nine plays, and they had the lead during every single one of them.

Their play selection: Eight passes. One run.

In the first half the Steelers were averaging 5.4 yards per carry, and on their last two drives were really starting to gain traction and gash the Packers defense.

And they just stopped doing it.

Even when the Packers took the lead early in the fourth quarter, the Steelers were still only down by three points with around 14 minutes to play. They were still in a position where they could have run the ball and chewed clock. Hell, it would have been preferable to do that just to keep the Packers offense on the sidelines. What did they do on the ensuing drive? Three consecutive passing plays, including a sack on first down that pretty much ended the drive.

What is your identity? What do you want to be? You can’t build your roster around running the ball and present yourself as the bullies of the NFL and then just abandon it like this.

Be who you are. Own it.

Anyway, watch them beat the Colts on Sunday because nothing makes sense.

Now let’s talk about the rest of the NFL, including future Steelers quarterback Caleb Williams, the Baltimore Ravens, Justin Fields, the Tush Push finally meeting its match and more.