Thursday was the first — and, almost certainly, only — time the entirety of the first-team Pittsburgh Steelers defense took the field together in a stadium against an offense of a different NFL team.
And according to the Steelers defensive players who talked about it afterward, they weren’t happy with how it played in the joint practice against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“We just didn’t come out with energy,” cornerback Brandin Echols said. “We came out a little flat. Flatter than usual. So we just have to fix that, come out stronger.”
Echols said the flat effort wasn’t discussed among the players on the defense — because it was apparent enough that it didn’t need to be.
“It’s very much understood,” said Echols, a veteran in his first season with the Steelers. “We know we have to come out way better and show way better swag and way better communication. We have got to show that we are a dominant group and excel in it.”
While reporting on details of the two-hour session at a mostly empty Acrisure Stadium (closed to the public) was prohibited, comments by a handful of players from the Steelers defense tell the story of how their side’s matchup went against the Baker Mayfield- and Mike Evans-led Tampa Bay offensive unit.
With coach Mike Tomlin saying earlier in the day that many veteran starters won’t play in the second preseason game Saturday — they also sat out Week 1 — Thursday’s joint practice might end up as the lone opportunity for many of the new faces on defense to be on the field together in a game-like setting in advance of the Sept. 7 regular-season opener at the New York Jets.
“The (defense’s) issue (Thursday) was that the jobs that we were supposed to be doing, we weren’t doing it the way we were supposed to,” inside linebacker Patrick Queen said. “Certain looks you’re going to get certain routes, and we kind of tried to cheat that with the coverage knowing that the coverage could get exposed but we kind of cheated it a little bit.
“There’s just stuff that we’ve got to do on our part to be more attentive. Pre-snap we’re talking, we’re communicating, seeing everything. We just have to execute.”
Queen and safety DeShon Elliott confirmed that the Bucs prevailed with a last-second score by Evans in a 2-minute drill simulation at the end of practice. Elliott, while blaming himself for the play, said Jalen Ramsey was in man-to-man on Evans on that play.
“That wasn’t very good on us,” Queen said, “to let them go down and score like that. We have to go back to the drawing board, fix it up, clean up the technique issues, our job-description issues, whatever it might be, and get that stuff cleaned up.”
Elliott is steadfast that whatever ailed the Steelers defense Thursday won’t be an issue come when it matters.
“Once Sunday happens Week 1, will be fine,” Elliott said. “We’ve got the guys, and ‘Mike T’ puts us in situations to make sure we are ready for Sundays. When (a regular-season) Sunday happens, we will be all right.”
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
