Steelers' TJ Watt Challenges Mike Tomlin's Strong Belief About Causing Turnovers

It was another embarrassing loss for the Pittsburgh Steelers as they fell to the Los Angeles Chargers by a final score of 25-10 on Sunday night, dropping their record to 5-4. Not much went right for the Steelers, especially on the offensive side of the ball. The Steelers defense wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't good enough to win. A week after forcing six turnovers and taking down the league's number one offense, the Pittsburgh defense failed to create a single turnover against the Chargers, which certainly caused more frustration for Steelers players and fans.

Head Coach Mike Tomlin has always preached turnovers, and, to his credit, he has coached some of the best defenses in recent years in terms of taking the ball away, but that hasn't exactly been the case in 2025. The Steelers have been inconsistent through the first nine games of the season, and a prime example of that inconsistency is what they've displayed over the last two weeks. Six takeaways one week, and then zero the next.

During his post-game press conference, edge rusher TJ Watt was clearly frustrated when discussing the inconsistencies within the Steelers' defense.

"Inconsistent as it could be. Too much up and down, not enough Steeler Football," Watt said. "We can't continue to live and die by the turnovers as a defense. We need to get off the field, need to stop the run, critical third downs we need to do a better job of. No excuse for it. We need to play better."

The Steelers have indeed lived and died by the turnovers in 2025, as it's either been an incredible performance with five or more takeaways, or a dreadful showing with none, and Sunday night was the latter. Sure, you have to be able to take the ball away in the NFL, but you can't rely on it week-in and week-out, and the Steelers to continue to struggle at beating good teams without forcing turnovers.

The Steelers defense did some good things in the first half, as the unit held the Chargers to three punts and a field goal in their first four possessions, but a late second-quarter touchdown pass from Justin Herbert to Ladd McConkey gave Los Angeles a 12-3 at the half.

Despite the touchdown, the Steelers came out in the second half and continued to get stops. They forced a Charger punt to start the third quarter before forcing two field goal attempts, one of which was missed, but the Steelers offense couldn't quite get anything going. Kimani Vidal extended the Chargers' lead to 22-3 with a two-yard touchdown run with 9:26 to go, and that was pretty much all she wrote, and Watt acknowledged the defense's struggles in more detail.

"Good defenses spend a lot of time on the bench, and we haven't been doing that enough in totality this year," Watt said.

Perhaps it isn't the defenses fault for not being on the bench for very long, as the Steelers' offense went just 2-for-11 on third down. However, the defense was unable to get off the field when it needed to, allowing Los Angeles to convert six of 17 third downs.

Steelers' Lead In The AFC North Shrinks To Just One Game

Just a month ago, the Steelers had a comfortable lead in the AFC North, sitting at 4-1 with the Baltimore Ravens losing four straight games to fall to 1-5. Fast forward to Sunday, and the Steelers lead in the division is down to one game after Pittsburgh has dropped three out of its last four, and the Ravens have won three in a row. 

There is still nearly two months left in the regular season, but with more difficult opponents on the schedule along with Baltimore getting hot, the Steelers have a lot of work to do if they want to give themselves a shot at their first division title since 2020.

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