Former Steelers Offensive Lineman Calls Out Old Defensive Habits Creeping Back In

The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off a victory on Sunday that has, at least for the time being, silenced some doubt surrounding their early offensive struggles. They put up 30 points at home in their win over their divisional foe, the Cincinnati Bengals. The offense looked more of the one that was advertised this offseason when new head coach Mike McCarthy was hired with the clear goal of improving the unit. They will look to build off that momentum moving forward this season. On the defensive side of the ball, one old habit came out on Sunday despite the win in the contest against Cincinnati.

Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham was brought in to join McCarthy's staff following some great work with arguably way lesser talent under the same title with the Las Vegas Raiders. One of the biggest points of emphasis was shoring up communication on defense in his first year working with the unit. That lack of communication has plagued the team in the past and led to splash plays by the opponent in games.

Former Pittsburgh offensive lineman Trai Essex broke down the game Monday on an episode of The Snap Count podcast. During the episode, he discussed the play of the defense from the win on Sunday. While speaking on the defense, he mentioned that some of the old habits did start to creep back in.

“I thought we had got rid of that, those [are] unexplainable, seemingly easy mess ups that they had plenty of times last year in the secondary,” Essex said. “We hadn’t had them up to this point, and they kind of creeped their way back into the defense this past game.” 

The defense as a whole has had a strong start to the 2026 NFL season in the Steel City. They have allowed 60 points through the first three games (one touchdown coming from the New England defense scoring in Week 2), with Sunday's divisional showdown against Cincinnati spiking that number as they put up 27 on the Black and Gold defense. Given the comments from Essex on Monday, there is a lot that can be corrected on film and they will need to do so quickly to squash these old habits from becoming a normal occurrence again. 

It is important to consider the opponent given that the Bengals have a high-powered offense led by quarterback Joe Burrow, who started the game a perfect 13-for-13 through the air. They will be one of the best offenses that the Steelers will face throughout their 2026 schedule. Hopefully Sunday was a good experience for them to get back to the film room and work on quickly correcting the communication mistakes. Through the first two games, they proved their worth with being one of the league's highest-paid defensive units. 

Steelers' Defense Can Learn An Important Lesson From Week 3 Matchup

Despite the unit having some hiccups in the tilt on Sunday, Graham has them playing under his new system very well throughout three weeks of action. Linebacker Patrick Queen has been a huge beneficiary of this new defense, which has shown in his strong start to the year. He has a total of 23 tackles as well as one interception on the season, with 13 tackles recorded on Sunday against Cincinnati. If there is one player that can help to turn around the miscommunication woes on the field, Queen is that guy given his veteran presence with this being his seventh year in the NFL.

With the Steelers being one of the higher paid defenses in the league, it has struggled in recent years. Those struggles came due to the communication issues on the field and were not for a lack of talent on the unit on the field. This is a big chance for Graham to study up quickly and reset his unit so they put the miscues in their rearview mirror for Week 4 and beyond. If they are able to do so, they will get back to being the dominant force the franchise has been known to have for decades.

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