Steelers' $100 Million Defender Is Fighting The Urge To Play Hero During Sackless Start

The Pittsburgh Steelers have an expensive pass-rush problem that is easy to measure and dangerous to overreact to. One of their most heavily invested defenders has gone through five games without a sack after being paid like a cornerstone, which is the kind of stat that invites fans, critics and eventually the player himself to start hunting for a solution on every snap. Pittsburgh's bigger concern is what happens if that hunt starts changing the football.

Nick Herbig is the player staring at that zero, and he is well aware of how tempting it can be to chase the play that finally erases it. During Monday's media availability, the fourth-year defender acknowledged that his competitive nature makes the sackless start frustrating, but he said Mike McCarthy has consistently warned players against pressing for splash plays.

“I think that kind of comes with all of us. You know, that competitive nature makes us who we are. You want to be that guy. You want to make the play, but, you know, Coach McCarthy always talks about not pressing for that. Like, there’s opportunities in the game that are going to present itself, and it’s just a matter of capitalizing on those,” Herbig said.

Herbig never used the phrase “hero ball,” but that is basically the temptation he is describing. Pass rushers are paid to wreck possessions, and sacks are the cleanest receipt for doing it. When that number stays at zero long enough, it becomes easy to turn every third-and-long into a personal mission instead of one rep inside an 11-man rush plan.

That would be the worst possible response for Pittsburgh. A defender pressing for a sack can widen too far, abandon rush-lane integrity or take an inside gamble that opens an escape route. The highlight might be sitting one move away, but so is the quarterback scrambling through the space that move just created. Defensive football has a cruel sense of humor that way.

The frustration is understandable because Herbig has spent his first three seasons training everyone to expect disruption. Pittsburgh selected him in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft, and his sack totals climbed from three as a rookie to 5.5 in 2024 and a career-high 7.5 last season. He entered 2026 with 16 sacks despite starting only 11 games, then signed a four-year, $100 million extension in June.

That contract changed the conversation around every quiet game. Herbig is no longer the energetic rotational rusher outperforming his draft slot. Pittsburgh paid him as a major piece of its defensive future, and zero sacks through five games will naturally get treated differently when $100 million is attached to the name.

There is important context inside the drought, though. Herbig's new role under Patrick Graham has asked him to do more than simply fly off the edge. He has taken off-ball snaps and worked inside against guards and centers, which changes both the angles and the techniques available to him. Comparing every 2026 rep to the version of Herbig who could pin his ears back outside misses part of the assignment.

Sacks are also outcome stats. A rusher can win and watch the ball leave before he arrives, or lose repeatedly and get one when coverage buys time. How Herbig responds to zero matters almost as much as zero.

It still does not make the zero irrelevant. Pittsburgh did not invest that kind of money because Herbig can merely occupy different spots on a diagram. Eventually, the pressures have to turn into drive-changing plays, especially for a defense built around creating problems up front.

What makes Herbig's answer encouraging is that he seems to understand the difference between urgency and impatience. Urgency gets a pass rusher studying the tackle's set, attacking the weakness and finishing when the opening appears. Impatience convinces him the opening has to appear right now because the stat sheet has been annoying him for a month.

McCarthy's message is simple enough to sound boring: do the job and let the opportunities arrive. That philosophy is probably harder for Herbig than it would be for a player whose game is built on patience. His best football has always carried a little chaos with it. He wins with burst, effort and the belief that the next collision might knock the ball loose.

The Steelers should not coach that instinct out of him. They just need it aimed in the right direction.

Steelers Should Care More About Discipline Than The Zero

Herbig absolutely needs to start finishing more rushes. A $100 million defender going sackless through five games is fair game for criticism, and pretending otherwise would be grading him on a curve Pittsburgh did not use when it wrote the contract.

But forcing one sack at the expense of the structure would be worse than waiting another week for the first one. Herbig's value is supposed to come from disruption that helps the defense, not from collecting a personal statistic while somebody else cleans up the consequence.

That is the line he is trying to walk now. The competitive streak telling him to be the guy is the same trait that helped turn a fourth-round pick into a $100 million player. It can also become the thing that pulls him out of a rush lane if frustration starts making decisions for him.

Herbig does not need to become less aggressive. He needs to stay aggressive enough to trust that the sack will eventually find him.

And when it does, Pittsburgh would much rather see him arrive there on schedule than watch him spend five weeks trying to force the appointment.

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