The Steelers were back at practice today getting ready for their next challenge on Sunday. The Houston Texans are coming into Heinz Field with urgency. They're down 0-2 coming into Heinz so the Steelers should not take them lightly. Cam Heyward isn't going to take them lightly and feels there is a lot of work to do. He feels the defense needs to be on the rise.
"It's only been two weeks," he noted. "I'm not gonna get ahead of myself and think we've accomplished anything. We have to be a defense on the rise."
The defense currently has 10 sacks with 2 1/2 coming from TJ Watt and 2 coming from Mike Hilton. Vince Williams has the most tackles on the defense with 6. The total tackles the Steelers defense has is 22 tackles. Heyward says the defense is contributing as a collective unit.
"It's a positive stat, both of them are," Heyward continued. "It shows it's not just one guy doing the work. We like to do this as a collective unit. When one guy gets the sack or the pressure it's usually because we have a lot of other guys doing their jobs. That's in the passing game. That's in the running game. We like to communicate a lot, I think doing that allows us to play fast, have confidence in each other."
Cam acknowledged that Deshaun will make you pay if you allow him to have time and they need to take care of their rush lanes. Heyward feels if the defense can make a team one-dimensional then you can get them in the pass.
"Rush lanes," Heyward maintained. "Deshaun will make you pay if you give him more time. He has some really good receivers in Will Fuller and Randall Cobb. We have to make sure we take care of our business, take care of our rush lanes."
"But to get to that you have to stop the run. I've always been a firm believer, if you can make a team one-dimensional, then you can really light your hair on fire when it gets to the pass."
Heyward wants the defense to mix it up and not blitz all the time, but when they do blitz they have to hit home.
"You can't get into a situation where you're just blitzing all the time," he said. "We have to make sure we mix it up whether it's four-man or three-man rushing groups, that's just the flavor of the cake this week.
"We have to make sure we continue to do our jobs. When we blitz we have to hit home. When we don't blitz we have to get pressure with four or three."
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