PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – He led the NFL in carries (332), yards (1811), yards per game (106.5) and touchdowns (18) and now the Steelers look to limit Jonathan Taylor Monday night in Indianapolis.
“Home run hitter, hits the hole hard,” said Steelers Defensive Coordinator Teryl Austin. “Any crease he gets, he can take off. We have to make sure we really bottle him up. Multiple guys to the ball and make sure we are playing good technique.”
Taylor started the season with a monster 161 yards against the Texans and didn’t have his second 100-yard game until November 13 against the Raiders. He had 84 yards against the Eagles. He had a NFL-long 83 yard touchdown last season and has one of 66 yards this year.
“For sure he’s a home run hitter,” said linebacker Myles Jack who faced him multiple times while playing with Jacksonville. “That O-line, I like what they do. They play very physical, so you have to match their intensity the entire game. They are fast on their home court.”
“I feel like he and his O-line have a great, they are synchronized. He’s good at reading their body position or if they switch it up a little bit. He has that acceleration where he can get to top speed in one or two steps. Once he hits that hole and no one is there, it’s a track meet. He’s a great running back.”
Steelers will have everyone healthy except for starting corner Ahkello Witherspoon. They had the same lineup last week, but allowed 37 points to the Bengals who were missing their best player, receiver JaMarr Chase, and tailback Joe Mixon for part of the game.
“We just didn’t do a good job of defending,” Austin said. “We could dress it up all we want. We weren’t good enough.”“The thing that’s happened, there have been a lot of times we have been in position to make the play, we haven’t made the plays. A lot of balls that are 50-50, we are losing a majority of those and we have to get better at winning them. It’s going to take work from us to win the 50-50 balls. We have to win them, we can’t lose as many as we are losing.
That’s a reason we are giving up so many plus-20 passes all year. If we want to give ourselves an opportunity to win, we got to get those big plays off our table.”
Much maligned for their passing game, the Colts are seventh in the NFL in passing yards. They have 31 plays of 20 yards or more led Michael Pittman with 67 catches for 678 yards and one touchdown, Parris Campbell has 44 for 440 yards and Alex Pierce only 28 catches, but for 424 yards, an average of 15.1. While benched early in the year, there is respect for Matt Ryan, who has thrown for 62,178 career yards and 377 touchdowns.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Matt Ryan,” said Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin. “He's been there, done that guy, his football intellect is on the ceiling, he makes good and fluid quick decisions. I would imagine his experience and the fact that he's battle tested is the reason they went back to him, and I think I've seen some really positive results from their unit since they've done so.”
Austin said they worked hard in practice this week putting the defense in situations to simulate some of the issues they’ve had in games. The Steelers DC says the more they win in those situations, the better results you’ll see on gameday.
“Communication, making sure everyone is on the same page,” Heyward said. “Finishing games. Sometimes we have good plays here, good plays there. It’s about putting a consistent performance the entire game.”
“Obviously we have to get better, just be a more cohesive unit. One guy doesn’t make the play, there are 10 others who should be making the play.”
If there is one stat that speaks to potential Steelers success, no team has been sacked more this year than Indy.
They are also a minus-eight in turnover ratio. An opportunity here for the Steelers defense to lead the way to a fourth win.