One of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ biggest weaknesses last season was closing out games, and that primarily fell to their defense. They gave up 14 touchdowns in the fourth quarter during the 2018 season, which was tied for the sixth-most in the NFL, and they also allowed six field goals for a total of 20 scores.
This proved to be costly, as in five of their seven losses or ties last season, they either held or shared the lead entering the fourth quarter. While a sputtering offense sometimes also contributed in those instances, the defense was handed leads five times that it could not hold on to. Defensive coordinator Keith Butler was all too aware of this.
“We gotta stop people the end of the game, in two minutes and stuff like that”, he told Missi Matthews earlier this spring. “We gotta be better defensively in the last two minutes of the game because the games, the way the NFL is now, the games are closer and closer, four points or less people are winning or losing by. There’s a great number of games that [end that way]. That’s the way the league is going, so we’ve got to be good in that aspect of our defense”.
With respect to the two-minute defense that he refers to, the Steelers’ four touchdowns allowed were tied for the most in the NFL. They were scored upon a total of six times in the final two minutes of games. Only the New York Giants gave up more points or allowed more scores in the two-minute defense.
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https://steelersdepot.com/2019/06/ke...s-of-the-game/
This has been a major problem for steelers for a very long time ... I often prefer to be behind in the scoreboard but have the ball in the last two minutes in the game in a one score game that be ahead and our defense is on the field.
But not a lot of defense are clutch in the nfl of today!