The Steelers used their highest blitz rate of the season (46%) against the Green Bay Packers and were destroyed by it.
In Week 9, they faced a similar offense that had performed well against the blitz, and the Steelers made a massive adjustment.
Pittsburgh, the #3 most blitz-heavy team in the NFL, dropped their blitz rate from 46% in Week 8, their highest of the year, to 24% against the Colts, their lowest of the year.
Pittsburgh also made another massive schematic adjustment.
They played their highest rate of Cover 2 on the season and second-lowest rate of man coverage.
The creativity and lack of predictability defensively threw off the Colts' passing game.
Additionally, the Steelers had their best run defensive performance of the season vs the NFL’s #1 best run offense.
The Colts ranked #1 running the ball entering this game, while the Steelers run defense ranked #16.
Even more than just the ranking, the Steelers played nothing but rushing offenses that ranked #18 or worse for six straight games.
Now, they had to go up against the #1 Colts.
Pittsburgh’s defense held Jonathan Taylor to his worst yards per carry of the season at 3.2 and gave up 0 explosive runs, the first game all season Taylor was held without an explosive rush (12+ yards).
After two weeks of being embarrassed defensively, first by the Bengals and last week by the Packers, Mike Tomlin and the Steelers defense made creative adjustments and still were able to stop the run.
Going up against the #1 offense in the NFL with a top-five passing attack and the #1 ranked rushing attack, and limiting the Colts to 7 total points into the fourth quarter, was extremely impressive.
In their 11 total drives, the Colts had just 2 that even advanced the ball beyond the Steelers' 30-yard line.
The Steelers defense forced 3 sack fumbles and recovered 2 of them.
They also recorded 3 interceptions.
On those six plays, the Steelers defense blitzed only ONCE!
Given the opponent’s prior performances and ranking on the season, it was arguably the best Steelers defensive performance in recent memory.