It’s the preseason. Many of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defensive stars didn’t play. Drawing team-wide conclusions from three exhibition games with minimal game planning and a roster full of backups is always dangerous. Still, I can’t help but notice the goose egg Pittsburgh put up in the takeaway department this preseason, a trend that can’t carry over into the regular season.

Hiring Patrick Graham as defensive coordinator was a positive move. He’s a tenured and respected defensive coordinator. His schemes are flexible, and players seem eager for the change and what he’s offered so far.

However, my number one concern with Graham is his questionable track record in creating turnovers. That’s never been his strong suit.

In seven years as an NFL defensive coordinator across stops in Miami, the New York Giants, and Las Vegas, only once have Graham’s defenses cracked the top ten in takeaways – a 10th-place finish in 2020. His average ranking is a lowly 22nd, lower marks than where his groups have finished in points or yards allowed.

Despite Pittsburgh’s defensive issues, the unit consistently took the football away. Like Teryl Austin or not, he infused turnover circuit drills into practice, and results followed. Over his Steelers tenure, 2019 through 2025, Pittsburgh’s defense led the league with 197 takeaways. In that respect, the culture was extremely strong and reinforced through practice habits down to T-shirts. 

Can Graham do something similar?

Pittsburgh failed to force one turnover in three preseason games. The closest the unit came was SS DeShon Elliott’s forced fumble against the New York Jets, a bouncing ball the Jets recovered. Elliott will miss at least the first four games of the season while still recovering from his 2025 knee injury.

It might only be preseason, but Pittsburgh going the summer without a takeaway is highly unusual. Last year, the Steelers’ defense forced four. According to our Clayton Eckert, the last time Pittsburgh went the entire preseason without a takeaway was back in 2013.

Is that just noise from small sample sizes and backup players or an ominous sign of what’s to come?

“It’s literally the standard,” CB Donte Jackson told reporters in 2024. “We work it every day. We talk about it every day, and we congratulate it every day. We don’t go through a practice without a guy getting a turnover, and he’s not getting congratulated, he’s not getting padded up, he’s not getting shown on a big screen in front of everybody.”

Jackson finished the year with a career-high five interceptions.

Maybe Graham fixes Pittsburgh’s other issues to the point of being less takeaway-happy is a worthy tradeoff. If the run defense improves, the third-down defense takes a leap, and the communication tightens up, the defense could still come out ahead. Still, winning the turnover battle is such a core component of winning games, and the Steelers’ defense might take a big step backward.

This isn’t a reaction just to the preseason. It’s a worry I’ve written and talked about for several months. The exhibition games only added to the concern.

The Steelers have a chance to lessen those concerns. They’ll face an opponent ripe for the picking to begin the season. No matter if the Atlanta Falcons start Tua Tagovailoa or Michael Penix Jr., Pittsburgh will be in position to take advantage. One quarterback has struggled, the other is coming off a torn ACL and hasn’t played a game in nearly a full year. Of the two, Tagovailoa has been far more turnover-prone, but the Steelers should have the defensive edge hosting the Falcons next Sunday.

It’s easy to dismiss this as preseason doom and gloom. Pittsburgh has the talent to go out and force 30 takeaways like usual. Veterans can continue the culture and pass it on to the up-and-comers. Just don’t be surprised if it goes the other way with Pittsburgh’s defense coming up empty-handed more often than they’re used to. If so, everything else must fall into place for the Steelers to make unit-wide progress.