Why the Denver Broncos know what to expect from the Pittsburgh Steelers

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Steelers play a simple brand of football.

“It’s going to be one of those classic trench battles,” Broncos guard Quinn Meinerz said.

The Denver Broncos will host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. The game will be the Broncos’ first at home their season, following a 26-20 road loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Week 1.

The Seahawks were a tough study. They had a new head coach, a new offensive coordinator and a new defensive coordinator. None of them had held their position in the NFL before.

The Steelers, on the other hand, have held the same philosophy for decades and their schemes hardly change. For the most part, the Broncos know what to expect.

“It makes the pictures that we’re going to be seeing a little easier,” Meinerz said. “They’re playing their same techniques. They know where they’re going to line up. We know where we’re going to line up.”

The big twist, at least for Meinerz’s offense, is that game-planning for outside linebacker TJ Watt is tricky.

Watt is the latest in a long string of dominant, tone-setters for the Steeler defense. He’s the three-time NFL sack leader. He’s a former NFL Defensive Player of the Year. He is the most difficult assignment for modern NFL tackles.

“He kind of has a Aaron Donald-like effect on the game,” Broncos offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said on Thursday. “There are great players in this league, but there are just a couple guys that I can remember that are as disruptive consistently as this guy. So you better know where he is every play.”

Watt is the face of a physical, attacking defense that ranked top 10 in nearly every category in Week 1.

“It’s just going to be one of those grinders of a game,” Meinerz said.

Broncos cornerback Riley Moss is used to those types of games.

“It’s kind of like when I played at Iowa, playing Wisconsin, a lot of those Big Ten teams,” Moss said. “It’s gonna be 12 personnel, 13 personnel and they’re gonna try and run the ball. We’ve got to stop that. That’s our No. 1 priority.”

For what it’s worth, Watt is a Wisconsin alum.

The Steelers ran the ball 62% of the time in Week 1, which led the NFL. They lined up under center on half of their plays, which is rare in the modern NFL. More than half of Justin Fields‘ Week 1 passes came off of play action, which was the highest rate of his four-year career. (Stats from NFL Next Gen Stats.)

Here’s the kicker: Despite building their offense around the running game more than any other NFL team, the Steelers didn’t run the ball particularly well. Their 3.3 yards per rush attempt ranked 29th in the league.

The Steelers managed six scoring drives—all field goals—but the defense deserves most of the credit for setting the offense up with good field position. The Steelers had the fifth-best average starting field position in the NFL in Week 1. The Broncos were third.

“If it’s going to be one of those games, whoever wins the field position battle will probably win,” Moss said.

The key for the Broncos defense is not giving up anything easy.

“The importance of not giving up big plays is huge this week,” Moss said. “We’ve got to make them earn it.”

Injury Report

The Broncos received good news on Thursday, with four of the five players listed on the injury report having upgraded statuses.

Meanwhile, the Steelers added two players to the injury report.

The big news, however, is that Russell Wilson still isn’t a full participant in practice. He said he would be ready to go in a big game, but he isn’t rushing back early in the season.

“I want to go, but we also want to be smart,” Wilson said.

Here’s who was in and who was out for Thursday’s practices:

Broncos

Steelers

Notes

• Joe Lombardi spoke about Quinn Meinerz’s rough first outing: “Quinn, he’s such a mauler, sometimes he can be a little over aggressive and get in front of his skis a little bit. He’ll learn from that. He’s a great player obviously, and he had a great camp. So I think for whatever reason—and you have these days sometimes—we just went out collectively and played poorly. [I] expect us to bounce back.”
  
  
• Joe Lombardi on Bo Nix: “There was one play in particular where I think we had a chance at a big play, and he just had the wrong footwork. He was a little ahead of the throw, which caused it to look very inaccurate. Just a couple little details like that and a couple of throws. The two interceptions, he kind of forced them in there.”
  
  But there’s good news.
  
  “Before anything was said, he knew. He had answers for everything. You could see that there’s going to be growth from when he makes mistakes.”