The Pittsburgh Steelers are going to have a new look on the sideline as nearly the entire coaching staff has changed since the 2025 season. Mike McCarthy is the new head coach, and he brought in a ton of new coaches to join his staff. This includes Defensive Coordinator Patrick Graham who was most recently with the Las Vegas Raiders. Graham is known for being an adaptable coordinator that crafts his defense around the strengths of his players, which is a nice change of pace for the franchise. The defense is extremely talented on paper, but execution on the field has been a problem in recent years.
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Former Las Vegas Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham stands on the sideline with his headset on as the team competes in a professional football game.
Graham worked with the Raiders for quite some time, and the fact that Las Vegas has not been good in quite some time forced some fans to write Graham off once he was hired in Pittsburgh. That should not be the case as he was able to retain his job across several different coaching staffs, and he was always working with a below-average roster on defense. He now has some above-average players at every level of the defense, and hopefully he can get the best results out of those guys.
Missi Matthews and Mike Prisuta spoke on the sidelines of OTAs to break down the practices, and the two discussed what they have been noticing. One of the first things Prisuta pointed out was the communication on the defensive side of the football.
"And on defense, what got me Missi is how loud it is pre-snap," Prisuta said. "Everybody's yelling. Everybody's hollering. The offense is doing a lot of shifting, the defense is pointing and making calls. Communication, communication, communication. It's going to be stressed."
Defenses in Pittsburgh have always communicated, but it has been an issue in the past. Far too often players have spoken after a loss and mentioned the fact that the communication was off or things were not going well, and that doesn't seem like it is going to happen with Graham running the show. He has been emphasizing the importance of communication, which was a noticeable difference to both Matthews and Prisuta.
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Steelers middle linebacker Patrick Queen (6) during 2025 training camp in Latrobe, PA.
Prisuta also mentioned that the importance of communication is knowing one another very well, so that is something that the new defensive coordinator has been preaching to his defense. He needs his guys to be more than familiar with one another, and that way the communication will be smooth and easy.
One of the main players that is going to be responsible for communication is middle linebacker Patrick Queen. He wears the green dot on the defense, meaning he is essentially the quarterback of the group. He relays the play calls from the coaching staff, and he is also responsible for making any sort of check during the pre-snap process. He was not present at Organized Team Activities (OTAs) initially as he was hosting a fishing tournament.
Steelers Need Top Veterans To Play Their Best Football In 2026
Pittsburgh has a talented defensive group on paper, and if the communication is solid, it is just going to come down to execution. The veterans on the unit need to step up and play like they have in the past. TJ Watt had a down year by his own standards in 2025 and he is expected to return to his former self, while Jalen Ramsey also needs to perform better in the secondary.
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Steelers veteran defenders Jalen Ramsey (left) and TJ Watt (right) during the 2025 offseason in Latrobe, PA.
If those two things can happen while younger players continue to develop, there is no reason the Steelers cannot have one of the top 10 defensive units in the NFL. That is what will be needed for the franchise to make some actual noise in the playoffs.
What do you think of this report out of OTAs? Let me know on X, @brogannoey!
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