Mike's Beer Bar War Room: Heyward, Ogunjobi trending upward

Leading up to this past weekend, I was often asked something along the lines of, “If the Steelers are going to pull off the upset over the Bucs, what needs to happen?”

Well, I'd chuckle and say things like, “The Steelers need to win the turnover battle by three or more,” or “They'll need at least one score on defense and/or special teams." 

But then in a more serious tone, my answer to that question was consistently, “For starters, Cam Heyward has to be the best player on the field.”

To be honest, I didn’t know if Heyward still had it in him. That isn’t to say he's no longer a highly impactful football player -- both on and off the field. In fact, I very much thought that 2021 was the best season in his remarkable career.

But the past few weeks, before the Tampa Bay game, I didn’t see the same level of dominance. Instead of being in the conversation as the best interior defensive lineman on the planet not named Aaron Donald, I thought Heyward might be now more along the lines of being a top-10 or top-12 defensive tackle. Father Time is undefeated (and we might actually be finally seeing that with Tom Brady, by the way) and I was concerned that it was soon Heyward’s time to go from great to merely very good.

The entire time TJ Watt's been sidelined, Heyward's been the focal point of every opposing blocking scheme, and he wasn’t able to dominate within those difficult circumstances. However, with Watt out of the lineup last year, Heyward still dominated even when facing double-team after double-team. 

On Sunday, he was back to that immensely high level of play.

While that's incredibly encouraging for the Steelers defense going forward -- and Miami’s offensive line is a bit of a mess right now -- it might be equally enticing to see how Heyward’s new partner in crime, Larry Ogunjobi, played against the Buccaneers. This was a truly dominating interior tandem against Tampa Bay’s rebuilt interior offensive line … and Brady’s play was drastically affected.

The Steelers brought a fifth pass-rusher on just one snap against Tampa Bay. That is unheard of in today’s NFL, but Brady is such a quick processor and gets the ball out of his hands so fast that bringing an extra pass-rusher was unlikely to result in putting Brady on his back. Coming into this game, Brady’s 2.4 seconds average time to throw was the league's quickest. Plus, with the dismantled status of the Steelers' secondary, they needed every capable body in coverage. 

They trusted Heyward, Ogunjobi, Alex Highsmith and whatever fourth-rusher was on the field to disrupt the greatest quarterback who has ever played. 

And it worked.

And Brady was still hit and, apparently, very much affected:

Ogunjobi is a different type of defensive lineman than Heyward’s former partner in crime, Stephon Tuitt. Tuitt is much more like Heyward in terms of height, weight and physical dimensions. I actually thought Tuitt was more athletically gifted than his mentor and, in spurts, there were few interior defensive linemen who could wreck games like Tuitt. It just didn’t happen down after down, game after game, and year after year. But when Tuitt was on, there were few like him.

Ogunjobi is a different type of player. Ogunjobi usually wins off the snap with quickness and leverage. He is more of a true 3 Technique who attacks on the outside shoulder of a guard in the Warren Sapp/Geno Atkins mold. In years past, the Steelers didn’t have a use for such upfield attackers and preferred the length and stoutness of players such as Aaron Smith and Brett Keisel.

But times have changed and Ogunjobi fell into their lap after Tuitt decided to retire. For the majority of his first season in Pittsburgh, the signing of Ogunjobi looked like an OK move. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t bad. And while there was probably more positive than negative before Sunday, we saw very few flashes that would be considered at the Tuitt level. 

Sunday might not have been quite peak-Tuitt, but it was very high-level play from Ogunjobi:

This is one of the plays of the day, as Mike Tomlin singled out for special mention afterward. Ogunjobi explodes off the snap with great power and pad level. He quickly “gets skinny,” turning his shoulders so the offensive lineman has little to get his hands on. He immediately defeats the block, keeps his balance, accelerates into the backfield, and destroys the rushing attempt by Leonard Fournette, one of the NFL’s most difficult running backs to get on the ground.

Not to be outdone, Heyward also saves the day in the tight red zone:

One of the league’s best bull rushers, Heyward just overpowers Tampa Bay’s left guard, Luke Goedeke, who he puts on skates. Heyward gets off the snap well, but where he wins is with his extremely powerful hands that act as sledgehammers, coupled with his arm extension while pumping his powerful legs right into Brady’s lap. It isn’t a regular occurrence in this league to see one lineman bully the other to this extreme.

Unfortunately, it looks like Tyson Alualu's on his last legs. He was asked to play only 13 of a possible 72 snaps on Sunday. Ogunjobi played 46 despite briefly leaving the field because of injury. Heyward played 54, Chris Wormley 33, Isaiahh Loudermilk 22 in his first game being active, and Montravius Adams 11, basically splitting time with the declining Alualu.

With DeMarvin Leal on injured reserve, Heyward and Ogunjobi are going to have to really carry the load amongst the defensive linemen. This is eerily familiar to what has been asked of Tuitt and especially Heyward in recent seasons and, frankly, it could be asking too much from just a wear-and-tear perspective. Wormley is ideally a fourth man on this line, and Loudermilk is ideally the fifth guy. But, as has been the case over the last few years, that isn’t where we are right now.

While that's concerning, especially if this defense is forced to play far too many snaps like they were to start the 2022 season because of offensive ineptitude, it's richly encouraging that Heyward got back to being Heyward this past week and Ogunjobi might have just showed us his breakout.