After taking a look over several days at some of the best offensive players at their positions in 2023 who the Steelers are scheduled to face in 2024, it’s time to switch sides of the ball and look at a couple areas of the defense. Before moving on, here at the offensive groups who have been covered so far:

Rushers
Receivers
Quarterbacks
Tight Ends

Today it’s time to check out players who rush the passer using sacks as the measuring statistic. Although sacks are not the end-all to pass rushing stats, they are the easiest stat as they are officially kept by the NFL. As I said before, there could be injuries, trades, benchings, or holdouts which could make these players not able to see the field when they face the Black & Gold. But for now, these things can’t be known for sure. This list consists of players who had at least 12.0 sacks in 2023, their overall rank in sacks last season, and the week in which they will face the Steelers.

Trey Hendrickson (t-2nd)
Cincinnati Bengals
Week 13, Week 18

It might surprise some Steelers fans to see Hendrickson as the top player on this list as he was tied with Josh Allen with 17.5 sacks only behind the 19.0 of T.J. Watt. But there are Steelers fans who may not have been surprised at all. In six games against the Steelers, Hendrickson has notched at least 1.0 sacks in five of them. The only game he did not have a sack was the Week 1 Steelers overtime victory in 2022. But in the matchup later that season, Hendrickson had 2.0 sacks in the Bengals win. In all of the other matchups against the Steelers in his three seasons in Cincinnati, Hendrickson had 1.0 sack. So with 6.0 sacks in six games comes out to a very even 1.0 sack on average every time he has played Pittsburgh.

Khalil Mack (4th)
Los Angeles Chargers
Week 4

In his 10th season in the NFL, Khalil Mack had his top season in seacks with 17.0 in 2023. But it those 10 seasons, Mack has only faced the Steelers once which was in 2015 as a member of the Oakland Raiders. In that game (one I attended in person) in Pittsburgh, Mack had zero statistics in the game as he didn’t even have a tackle let alone a sack.

Maxx Crosby (6th)
Las Vegas Raiders
Week 6

One of the top defenders in the AFC, the Steelers are very familiar with Maxx Crosby who set a career high of 14.5 sacks in 2023. The Steelers have faced Crosby each of the last three seasons with 2023 being the first time Crosby has been able to sack a Steelers quarterback as he had 1.0 in the Steelers Week 3 win last year.

Myles Garrett (t-7th)
Cleveland Browns
Week 12, Week 14

How embarrassing is it that the NFL Defensive Player of the Year is the fourth player on this list and tied for seventh in the NFL in sacks when he is an edge rusher that rarely drops into coverage? Rather than focus on that ridiculousness, Myles Garrett logged 14.0 sacks in 2023, two less than each of his previous two seasons. Additionally, in the Browns last eight games of the season including the playoffs, Garrett only had 1.0 sack. When it comes to when he plays the Steelers, Garrett has faced the Steelers 13 times with six games having no sacks. Garrett had 2.0 sacks in the Week 1 tie in 2018 and had another 2.0 sack in the Week 11 victory over the Steelers last season. Garrett did have five games in which he had 1.0 sacks against the Steelers. In 13 games, Garrett had a total of nine sacks against the Steelers. To compare, in 13 games in which T.J. Watt faced the Browns, he has 17.0 sacks.

Micah Parsons (t-7th)
Dallas Cowboys
Week 5

It’s ironic that Parsons tied Myles Garrett for sacks in 2023 since he’s been campaigning about other statistics being more important. Parsons has increased his sack total by 0.5 each of his NFL seasons and reached 14.0 in 2023. It will be interesting to see what Parsons does come Week 5 as he has never faced the Steelers in his career.

Justin Madubuike (9th)
Baltimore Ravens
Week 11, Week 16

Bursting onto the scene in 2023, Justin Madubuike only had 8.5 career sacks through his first three seasons but had 13.0 in 2023. When facing the Steelers, Madubuike had 1.0 of his 5.5 sacks in 2022 in the Ravens final matchup of the season against the Steelers. Last season, Madubuike had 0.5 sacks against the Steelers in their first matchup and was shut out the final game.