When word broke Wednesday that the Las Vegas Raiders were demoting Derek Carr for the rest of the season, that made it two season-long starting quarterbacks benched over the past three weeks in the days after a defeat to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Steelers, quarterback killers? Might be a stretch, but it’s surely no coincidence that Carr and the Atlanta Falcons’ Marcus Mariota lost his job after throwing an interception on his final throw of his final game as a starter in a loss for that team. And it’s likewise no coincidence the Steelers were the ones making all those INTs.
The Steelers’ three interceptions of Carr was their fifth multiple-INT game of the season. That’s most in the NFL and the major reason why the Steelers lead the league in interceptions (17).
“Just doing our job: taking the ball away from their offense and giving it back to our guys,” safety Minkah Fitzpatrick said after he had one of the Steelers’ three interceptions of Carr on Christmas Eve.
“That’s the standard that we play to.”
It is, but this season the Steelers are adhering to that standard at a level better than they have in most years. With two games to play, they already have matched or topped their interceptions total for all but two of any of the past 12 seasons (the Steelers had 20 INTs in 2019 and 18 in 2020).
Minkah gonna Minkah ????♂️ @minkfitz_21
???? #PITvsBAL 1/1 at 8:20 PM ET on NBC pic.twitter.com/Nfun4vs4ek
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) December 27, 2022
“It’s something that you always emphasize: taking the ball away,” Fitzpatrick said. “Because if you do that, our offense gets the ball sooner.”
The Steelers are 6-3 this season when they have at least one interception. The wins against the Raiders and at the Cincinnati Bengals in the season opener would almost surely not have happened without the combined seven interceptions the Steelers had. They picked off Joe Burrow four times Sept. 11.
“We’ve always been, since I’ve been here, good in terms of taking the ball away and getting it from the opponent,” defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said. “So I don’t expect any different. I expect our guys to intercept the ball. I expect us to get turnovers because it helps our team.”
Fitzpatrick was named to the Pro Bowl roster in large part because his five interceptions rank tied for third in the NFL. Cornerbacks Levi Wallace and Cameron Sutton have three each, with Arthur Maulet, James Pierre, Ahkello Witherspoon and Damontae Kazee having one each. The only non-DB to have any interceptions for the Steelers is linebacker T.J. Watt, who has two from short range.
No team in the league has gotten more interceptions out of its secondary than the Steelers, who have 15.
“That’s big,” Maulet said. “(Secondary coach Grady Brown), he was putting up the statistics of everybody in the league, and we were tied (for the lead in INTs) so we were trying to take ownership and be the best among defensive backs in interceptions. That’s one goal that we have, and we want to keep doing that every week.”
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