In the NFL, what makes good run defense?
A. More so than statistics, I think it has to do with stepping up situationally. When people have a lead and are trying to take the air out of a football game, you don’t allow them to do that. When people are trying to move the chains via short yardage, or pound the ball over the goal line, good run defenses don’t let down situationally. Some of the stuff that goes on during first-and-10 or second-and-medium, sometimes a good run defense’s performance can be overshadowed by a breakout run. A 60-yard run, if you will. I look toward situational football. When the opponent is trying to run the football and is unable to, and it’s important for them to do it, that’s good run defense. Q. You’re not a big one for records, but the Steelers became the first team in NFL history to hold each of their first eight opponents to no more than 75 yards rushing in a game. That encompasses a lot of great defenses, back to and even before the Bears’ Monsters of the Midway teams of the 1940s. Does that imp
