Max Kellerman delivered one of the greatest offseason NFL lines on ESPN’s “First Take” (which was hosted live during the Pittsburgh Steelers training camp, located at Saint Vincent College.) Kellerman, also no stranger to making Skip Bayless style comments, called Pittsburgh’s defense “soft” during the 2-hour broadcast.

Mike Tomlin responded to the comments, as we would expect him to:

“We didn’t suggest that people ran on us successfully… When they throw the ball over top of you, you hate that, but nobody is running through us. That’s remained the same, (and) I’ll let the stats speak for themselves in that regard.”

“The young guys that have been here that are continuing to grow and develop and hopefully emerge and take the next step in their careers are the real reason why we’re excited. Guys like Stephon Tuitt and Ryan Shazier are no longer young, developing guys. They gotta be cornerstones of this unit, and from what we’ve seen thus far, they’re ready to take that step.”

“In recent years, our offense has been our strength, and we can’t hate that.”

I’m excited about the growth and development of the defense. We do want the defense to be a strength of our football team and the reason why we’ve won. The makeup of our team hasn’t been such over the last several years, but at the end of the day, we gotta (put) egos and visions of how we win to the side and do what’s required to get out of stadiums with W’s and play to our strengths.”

Okay Max, you got us: the Steelers defense is coming off one of it’s worst statistical seasons in nearly a quarter of a century, but that doesn’t mean it will remain that way: Pittsburgh spent 5 of it’s 7 picks in the 2016 NFL Draft on the defensive side of the ball, with the top two picks focused on a repairing a secondary which ranked 30th in passing defense, and 30th in first downs by passing, in the league last season.

Yet, as poor as the Steelers were against the pass, they were 3rd in rushing first downs, and 11th in points against. The brightest statistics were in the turnover department, where Pittsburgh’s defense ranked 4th in fumbles recovered, 6th in interceptions and were tied 3rd overall in takeaways. The old “Blitzburgh” pass rush resurfaced with 16 different defenders registering a sack, as the unit ended up 3rd best in the NFL behind the Patriots and Panthers, getting to the quarterback a whopping 48 times; their first 40+ sack season since 2010 (their last Super Bowl appearance.)

(Conversely, New England had 49 sacks and Carolina sacked the QB 52 times: the Steelers were close to being the best in that department.)

Also, the bend but don’t break mentality was ever present in the redzone, where the Steelers took the ball away 7 times, the most since 2005 (which was also 7 and also a Super Bowl season.)

To call that type of production “soft” is an understatement. Yes, the pass defense was horrible, with much that attributed to a revolving door of cornerbacks such as Antwon Blake, Ross Cockrell and Cortez Allen playing opposite entrenched starter William Gay. While Gay had one of the better seasons by a Steelers CB in recent memory, Blake was abused by players who weren’t even receivers (former college QB turned WR, Terrelle Pryor, even caught a deep pass with Blake defending him.)

Only starting CB not to allow a TD this season was Steelers William Gay

— PFF (@PFF) January 4, 2016

The Steelers cornerback Antwon Blake broke PFF records for yards allowed in coverage (1,074) and missed tackels (28) this year.

— PFF (@PFF) January 4, 2016

The safety help was no better, as the team leaned on veteran Will Allen to hold down the fort opposite Mike Mitchell, after Shamarko Thomas failed to impress during the preseason (losing his job to Robert Golden, who played well enough to earn a 3-year contract this offseason.)

https://twitter.com/PFF/status/760852978848837632

The nickel corner position went into the toilet instantly when last year’s 2nd round draft choice, Senquez Golson, suffered as season-ending injury during training camp. The team traded for Brandon Boykin, who failed to get on the field for a number of speculative reasons (including health, knowledge of the playbook, bad attitude and a conspiracy theory surrounding the conditional draft pick used to acquire him.)

With Blake, Boykin, and both Allens gone, the Steelers would be hard-pressed to field a worse defensive effort against the pass in 2016. The Steelers went after highly productive, quality character athletes in this year’s NFL Draft. Selections such as cornerback Artie Burns, safety/corner hybrid Sean Davis and defensive tackle Javon Hargrave will join the aforementioned stalwarts such as Gay and Mitchell, while combined with a front 7 that includes 4 linebackes whom were all first round draft picks.

As long as Ross Cockrell, Golson or Burns play above Blake’s performance (where the later was accountable for nearly 1/4 of the Steelers passing yards given up) there’s no reason to believe the defense shouldn’t improve in 2016. Artie Burns lead the ACC in interceptions. Sean Davis is one of the top tacklers in Maryland history. Javon Hargrave had 37.5 career sacks, Travis Feeney was 3rd in PAC-12 in sacks and 3rd on Washington’s defense in tackles-for-loss, while Tyler Matakevich is Temple’s all-time leading tackler.

All of these picks are exciting, as I feel each has an opportunity to make the 53-man roster come September. Obviously, the higher the pick, the more likely we will see them on the field. I will go on record with my belief that Sean Davis can be a Day 1 starter at safety, while I have no doubts about placing Robert Golden in that role either, as he showed tremendous improvement throughout the season, last year.

Artie Burns figures to compete with Ross Cockrell, where I expect a similar split in snaps as we saw with Blake and Cockrell in 2015. The best part about Gay, Burns and Golson, is that they can all shift around the field. It will be difficult to create a mismatch, while Davis could find himself in a blitzing role much like Will Allen (a 33-year-old veteran who had 4 sacks last season.)

Overall, it would take a monumental collapse by the aforementioned players to do worse than their predecessors.

That could take the mantle of “best unit” from a loaded Steeler offense, and force Max Kellerman to choose better words when describing the Steelers defense in the future.