Yes, the pictured tight end, Ladarius Green, has given Steelers Nation fits throughout the preseason, but he also gave Pittsburgh problems in 2015 as well.

It’s a well-known fact that last year’s iteration of the Pittsburgh Steelers had trouble covering tight ends: but how much trouble?

To illustrate the woes Pittsburgh had with tight ends, please see Exhibit A (that would be the table below) which charts every tight end the team faced during the 2015 regular season:

Player	Tm	Tgt	Rec	Yds	TD	Lng
Rob Gronkowski	NW	8	5	94	3	52
Scott Chandler	NW	1	1	1	1	1
Vernon Davis	SF	7	5	62	0	43
Garrett Celek	SF	2	2	10	0	7
Lance Kendricks	STL	1	2	12	0	7
Jared Cook	STL	3	1	7	0	7
Maxx Williams	BAL	4	2	17	0	10
Nick Boyle	BAL	4	3	12	0	8
Antonio Gates	SD	11	9	92	2	12
Ladarius Green	SD	5	5	50	0	24
Troy Niklas	AZ	1	1	13	0	13
Darren Fells	AZ	2	1	9	0	9
Travis Kelce	KC	6	5	73	0	26
James O’Shaughnessy	KC	2	1	2	0	2
Tyler Eifert	CIN	8	4	39	0	23
Mychal Rivera	OAK	3	2	16	0	8
Lee Smith	OAK	2	1	10	0	10
Clive Walford	OAK	5	1	1	1	1
Gary Barnidge	CLE	8	6	65	1	18
Jimmy Graham	SEA	8	4	75	0	36
Luke Willson	SEA	1	1	12	0	12
Coby Fleener	IND	8	4	20	0	8
Dwayne Allen	IND	1	1	6	0	6
Tyler Eifert	CIN	2	2	42	0	24
Tyler Kroft	CIN	3	2	31	0	22
Owen Daniels	DEN	5	2	14	0	7
Vernon Davis	DEN	3	1	5	0	5
Maxx Williams	BAL	5	2	16	0	9
Gary Barnidge	CLE	13	8	66	0	20

Those players which had 50 or more yards receiving are highlighted in bold. Seven players exceeded the mark last season, with Cleveland’s Gary Barnidge having done it twice; in both games the Browns played against the Steelers.

The good news is that Barnidge was one of the few non-household names at the position, who torched the Steelers defense last season. One would expect to have “fits” against some of the game’s best such as Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham, and Travis Kelce. Gronk’s performance also opened up a touchdown catch in last year’s opener for his teammate Scott Chandler, one of two tight ends highlighted above who scored on the Steelers, but didn’t hit the 50+ mark.

Oakland’s Clive Walford was the other TE to score without a 50+ yard game. In both Chandler’s and Walford’s scenarios, their touchdown catches would be their only reception in those games.

Other notable headaches for the Steelers included then-49er Vernon Davis, who padded his stats in “garbage time” after the Steelers had a solid lead, along with the pair of Antonio Gates and Ladarius Green, who both achieved the magic numbers to combine for 14 receptions, 142 yards and 2 touchdowns in the San Diego game.

Despite the big play capability, the Steelers revamped defense could improve on an otherwise surprising statistic of last season: DVOA. According to Football Outsiders, DVOA measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent.

Using Football Outsiders’ metrics, the Steelers ranked 5th in tight end efficiency last season with 8.6 pass attempts to TEs and 56.0 yards given up to TEs, per game. The NFL average was 7.6 pass attempts and 55 yards: the Steelers only conceded 1 more yard-per-game with an average of 1.2 more attempts against.

Interestingly enough, the teams who finished ahead of the Steelers were as follows:

• Carolina (8.3/49.4)
• Kansas City (8.0/42.4)
• Green Bay (8.2/55.5)
• Dallas (6.2/36.9)

The Super Bowl winning Denver Broncos defense ranked 8th with 8.6 attempts yielding 61.7 yards-per-game.

So what do all of these numbers mean?

It means that despite the overall thought that the Steelers didn’t fare well against tight ends, they weren’t as terrible as imagined. In 4 of the last 5 games of the year, the Steelers allowed a single TE to reach the same pinnacle (Barnidge) in what was a blowout game.

Pittsburgh also held division rival Cincinnati’s Tyler Eifert to under 50 yards in both contests last season (though fellow Bengal Tyler Kroft’s numbers would create a combined 4 catches for 73 yards when added to Eifert’s totals in the second game, however the duo was still held to no scores.)

Whether or not the Steelers have mastered defending tight ends will be decided early into the season, when Pittsburgh faces Jordan Reed in their first game, then turnaround to once again defend Kroft, the Eagles pair of Zach Ertz and Brent Celek, and a return engagement with the Chiefs Travis Kelce. Before the end of they year, the Steelers will also take on Gronk, Jason Witten, Dwayne Allen, and any one of the several talented tight ends on the Baltimore Ravens roster.

Yet, with a revamped defense, I’m of the opinion the Steelers will do fine against the position this season. Even if they give up a few big games, it may be part of a larger gameplan: considering the Steelers gave up 50+ 8 times in 7 games last season, they won 4 of those games. (Also consider, against Kansas City, the team was without Ben Roethlisberger.)

That makes me slightly optimistic that tight ends won’t destroy the Pittsburgh’s defense in 2016.