The Steelers may have beaten the Bengals on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any room for improvement.

While many will look at the red zone offense and third and short play calling, one of the most glaring weaknesses the Steelers had versus the Bengals was their goal line defense.

Let me set the scene. It was the second quarter and the Steelers held a 14-7 lead. The Bengals managed to make it to the red zone but the Steelers defense was stout and forced the Bengals into fourth and goal. The Bengals knew the Steelers offense was clicking and that they would have trouble stopping them, so rather than taking the points, they decided to go for it on fourth down:

Let’s break this down.

The Steelers were in a goal line formation, but with several linebackers on the field. This isn’t the first time that they’ve used this subpackage this season,  where L.J. Fort and Tyler Matakevich replace cornerbacks Artie Burns and Joe Haden; thus the two linebackers are responsible for covering the receivers, or in this case, the tight ends, as the Bengals broke their huddle with a heavy package.

When the ball is snapped, both players anticipate the run or the short throw and close in on the line of scrimmage. This allows tight end Tyler Kroft to sneak through uncovered for the easy touchdown.

Without knowing exactly what the players’ assignments were it’s hard to tell whether this was a miscommunication or a mental lapse by one of the linebackers, but regardless this sort of play cannot be allowed to happen.

The first thing for me that comes to mind when viewing this play is the Patriots. The Steelers have a rich history of allowing tight end Rob Gronkowski to score against the Steelers goal line formation.

However, you don’t have to look too far back for another example of failure from the goal line defense. The Steelers gave up an eerily similar touchdown to the Bears in Week 3:

In this play the Steelers again are in their goal line formation. When the ball is snapped you can see the linebackers get fooled far too easily by the play action. This happened largely due to the massive success the Bears had running the ball that day. The linebackers were clearly anticipating a run play.

This allows tight end, Adam Shaheen, to get open and score what will be one of the easiest touchdowns of his career.

However, that wouldn’t be the last time we would see this subpackage. This was apparently installed in the preseason as the defense has called this goalline package more than once. Here, the Jaguars are prepared for it as well, with Jacksonville RB Leonard Fournette easily finding six.

Everybody knows the NFL is a copycat league. You can hear the broadcasters say this every week. What this means is teams are going to pay attention to what works against good teams. We saw it on Thursday Night Football when the Raiders seemed to incorporate aspects of the Steelers offense into their game plan in order to beat the Chiefs… and it worked.

If the Steelers do not correct their goal line defense then teams will continue to exploit it. There’s no doubt that this will not be the last time the Steelers encounter this type of play when their defense is on the goal line. If it proves to be a major weakness, teams will attack it.

The Steelers need to make the necessary adjustments in order to stop allowing these types of touchdowns.