6 Things I Learned From Week 4 of the NFL Season

The Steelers Already Regressed

A stomping in Carolina shot the Steelers upwards in power rankings everywhere. Entering the week, our own rankings had Pittsburgh as the most league average team imaginable with a nERD score of zero, improved from a bottom-half ranking the week prior.

Exiting the week, it'd be tough to even call them average.

So far this season, the problem with the Steelers has been inconsistent play. That's exactly what we saw this week, as Pittsburgh went from allowing 64 total first-half yards to watching Mike Glennon tear apart the secondary for 245 yards in the second half.

Despite such a poor first half, Glennon finished the game with a Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) of 5.75, a score much better than what the Bucs have seen from their passing game (-17.34) so far this year.

The Steelers have been able to move the ball effectively on offense this year, but the defense has been another story. Even with their destruction in Carolina last weekend, the unit ranked 25th in the NFL according to NEP entering Week 4. Exiting, you can only assume they'll be in the bottom five.

A look ahead shows a few easy matchups against Jacksonville, Cleveland and Houston. But as we saw on Sunday against numberFire's 31st-ranked team, nothing is easy for the Steelers.