Teryl Austin could do nothing but laugh and repeat the question.
“Do I recall that game?” the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator said Thursday of the most recent time his team played in Philadelphia. “That was not a good game for us.”
No, it was not. The Eagles connected for three long touchdown passes in the first half of a 35-13 victory against the Steelers on Oct. 30, 2022.
Most of the damage that afternoon was done by receiver A.J. Brown, who had touchdowns of 39, 27 and 29 yards among his six catches for 156 yards.
When the teams meet again Sunday in Philadelphia, it goes without saying the Steelers cannot afford a repeat performance from the 6-foot-1, 226-pound Brown.
“He’s one of those big, physical guys,” Austin said. “… He is a physical matchup. You’ve got to fight and claw and scratch when that ball is coming his way because he is a physical player. Contested catches, he wins most of them.
“Like, when you’re looking at (a pass) a lot of times, you go, ‘Oh, that’s a 50/50 ball.’ When it goes A.J.’s way, it’s a little bit more (than 50/50 chance of being caught).”
Austin was coy when asked if the Steelers would assign their No. 1 cornerback, Joey Porter Jr., to Brown. If the opponent has a bigger, more physical top receiver, the Steelers have tended to ask Porter to “follow” him. Philadelphia, though, has two virtual “WR1s” because they also employ DeVonta Smith. Donte Jackson is the Steelers’ other starting outside cornerback.
“We’ll just say that we’re going to do our best to try to limit both of these guys,” Austin said. “However we do it, as far as traveling, whatever we do coverage-wise to try to help whoever has him, I don’t think it’s a job for one person. I think you’ve got to mix them in terms of who covers it, you got to mix them in terms of what kind of coverage.
“Is he double(-teamed), is he single(-teamed)? I think we have a to do a good job — excuse me — I’ve got to do a good job of helping our guys make them guys face a variation of coverages, various coverages, different looks, different things. That helps them probably more than individual matchups, ‘mano-a-mano’ out there.”
In that 2022 game, which was was Smith’s only meeting against the Steelers, he had five receptions for 23 yards.
This season, Brown has 48 catches for 836 yards and four touchdowns, and Smith has 45 catches for 553 yards and five touchdowns for what has been a run-first offensive scheme. Each has missed three games because of injury.
