The Pittsburgh Steelers defense may be hamstrung in the absence of its star pass rusher, T.J. Watt, but the playing field is heavily neutralized when playing against the New York Jets, a team without its top three left tackles. With Mehki Becton and Duane Brown already on the Reserve/Injured List, the team added George Fant to the list this week.
Pittsburgh doesn’t have Watt at the moment, and won’t for at least one more game after today, but it still has the NFL’s current sack leader in Alex Highsmith, who has 4.5 through the first three games, and he will be going up against Connor McDermott, a sixth-year former sixth-round pick who has six starts in his career.