The Pittsburgh Steelers are a franchise known for their dominating defenses. The teams of the 1970s were some of the greatest of all time, but the defenses the Steelers fielded in the 2000s were also legendary. Players like James Harrison, Troy Polamalu, and James Farrior continually imposed their will on opposing offenses. Playing the Steelers was never going to be pretty. For this reason, former running back Chris Johnson pointed to the Steelers as the hardest matchup in his entire career.
Johnson played in the NFL from 2008-2017, most notably with the Tennessee Titans, but also with the New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals. He used to hold the record for the fastest 40-yard dash time at the NFL Scouting Combine. He posted a blazing time of 4.24 seconds, and then went on to win Offensive Player of the Year in 2009 when he rushed for over 2,000 yards. Johnson was one of a kind, and in a recent appearance on the Up & Adams Show with Kay Adams, he stated that the Steelers gave him his toughest battles during his career.
“Any time we played against Pittsburgh; we always knew it was gonna be a bloodbath,” Johnson said. “It was gonna be a battle, you gotta come with your chinstrap tight and your mouthpiece in. Especially going against Troy Polamalu, that was always a great time for me, and it was always a great battle between us two.”
Funnily enough, Johnson actually played against the Steelers in every year of his career, except for the final two where he wasn’t a starter anymore. He definitely got a healthy dose of the Steelers’ defense. In eight games against the Steelers, Johnson rushed for 435 yards and only two touchdowns, gaining around 54 rushing yards per game. His best performance came in 2012, where he ran for 91 yards in a Week 6 victory for the Titans.
Johnson went 4-4 in his career against the Steelers, although most of those wins came after 2012, when that fearsome Steelers defense was beginning to show its age and key players had exited their prime. Even then, Johnson still never had his best games against the Steelers.
He makes sure to highlight Polamalu as a player who really gave him fits, and for good reason. During 2010, the year Polamalu won Defensive Player of the Year, Johnson had his absolute worst performance against the Steelers, rushing for only 34 yards on 16 carries, managing just 2.1 yards per carry. Considering he had just run for 2,000 yards the previous season, that’s incredible. Polamalu’s brilliant work that season had to have a heavy hand in that outcome.
The NFL today is very different than when Johnson and Polamalu would have their battles, so a defense today can’t play like the Steelers did back then. However, that shouldn’t stop the current Steelers from doing everything they can to live up to that standard. Johnson was one of the most electric playmakers of his time, and yet, the Steelers always rose to the occasion and met that challenge. If the 2024 Steelers want to compete for a Super Bowl, they’ll need to adopt that mindset and bring physicality to every matchup.
