Steel City Underground presents our 2025 Plays of the Year series: a weekly rewind through the biggest moments, breakout performances, and unforgettable highlights from last season’s Pittsburgh Steelers campaign.
Week 10 of the 2025 NFL season was a rough outing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who struggled under the primetime lights at SoFi Stadium against the Los Angeles Chargers. Despite the marquee Sunday Night Football matchup, the Steelers couldn’t find their rhythm on either side of the ball. Justin Herbert led a sharp Chargers offense that outdueled Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers offense, while exploiting a carousel of defensive backs with precision passing and well‑timed play calls.
The result: a game that exposed Pittsburgh’s vulnerabilities and left little room for silver linings. In that regard, there was only one thing that went very well: the number of sacks that the Steelers earned against Herbert. The pressure was on early and often as Pittsburgh’s defense racked up five sacks total. That may have gone in favor of those betting various prop bets.
The first sack occurred in the second quarter when Nick Herbig beat a block to get to Herbert. Several minutes later, defensive lineman Keeanu Benton got into the fray for a sack of his own.
Alex Highsmith also continued his hot streak as a pass rusher, recording two sacks in this game—marking the second consecutive week he posted multiple sacks. He also notched a pair against the Indianapolis Colts, reinforcing his growing impact on the edge and his consistency in collapsing the pocket.
Despite consistently drawing chip blocks and extra attention from the offense, edge rusher T.J. Watt remained a disruptive force throughout the game. His relentless pressure off the edge eventually paid off, as he broke through for a full sack—adding yet another impact play to his stat line despite the heavy traffic in his path.
This week’s #NextGenStats powered by @awscloud shows us what kind of challenges T.J. Watt has faced at the line. pic.twitter.com/Y1aLUCzOKb
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) November 10, 2025
In Week 9, the Steelers defense turned in another strong performance up front, matching their Week 10 sack total with five takedowns of Colts quarterback Daniel Jones.
The Steelers defense had recorded a total of 31.0 sacks, per Pro Football Reference. The team leader in that statistic was Watt (6.0), followed by Herbig and Highsmith (5.5), Benton (4.5), Derrick Harmon and Jalen Ramsey (2.0). Cam Heyward had 1.5 sacks while Patrick Queen, Payton Wilson, DeShon Elliott, Joey Porter Jr., and Jack Sawyer all had 1.0 sack on the season.
Check back each week as we continue spotlighting the plays that defined the Steelers’ 2025 season — one moment at a time.