Welcome to the Terrible Take, a daily segment telling Steelers Nation what's on our mind.

I'm Alex Kizora.

The talk coming off of Thursday's loss to the Cincinnati Bengals is the past defense, a secondary

that made Joe Flacco look like Joe Burrow, and Jamar Chase look like, well, still Jamar

Chase, but the best version of him.

And that is reason for concern.

But my chief worry exiting the loss is Pittsburgh's run defense, which was dreadful.

The idea of Flacco and Chase and Higgins finding success was not a shock.

The Steelers seemed to expect it.

That's why Mike Tomlin was so

upset about the deal from Cleveland to Cincinnati. But the run game, man, the Bengals ground game

was terrible, historically bad entering the night. And they ran through the Steelers like a hot

knife through butter, 142 yards in all.

Run defense is where it starts for Pittsburgh.

Mike Tomlin correctly called it the building block of the group.

When that fails, opposing off then to stay on schedule.

The pass rush can't get home.

The turnovers are not created.

The whole identity of Pittsburgh falls apart.

With tough rushing attacks upcoming in Josh Jacobs and Jonathan Taylor, the Steelers must

round back in the form, or else a loss will turn into a losing streak.

Be sure to follow us at Steelersdepo.com and check it episodes of The Terrible Take every day at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

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