PITTSBURGH — Cam Heyward said he’s not going to ride the roller coaster of emotion that can happen week to week in the NFL.

The Steelers’ long-time defensive captain said he’s not going to react or get caught in the ups and downs, the good and the bad that can occur in a season, especially after just two games.

But that’s the problem.

It’s not just two games. It’s been happening since last season, which makes it a recurring pattern — and a disturbing one at that.

If that’s a roller coaster, it’s plummeting faster than the steepest drop on the Phantom’s Revenge.

“It’s not fun football right now,” outside linebacker T.J. Watt said.

No, it’s not, not for the highest-priced defense in the league, which has allowed at least 31 points in four of the past eight games and in the opening two games for the first time in 36 years.

Not for a defense that has allowed 100-yard rushers in each of the first two games for only the second time in Mike Tomlin’s 19-year tenure or the one that has already allowed nine runs of at least 15 yards.

“We need to turn over every stone that we possibly can because this can’t continue to happen,” Watt said. “Otherwise you’re just going to continue to see what we saw [Sunday].

“Clearly it’s the same issues that are rearing their head from last week. Sure, there’s a multitude of different reasons why this is happening, but we’re way too talented, we have way too good of schemes to allow this to continue to happen week after week.”

But do they? Are their schemes so good that they have allowed an average of 361.9 yards per game in the past 10 games, dating to last season? Are they so good that the past 10 opponents have each totaled at least 300 yards of offense, an ignominious streak that is the longest in the NFL?

Or that Watt, their highest-priced player, has registered no sacks and just two quarterback hits in the past six games, counting the postseason? Those two hits came against the Seahawks when the Steelers tried flipping their four-time All-Pro to the other side of the defense on occasion.

“When they're successfully running the ball, they minimize their one-dimensional pass and circumstances,” Tomlin said, even though quarterback Sam Darnold dropped back to pass 35 times. “It’s obvious what it does when they're on schedule and running the ball effectively. You minimize your opportunity to get one-dimensional pass rushes, individually and collectively.”

It’s one thing when Aaron Rodgers cautioned after the game to relax, that it’s just two games and don’t overreact to either the very good performance of the offense against the Jets or the below-average performance against the Seahawks.

But it’s different with the defense, which hasn’t been riding a roller coaster since the middle of last season. In the past 10 games, their performances have been mostly down, not up.

Most of the problems appear to start up front, where the Steelers are waiting for a new bunch of young talent — Derrick Harmon, Yahya Black and Logan Lee — to hopefully develop. That hasn’t been the case recently, when even Keeanu Benton, a second-round choice in 2023, appears to have regressed.

It’s not as though the Steelers haven’t invested in their defense. They have five players who will count at least $17.6 million against the salary cap this year — two more than any other team in the league.

“We have a lot of work to do, and that's just to put it succinctly,” Tomlin said after the Seahawks posted their highest point total in 12 games. “We'll get better — we have to.”

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