For the first nine games of the season, the Steelers were last in the NFL in sacks.
and their record was 4-5.
Then they made two fundamental changes. The first was the insert Bud Dupree into the starting lineup permanently, and the second was to switch from playing primarily a zone to rushing five or six guys and playing man -especially on third and long.
Over the final seven games of the regular season and the first two games in the playoffs, the Steelers led the NFL in quarterback sacks and went 9-0.
They went from a passive bend-but-don't-break plan, to being the aggressor and forcing the offenses to hurry.
It was a fundamental change in philosophy that turned their season around.
Bud Dupree and James Harrison excel at rushing the passer, and are average at best when dropping into coverage. They excel when they're asked to be an aggressor, not asked to read and react.
Keith Butler took his best two pass rushers and turned them into coverage linebackers for yesterday's game.
He went away from what was so successful in November and December, and returned to the passive September and October game plans.
It is inexplicable to me that a smart guy like you continues to defend the indefensible.
When teams play aggressive man-to-man defense with a five or six man pass rush against Tom Brady they lose 90% of the time.
When they play a soft zone with a three-man pass rush they lose 100% of the time.
Keith Butler and Mike Tomlin "played within their fears."
New England's one somewhat weakness on offense is their inability to have a deep passing game, and the defense we were in guaranteed that they weren't going to have that that one weakness exposed.
when Tom Brady came out in the first series and saw the Steelers were playing a three man rush with a soft zone he had to be licking his chops and probably couldn't believe his eyes.
it was a colossal screwup by Tomlin and Butler, and they're sitting home now because of it
No, that is absolutely wrong. You are conflating pressure with man coverage. They are not necessarily synonymous. That's why Dick LeBeau's in the Hall of Fame.
Pittsburgh did get more pressure on the quarterback by using Bud Dupree as an edge rusher. That much is true and the only reason why he wasn't playing before that was because he was injured. Pittsburgh knows exactly what they have in Dupree – just like they know what they don't have in their secondary.
The Steelers have never been a predominantly man coverage team – well, at least not since Chuck Noll retired back in the early 90s. Pittsburgh mixes in some man here and there but it is extremely rare. They play as much or more zone as any defense in the NFL.
Now, they play approximately 57 different varieties of zone defenses, so they are not all the same. However, it is rare to see our corners with their backs to the quarterback.
How do you think New England knew to prepare all week for the zone – as Chris Hogan said they did? Because that's what we always play, that's why!
This conversation doesn't make sense. You can protest as much as you like but we are not a man coverage team and haven't been one for nearly a quarter century now.
Now, if your point is that to compete with New England they are going to have to tweak their scheme, I don't disagree with you there.
However, before you do that, you need to have players back there who can do it and I'm sorry but Mike Mitchell and Ross Cockrell are not capable of consistently covering anyone one on one – they just aren't. And that's not even talking about the rookie and mistake prone defensive backs.
This is a completely crazy argument built on a lot of misconceptions and false assumptions.
Also, I think you're missing my argument. I'm not arguing that Pittsburgh was right to play passively for the entire game. Obviously they should have tried to put more pressure on Brady.
I'm saying that they almost never play press man coverage behind said pressure and with their current defensive backs, they have would've been destroyed far worse than they were had they attempted to do so yesterday out of the blue.
In other words, it is a talent issue, and perhaps a scheme issue too, but it is definitely not not an individual game planning issue.
