STEELERS – PATRIOTS: WHAT WE LEARNED
— Examining the Steelers Defense —
Tom Brady carved the Steelers secondary up, going 25 of 32 for 288 yards and 4 touchdowns in the Patriots 28-21 win on Thursday night.
Brady and the Patriots put together scoring drives of 90, 80, 79 and 64 yards in the win. Brady completed 19 straight passes at one point as the Patriots exploited the Steelers with intermediate passes.
Brady averaged nine 9 yards per attempt. Last season Brady averaged 7 yards per attempt.
The Steelers secondary had a nightmare containing Julian Edelman who abused Antwon Blake and Cortez Allen for much of the night. Edelman worked the chains all game and went for 11 catches, 97 yards.
Blake started in place of Cortez Allen with Allen playing the nickle. Neither player gave up significant yards in coverage but both showed poor cover ability, Allen flagged for two penalties and tackling was below average from both.
Blake who the Steelers like better than Brandon Boykin because of his size and tackling ability, missed multiple tackles that kept drives going for the Patriots.
Boykin regarded by scouts as the Steelers best play making and cover corner, played ZERO SNAPS after starting the season in the coaches doghouse as the No. 4 cornerback. Boykin couldn’t stand Chip Kelly because Kelly felt the smallish corner couldn’t play the outside and Steelers coaches obviously feel the same way.
Blake was in for 56 snaps, Allen 32.
The cornerback group leaves little optimism that it’s going to be a position that gets better as the season goes on but the biggest issue for the Steelers now and moving forward is the safety play.
It is arguably the worst safety group in football.
The Steelers safety play was a disaster with miscommunication and coverage breakdowns.
Rob Gronkowski, who scored three touchdowns wasn’t just uncoverable, the Steelers didn’t even notice they weren’t covering him at times, highlighted by Gronk’s first touchdown of the game.
“Anytime they don’t cover Gronk, he usually gets it,” Brady told reporters with a smile.
Mike Mitchell coming off and on the field in the first half didn’t help things with the Steelers having only 10 players on the field during a red-zone play to go with the Steelers getting the Patriots radio feed in their headsets, what a shocker, but Keith Butler’s start as defensive coordinator could not have went worse in the first half when it came to breakdowns.
The Steelers talked all week about jamming Gronkowski at the line of scrimmage and the safety group was just too small and slow in having Will Allen, Robert Golden as the primary defenders against Gronk.
Allen got the start at strong safety and played 56 of 61 defensive snaps. Golden played 24 defensive snaps, while Shamarko Thomas who went into camp as the starter, played just 4 defensive snaps.
On Gronkowski’s second touchdown of the game, Allen’s eyes were in the backfield and whiffed at getting a body on Gronk at the line of scrimmage, creating a mismatch in the end zone as all Tom Brady had to do was put it up for Gronkowski to come down with the TD grab.
Gronkowski is special but the Steelers struggles to defend the middle of the field projects to be a season long problem against tight ends and they’re going to face some pretty good one’s.
Shamarko Thomas has major problems playing a cover-2 and Thomas was not drafted to be that type of safety. He’s the type of safety whose only chance for success is being a crasher in around the line of scrimmage.
When the Patriots needed, they got the match up they wanted with Gronk as Gronkowski’s third touchdown of the night had him matched up against Terence Garvin of all people.
SAFETY BLITZ
The highlight for the Steelers defense was only giving up 28 points, something many would have taken coming in. As bad as they looked at times, they kept the game winnable for Pittsburgh.
For the Steelers to create sacks this season, they’re going to have get creative and a third down call in the second half saw Butler dial up a safety blitz with Will Allen coming in untouched for a sack of Brady.
Allen led the Steelers with 8 tackles.
FRONT SEVEN
— Going up against a rookie center and inexperienced offensive line, Steve McLendon graded out well in the loss.
— Ryan Shazier showed some explosiveness/awareness in blowing up [hide] running lanes to stop the run and flashed in the loss. Shazier had 7 tackles, 5 solo, and 2 tackles for loss.
— Jarvis Jones played just 24 defensive snaps and had just 1 tackle, 1 QB pressure, but used his hands well in getting an initial push. Potential baby steps for him. James Harrison didn’t start but played in over 60% of the defensive snaps. Harrison had 4 tackles.
— The book on Bud Dupree. If you put him out there with one duty to just rush the passer he’s going to give you something. When he has to think and work in coverage the Steelers are in trouble. We saw both from Dupree Thursday night.
He recorded his first career sack in the first quarter as the Patriots looked to be running a screen play that never materialized, failing to put a blocker on Dupree.
Dupree had 2 QB pressures and showed some positive steps in rushing the QB. In coverage was a different story as Gronkowski beat him for a long gain in the second half.
Dupree played 26 snaps.[/hide]
Suck for Bosa? Or will they trade their 1st for a backup long snapper?
Top 5 draft success since 2010… http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/five-year-survey-ranking-the-nfl-teams-draft-success-since-2010/ss-BBiTPfZ#image=29
“The Steelers were wise to choose Antonio Brown over Mike Wallace…”
Except they actually offered Wallace the big contract first – and only paid Brown when Wallace turned it down. Pretty unlikely Brown is still a Steeler if Wallace had signed his deal.
They offered Wallace a deal they knew he wouldn’t accept. Are you new to this?
Oh yeah, I’m a total newbie to the whole football thing, but just so I can pick your brain, what exactly do suppose was their motivation for offering a contract they knew he wouldn’t accept? It was basically the same deal they eventually gave to Brown – not a bad chunk of change, so what do you think they would have done if he had accepted? Oops, sorry Mike… great you really wanted to be a Steeler after all, but we actually meant to sign Antonio all along. Right…
The Steelers are known to NOT sign WR’s, so they offered him a deal he would not accept to save face in the media and to the fans. The fans loved Wallace and his speed, so by making the offer, they showed they tried and greedy Wallace wanted to chase the dollar instead of win. Brown’s deal was less than Wallace’s deal. I’m not sure how you are forgetting that Wallace wanted elite WR money…just look at the deal Miami gave him.
5 years 50, and 5 years 42 with different guaranteed money are not the same offer. Wallace turned down $76 million from Minnesota….you think they didn’t know they were dealing with a money grab lunatic?
Brown’s contract extension was 5 years $42M – reportedly the same deal they offered Wallace. $42M plus the opportunity to sign Brown is a lot to gamble for a PR stunt, but I’m impressed you weren’t fooled. All of the extension talks for both Wallace and Brown happened a year before they would have become free agents, so no, they didn’t know he was going to turn down mad money from the Vikings at the time.
You’re wrong, Wallace was offered 50, not 42 and Wallace was offered more guaranteed money. The talks went on with Wallace long before they began talks with Brown. Wallace’s agent made it clear to the Steelers they were looking to get paid. Trust me, I know about this situation.
If you’re right about the money, you’re just making my point for me. The Steelers didn’t show any “wisdom” in “choosing” Brown. They went after Wallace first and backed into signing Brown when they couldn’t get a deal done – a great miss as it turns out.
I pretty much turned he game off after that fucktard of a trick play. The offense looked good up to that point, but an excellent drive killing play was called. The offense will move the ball to the 20 and falter it seems, just like the past few years. I bet a friend that the Steelers would have a better record than the Dolphins…I hope I can still win this bet.
What some of you learned is Big Overrated is t good enough to carry a team. Steelers had100-plus yard rusher and ball control but Big Rape was inconsistent. 9 minutes left in game and down 2TD and Mr Clutch throws a terrible Int. Ben must have thought it was the playoffs.
what percentage of the Steelers redzone TD’s from last year was sitting on the sideline smoking weed? The team will be fine
If they play like this an 8-8 season isn’t out of the question and trading those draft picks will be worse
Considering they can’t draft who really gives a shit?
It’s weird. The defense was bad, but better than expected. The offense was good, but worse than expected. Well, that second one, I guess they just did what they have been doing for a few years now… Move the ball, flash great plays, not score TDs.
The secondary has been a developing disaster for years now. It’s not like it’s an unexpected surprise that Troy and Ike got old and moved on, but for the most part, they’ve been spending low round picks and otherwise turning a blind eye to the position. Granted Golson going down isn’t their fault, but it’s just too little too late. As of this moment, they haven’t drafted an even marginally successful DB since Keenan Lewis in 2009. There will be ups and downs, but overall, we can’t expect much better than what we saw last night from this group. The… Read more »
I thought the safety’s did a great job defending the deep pass.
NE weather – deflates footballs and interferes with opponents headsets – it is magic
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/five-year-survey-ranking-the-nfl-teams-draft-success-since-2010/ss-BBiTPfZ#image=29
We learned Josh Scobee and Cortez Allen still sucks. Why trade for Boykin if the coaching staff doesn’t want him or his type of player. I haven’t heard or read of anything “new” since he got here. I think that shows the real disconnect between personal decisions and coaching decisions with management of the team. No wonder drafts picks have not panned out. Long year.
So many of their Dbacks and Dline were ineffective, who/what is going to save this unit? Do they have the guts (or cap space) to scour the FA list and just ship out the deadwood? JJones, Mitchell, Cam Thomas, Shamarko, etc. etc. I should add Colbert to that list.
Not sure we really learned much of anything. Pretty much everything played out as expected. The Pats offense moved at will and id what they wanted against a bad Steelers D and the Steelers offense moved the ball at will against a bad Pats defense but struggled to put points on the board. Should be a similar scenario in week 2 against SF, offense will improve some in week 3 against STL and more in week 5 against SD with Bell & Bryant returning, defense and game management will continue to be problems all season.
What we learned is the game was a Circus