Studs and Duds first half of season

Yes stats can fool you, and guess what......the yards you are talking about are stats.
Does our D need to get better???? Yes...of course. There is a reason I keep asking for another CB every year, or has everyone forgotten that???
But to say a D is bad... that is 2nd in turnovers, and number 1 in points allowed by any team that has played 8 games, and over all ,but one that has played 7 games is just plain wrong. Yes can they, and should they play better. Yes.
People keep talking about the games coming up, but We are finally going to be playing teams the Steelers actually know, and know how to stop. Let it play out, and stop worrying about stuff in the future.

 

Who are your four?
I have
Watt
Highsmith
Heyward
Fitzpatrick
Porter Jr.
Queen
Wilson

Wilson is a rookie and Queen has some instinctual issues and Heyward is old but he still brings more than alot of DT’s. Benton is borderline if he gets his act together.

Name a defense that has more talent. I would say maybe Philadelphia. I certainly would not say KC has better talent than us but man they play aggressive. I love the way they play defense. Reminds of the old Lebeau Defenses.

 

Today's NFL is about offense. Offense's will stack up yards, even against KC's newfound Defense.
I'm not a big fan of Austin but he is putting in an order of crow for me.

He seems to be rushing 4 most of the time and getting some good results.
I can't really see a consistent weakness.
They seem to be coming together as a unit, I'd think that should indicate good things to come.

 

Exactly if your going to play him that role you can trade him for a WR or draft pick and get a significantly cheaper option to sit back there and play prevent.

 

This is what I am saying. We are living on the edge here thinking turnovers or forcing field goals are going to be the answer over the second part of our schedule. Those low points are going to go way up and be alot more inline with how are defense has performed in yards allowed. The thing that drives me nuts is we have enough talent to be a much better defense and force three and outs. Its all scheme and philosophy that is holding us back right now. I don’t know if owe will be willing to change that.

 

I think his point is it is the same coin but two different sides. If we are hurting other defenses by passing for more yards and as a result it opens up our run game then on the flip side of the coin if our defense is struggling to limit yards in the passing game we should as a result have trouble to stop the run as well. Obviously his argument doesn’t take into account the ebb and flow of the game and the actual score of the game. Teams may have to pass if they are behind in the score.

The main argument here is allowing alot of yards and long drives is not sustainable over a 16 game season. Its very risky to rely on turnovers and holding teams to field goals. This has played out time and time again over the last four years. Not only that it isn’t good for the defense to be out on the field that long because it only increases the chance of injury and wear and tear on our defensive players the longer they are out there. Haven’t you noticed how injury prone our defense has been over the last few years. By the end of the season we are often a shell of ourselves and not nearly the same defense talent wise because of the injuries. Forcing alot of three outs and spending significantly less time on the field during the season would go along way towards keeping this defense fresh and healthy through a full schedule.

I just believe Tomlins philosophy on Defense is flawed for multiple reasons and I don’t believe he is fully utilizing the talent on the field to the best of its ability. His style of playing defense is counter to what he always preaches ("We don’t blink, cut your eye lids off, we don’t play in our fears”), yet with the vanilla defense, the lowest blitz rate and playing a two high soft zone shell defense you couldn’t get more fearful and conservative in the style of defense we are playing. I understand playing this style in certain situations against certain teams but against Dallas, Indianapolis and New York Giants in particular it was foolish to play that conservative. If Watt and Bishop don’t make the plays they did who knows the outcome. The game shouldn’t be that close.

Cowher and Lebeua played aggressive defense until we were up by 10 and then they would go into prevent and it always drove me crazy. The coach that never let up was Belicheck and that is why he blew teams out.

 

I did not said our defense is bad but they have not been elite in the last 5 games....If the steelers want to do something special in the playoffs this unit need to be better that in the last month and they are able to do this so let's hope it will be the case