Patrick Graham - DC

You better do it if I'm right too!

 

I hope he does.

 

I honestly don't know if it makes him better or not... Just thought I would share. Sometimes its easy to look at the stats and think he's not good, but the people who watched his defenses everyday think otherwise. Its more an fyi than anything.

 

Hope y'all are right

 

He does have a scheme, his scheme is just less married to a certain defensive front. He can run 3 man and 4 man fronts (and often uses both). He's highly "adaptive" and his system is predicated on pre-snap disguise often using "simulated pressures" to mask coverage intentions. He doesn't blitz a ton, but when he does, he prefers overload blitzes for one on one opportunities. He likes two deep safeties a lot, and he also employs a "light box" of 6 players generally more often than most other DC's.

I think what the poster meant by "doesn't have a scheme" he means he isn't a hardline 4-3 "wide 9" like Schwartz or a set 3-4 zone blitz scheme like LeBeau was. He is adaptive in his fronts and will utilize what works best for his personnel. His coverage schemes and "light box" deployment are going to be the part that stays consistent.

The intriguing part for me is that it seems to be an easier scheme for DB's which is good, since having a better secondary will be awesome. Allowing our DB's to make more plays to help Porter out will be helpful. Peezy is our best player in the secondary by a lot, and some added help back there would be great. I wonder if he will allow Porter to follow the 1's. That will be interesting to see.

In a perfect world, our pass rushers and IDL win the 5 man rush opportunities allowing us to drop extra guys and cover our bases in the pass game. We might actually have a solid personnel package to play his defense well. Good edge rushers that we will rely on to win 1v1's and Heyward and Harmon on the inside doing their thing. Might send an ILB at some point too. I would think our secondary will improve a good bit.

 

That’s crazy talk. They better resign him that would be foolish. This new DC will play ,an.

 

Well I like the idea of disguising. He needs to develop the ilb’s and we definitely need to upgrade at Safety and Nickel Back.

I don’t like giving up long drives that is exactly what Tomlins defenses did. Grahams defense was 14th in yards allowed last year. That doesn’t sound like a defense that gives up a lot of long drives, especially one that was on the field a lot because they had the worst offense.

 

It looks like mediocrity is here to stay. We will have to wait and see. I hope it all works out, but I don't have very optimistic feelings.

 

Graham ran disguises to make average DB’s perform better? Is that supposed to be a negative? That is exactly what we need!!!

 

Whatever schemes he brings, I just hope he does not give opposing QB so much time to look over the field and puts more pressure on QB by blitzing more by disguise and not play off the receivers so much and let teams go for long drives without doing nothing and giving up so many 3rd and long plays. Austin was a terrible DC.

 

So you're saying there's a chance....?

 

Here's a video with a good breakdown of Graham and some of the defenses he has run at his multiple stops along the way to arriving with the Steelers.

 

Woohoo, no more 'we-do-what-we-do beat-your-man' defenses!!

 

Graham is definitely a DC that will run a bunch of different stuff. He is also willing to change it up and isn't one of these guys that is going down with the ship because he is unwilling to admit when something isn't working. It's all about evaluating and adjusting.

I hope everyone gets a chance to watch this video. It can be really eye-opening for fans to have it all broken down and maybe get an idea of who he is and how he operates.

 

Thanks for the link! It’s exciting and, I might add, refreshing.

 

Why don't you think JPJ won't succeed in the system? Graham's been very different based off his personnel. In his early years as DC he ran very man heavy schemes in 2019-2023, while he was league average for man coverage in 2024. It only changed to zone heavy with the hire of Pete Carroll (who is widely known for a very high usage of Cover 3 zone). Reports have indicated that Carroll heavily influenced Graham's 2025 defense to utilize zone much more often.

I think it is safe to assume (and would be a little shocked if it wasn't the case) that Graham prefers more man coverage on the back end, which in my opinion, would be a much better thing for JPJ. He's also not had that "alpha" corner (the closest being Marcus Peters in his 30's). There may be a real possibility that he allows Porter to man up the #1 all game... Which is something I would love to see him do. Porter is our biggest asset in the secondary and wiping out the oppositions #1 WR could help us immensely.

 

Agreed. Also getting a pass rush that takes away all the WRs.

 

Is there a defensive coach alive who wouldn't want a CB he felt comfortable just following around the other team's best WR and calling it a day?

Probably why they didn't resign Woodson all those years ago. Wanted a zone guy.

 

The glass half empty view on Graham in LV was that opponent offenses were barely even trying in their games because they knew the Raiders offense was so inept that it would not take more than a TD or two to win the game. Thus the good-looking stats.

 

Welp, the glass half empty view is how on God's green earth are the players gonna manage with his 'flexible' defensive schemes when they were awful with miscommunication and confusion with the simplest defense this year?

 

He’s gotta feel like he’s hit the lottery with the names on this Defense.

 

Are these the same names so many here have on the trade/chopping block?