Welcome to the Steelers Jamel Dean

Hopefully we get what we wanted to get last season.

Seems like that last couple years, every week we hear about how whatever team we just faced had their fastest snap to throw time of the year.

Which means our edge players (who are good) can't get home.

If we can get good coverage for 3 seconds, then our guys will get home more.

Hopefully that's what this signing means.

 

You are being demoted to the assistant statistician of this message board with the commensurate reduction in pay.

 

btw, one of my all-time favorite movies, especially Kathryn Hahn's character.

 

It is a good movie. I had almost totally forgotten about it.

 

Last season's DB FAs were a huge miss. We can blame it on the FA class or poor scouting. But this year, on paper, looks far more promising to deploy press man coverage:

Jamel Dean's first Steelers comments reveal dramatic shift coming for the defense
His signing left no doubt about their plans in 2026.
By
Shayne Kubas

The Pittsburgh Steelers had plenty of major needs heading into the start of free agency. Wide receiver was at the very top of the list, and they quickly addressed it with their trade for Michael Pittman Jr. via a trade with the Indianapolis Colts. Shortly thereafter, they came to an agreement with former Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Jamel Dean on a three-year contract.

Dean spoke with the Pittsburgh media at his introductory press conference on Friday, and it didn't take long before he dropped a nugget about why the Steelers targeted him to pair with Joey Porter Jr.

Among the many questions he answered from the reporters present, his answer to one about how he expects to be used in Pittsburgh was very telling. "They want us up in the receiver's faces," Dean said, referring to himself and Porter Jr.

That mentality of playing a lot of press man and getting physical with opposing receivers was what the defense wanted to do last season, but it quickly became obvious that nobody in the corner room besides Porter was capable of doing so. With Dean now in the fold, they may be able to succeed this time.

Jamel Dean made the Pittsburgh Steelers' plan for their secondary known at his press conference
It's not a surprise that Dean divulged the Steelers' plan for him and Porter this season. Anyone familiar with Dean's career in Tampa knows that he is a press-man corner at his core. With long arms, electric speed, and a physical demeanor, it's hard to find a player better suited for the technique.

Porter is among the best in the NFL at press coverage himself, giving Pittsburgh two corners who can disrupt receivers at the line. It feels less and less common that teams have even one defensive back that they are comfortable with playing press, let alone two of them. Modern defenses have shifted towards heavier doses of zone coverage, specifically zone-match, to help prevent offenses from finding easy passing lanes.

Maybe I am just a sucker for watching man-to-man corners get after opposing receivers, but I think it can still be an effective way to play in the secondary with the right pieces.

The Steelers secondary still has question marks, namely the role Jalen Ramsey will play and the health of box safety DeShon Elliott, but they may have the required personnel to make it work this time around.

 

It was being billed as promising on paper this time last season. Gonna play all the man coverage. All that. Then they got cooked.

I’m cautiously optimistic. But not willing to believe any of it until they do it on Sundays.

FAs are available for a variety of reasons. Most of them are not pleasant.

 

The problem last season is they put those hopes on Slay and Ramsey. Slay was a great player 5 years ago, but was just an old man looking to cash in one more time. That was as bad a signing as you're going to see. Ramsey was also unable to play that style anymore.

Dean just put up a phenomenal season last year and he did it while still being able to play press man coverage. It's what he does.

Samuel is back. Add Brisker into the mix, and suddenly they don't have to rely on Elliot and Ramsey as much. As I said in another thread, I really think they are going to draft a free safety with speed and the secondary will be much more talented.

Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL, but I have to say that I feel much better that the players they have to play in the secondary this season are still playing at a high level.

 

If they are going to play tight with the CBs and got a SS who can support at the line then they better have a FS who can catch the escapees

 

I think the idea that you play man behind a strong pass rush is the correct approach. The Steelers have been trying to pull it off through FA and the draft for a long time now. For some reason or the other it falls apart each season.

I like the signings. Certainly better than I did Slay and Ramsey. I am hoping it actually works. Some combination of Porter, Dean, Samuel, Brisket, Elliot, and Ramsey would seem to be able to pull it off.

But I’m not counting on it until we get to see it happen.

 

this has been said every year about the secondary after FA and going into the season they always suckedass
I really hope better results with new regime.

 

To play man, a team really needs multiple corners to be able to play press coverage. Even if one player is elite at that skill(Porter), if the other corners can't disrupt the routes of the receivers they are going up against, the whole thing falls apart.

If you're in man, the reads are very easy for any quarterback. They don't have to figure out anything post-snap other than find the matchup they like and throw the ball. It's the easiest read a quarterback has and he can get rid of the ball quickly if the coverage fails quickly at the line of scrimmage and the receivers get open. Then the pass rush doesn't have time to get to the quarterback consistently.

When the corners play press man and disrupt the timing of the routes and are in tight coverage, the plays and routes take longer to develop, and the pass rushers have more time to get to the quarterback.

It's a very effective defensive plan if you have the personnel to do it. With the corners holding up in man coverage, it allows defensive coordinators to get creative with the other defenders on the field and with blitzing mixed in, forces the QB to make quick, split-second decisions into tight windows. With the quarterback's clock speeding up, they tend to make more mistakes, take more sacks, more incompletions, etc.

 

Actually if you check out most teams start trying to do this, and then when they give up big plays, after big plays, they then start changing the schemes. There is no possible way to play press man throughout a whole game without it bitting you in the a$$. Then add Qbs that will just take off when everyone's back is turned in man coverage. I don't care who you have, you can't play press man across the board all day. In this division with LJ playing man , no matter who you got at CB is asking to lose. It's why most straight up man teams lose to them. You must have a good mixture of both.

 

Data bears this out.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-is-evolving-five-schematic-trends-that-have-shaped-the-2025-season

https://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/stats-nfl/nfl-coverage-schemes/

 

What does it say. I can't get it to work.

 

The Browns were the only team in the league not playing predominately zone coverages.

Couldn't find anything that determined if there were mixes of zone and man. Or what kind of zone...but still. Zone rules it all right now across the league.

Like you and pczach mentiones, man is super hard.

 

So do i, but I agree with Jeh that they need a free safety who can clean up the messes to make this approach work. I don't see that guy on the current roster.

 

Thank You. Yeah it's hard.

 

The defense shouldn't be relying too heavily on any coverage scheme. Mixing them up is crucial. That was part of the problem under Tomlin/Austin. They were way too predictable.

 

For 2025, the available data says the opposite of this.

Steelers were mixing between "zone" and "man" overall at top 5 in the league.

The chart I linked to does not account for situation or personnel packages....so maybe they played every third down the same or everytime the nickel was on the field they played the same thing. I do not know. Nor does it account for the effectiveness of either alignment.

But the zoomed way out view says that they mixed it up more than 75% of the league.

 

I agree.

I said it in my post jeh quoted. I said it in the post you quoted here, and I keep saying it everywhere. This defense still needs a speedy free safety type player that can play single man and in shell coverages where he can use that speed to cover over the top to try to erase mistakes, but also a guy that can react downhill as well. They need a young dude that can really run and cover ground preferably with good ball skills to give them the best pieces to try to shut passing games down.

 

Wait....you're saying that safeties do not have to be slow and try and guess every play?

That sounds suspicious....

 

You may find this hard to believe, but NFL teams are actually allowed to have safeties with great speed and reaction times to get to the spots on the field to make plays.

I know....crazy!

 

I wonder if this means they won’t play 10 yards off the receiver when it is third and 7