Darius Slay Blasts Steelers Defensive Scheme: ‘Backwards Over There’

I remember every song I have learned on the guitar, lick for lick, since I was a teenager. I have well over 80 songs I can play in my head at any moment. I don't know if that makes me have a awesome memory, but it's sure a lot more to remember than if a DC was calling plays on the sidelines.

 

I saw an interview with Paul McCartney and the interviewer asked him a question along those lines and he replied

“There have been a lot of songs”

 

Give it time my friend

 

We enter this world in diapers. We are likely to leave this world in diapers.

​

 

Yeah that's sad, I've seen it, as I'm sure many of others have, but it could be worse.
My Mother's neighbors just buried their 21 year old daughter this week.

 

Parents should not bury their children

 

My wife and are on the same page and have saved the appropriate materials

We have agreed when the time comes and quality of life is not there we will do what we have agreed for one or another

Fortunately right now it’s not yet on the radar

11-6 top of AFCN

 

Hopefully it won't be ever on the radar

 

The Bengals flat out caught the Cheaters cheating and yet the punishment was minimal. Tapes were then destroyed. They should have had all their SB trophies run over by a bulldozer and buried in cement! All rings should have been returned along fines and suspensions for years! F the Patriots and their stupid ignorant fans!

 

How come I felt better with our defense facing a 3rd and 4 over a 3rd and 15?

I agree MT was a line ‘em up and see who is better type of coach over analytics but he often times got burnt by not following basic strategy.

I will never hate Tomlin but am glad he’s gone. Unfortunately McCarthy might not do much better. I was really hoping for major changes but will probably only see minor tweaks. JMO.

 

It's funny when Butler was here the Steelers led the league in sacks for five consecutive years, but when Austin took over the sack numbers dropped. Maybe it had something to do with the different styles of the DC .

 

Here are the problems with this "analysis":

What is the schematic things that need to be done to "scheme" for talent deficits? Where are the NFL defenses that are doing that?

Recently Flores did it for a season and then there got to be film on his stuff and the Vikings defense was not that great last season. It also had something to do with the fact that their offense hung them out to dry.

Go find me an offense as ineffective as the 2020-2025 Steelers offenses have been. Got one? Ok. Did that team have a terrifying defense?

On offense, there are more identifiable sins. They can be listed and recounted.

But these repeated claims of "LOL. Silly Steelers -- they just do what they do." are getting kinda ridiculous. That is what ALL NFL teams do. That is why the stuff we all geek out over when some coach hatches up a cool scheme works...because NFL teams are redundant and predictable. It is how football works.

Everyone gets a big hard-on for guys like McVay and Shanny the Younger and Ben Johnson. They got cool ideas. They have good stuff. It works. But it works because they had the novel idea that not every ILB is Fred Warner or prime career Jalen Ramsey in the slot. Then they isolate and victimize those guys that are not. And they make it work week in and week out because NFL defenses are predictable and redundant.

Now someone will post how Billy B had a bespoke defense for each week of the season. Cool. One guy ever did that. And he cheated his ass off to make it possible.

And the next post will be how Seattle and McDonald made it work. Ok. Great. They built an entire defense of ILBs and DBs to counter the Rams and the Niners. Shockingly the purpose built weapon did what is was designed to do.

Just like how the Bengals offense is a tool designed to beat the Steelers and Ravens defenses. Just like how the Steelers defense, for years, was a tool designed to bludgeon the Ravens.

This is all lazy analysis and thinking to generate excited clicks and posts to some random website. There is truth to it. No denying that. But there is truth to it for every single team in the league, every single season.

Definitive statements without any context or analysis are the sloppiest of thinking and not useful tools to move the conversation to any interesting place.

Far more interesting place for these dozens and dozens of Steelers websites desperate for eyeballs and clicks is to dive into Slay's claims about outside leverage. How much do the Steelers play outside leverage? How much do other teams? Has that changed or stayed the same over time? What about leverage and safety alignment? Steelers play a ton of single high. Most teams have gone to two high. What does that look like?

But, those types of answers are detailed, hard to track down, and require actual knowledge of football and the ability to diagnose things from film study that not many have. Certainly not the websites that just make angry tweets and pass it off as analysis.

 

Just last year,the vikings had a awful offense(26th in PPG,28th in yards and last in turnovers) but their defense was still great,7th in PPG,3rd in yards and 10th in turnovers.It was not a loaded defense on paper too

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/min/2025.htm

The Browns had some very good defense under Jim Schwartz in 2023 and 2025 despite brutal offense.It was very hard for any teams to move the ball against them

The Jets when they had Robert Saleh,their offense was a laughing stock of the league in 2022 and 2023 but their defense was still great,top 5 in points and yards per drive in those years.

Of course their record for the most part was awful but those offenses were way worst that the steelers....The Steelers' offense was awful, but at least they didn't have too many turnovers.(top 5 with the least turnovers in 2022,2023 and 2025...10th least in 2024)


Our defense has underperformed too much in the last five years at least. Too many times, opponents knew what to expect against this defense... sometimes it was better than other times, but too often they were too predictable... The first three months of 2025 were brutal defensively... they were better in the last month, but they had underperformed for much of the season

 

Can you identify three predictable things that doomed the Steelers defense?

One of the more obvious is Slay or Ramsey in man coverage on the outside. When that became Pierre and others....suddenly it wasn't a big play. So predictable or just bad player evaluations? And JPJ thrived in the "predictable" setting.

It is a lazy analysis and lacks any semblance of critical thinking. We, as football fans, should demand better insight instead of just easy talking points that do not actually explain anything.

 

Yeah , and people that actually played football, and understood outside of their position what was going on.
No team is winning 10.5 games a year average, and everyone in the NFL knows what they are doing. You know who actually believes this, the people that when we change schemes, and dictate differences in personnel cannot tell the difference. That's the people that real believe it, or the people that say right after Watt runs two stunts in a row, how come we never run stunts with Watt. The people that must listen to whatever someone else says,because they really don't know what they are looking at. So anyone that says what they want to believe is believed, and anyone that doesn't must be lying. LoL

 

The evidence came in the postseason when the Steelers were exposed by teams that watched tape. Steelers being outscored by a ridiculous amount tells me opponents had the answers to test.

 

Ok. So teams did not watch tape other weeks? I am not following the argument.

One can just as easily say that the Steelers had glaring talent deficits that teams in the playoffs had the capability to exploit.

Or maybe there was a schematic component that made it easy for teams to isolate specific Steelers DBs and LBs and pick on them over and over again. I do not know and I strongly suspect that many that say they do do not know either.

Here is the thing....no one ever says WHAT the repetitive and predictable stuff was. Yet so many Steelers fans insist that they know what it is/was.

I call BS. I think most (and I 100% include myself here) do not know what they are talking about and are not really sure what they saw or didn't see.

 

And people were saying the same thing about the Patriots after they got blown out in the Super Bowl by Seattle, I guess it isn't just the Steelers who are predictable .

 

If the Steelers were so predictable then they should have a losing record just about every season, they haven't had a franchise QB in years or an elite OC .