Anybody wondering why no one saying anything about the Defense.

They were missing the best defensive player on the planet, both inside linebackers and a starting safety in the playoffs. Heyward was playing hurt, as he had all season. Fitzpatrick looked like he just got back after missing three games with injury. They weren't even close to full strength against the Bills.

 

Bingo!!!

 

Scribe I don't think everyone is just saying the last playoff game. The last 5+ playoff games we have given a crazy amount of points. Even go back to our Super Bowl win, without that last drive the defense had collapsed and literally was on the verge of suffering the worst collapse in Super Bowl history at that time had we lost. So its been a recurring problem where our defense has given up a lot of points and not held up their end. Yes and I include Lebeau in that criticism not just Tomlin. We have to do a better job on that side of the ball come playoff time.

 

I was actually pretty good with the backups behind TJ and Highsmith this year. Herbig and Golden I thought did well when filling in.

I mean, there is going to be a huge drop-off for TJ, but that can be expected for the best player in the league.

I think the Steelers are set at Edge, they just need a little more help from their DTs next year. Larry's never been healthy, and Cam is now a part-time player. Now, if the Dolphins are moving on from DT Christian Wilkins, I would love the Steelers take some of that Cam & Larry money and see if Wilkins would be interested in coming on board.

 

In all honesty that speaks to the game plan. I know you game plan each week for your opponent, but sometimes in the post season you do things a bit differently to catch teams off guard. The game plan is simply more important come playoff time because pretty much every team that makes the post season is at least a pretty good team. Anything to win a single game. The defense can be exploited if they aren't ready for the curveball.

 

The issues with the defense were mainly that they gave up too many big plays and they were below expectations on getting off the field on 3rd down. Turnovers, pressures, red zone defense, points.... all pretty good. Injuries don't help, but lots of teams are banged up a bit come playoff time.

We tend to struggle against better QB's and better OC's/Offenses in general.

 

This is a problem since a long time ago,one of the reason why I would not been against to have a big change for the scheme on this side of the ball too

 

Unless things change on Offense plays will face most the time 3 and out. We need more than the sink and dunk passes. I remember last season we had 3rd down with 5 yards for a first down. We threw a 3 yard pass and couldn’t make the first down. At least throw the ball past the yardage you need for a 1st down.

 

Well, if your offense does better that will help your defense, if your offense is going three and out turning the ball over your defense is probably going to struggle.

 

Parts of our defense weren’t great. Our DB’s aren’t good and as a whole they are soft.

 

Opposing QB stats like yards and TD and passing rating have nothing to do with our offense When you give 5 straight games of 30 points in a playoff game and 3 in that are 40 points, it's hard to win when your offense has no margin for error

Overall, with the exception of when we had Shazier our defense has been terrible in the playoffs so many times since the disastrous playoff game against Tebow

 

I agree with you. To me the defense was the bigger reason why we lost the playoff game to Buffalo. Everyone loves to blame the offense, etc. If this defense doesn’t produce a turnover or get a sack we have a hard time limiting teams to three and out. We gave up alot of sustained drives and big splash plays this year.

I just don’t like how schematically we put alot on the linebackers and secondary where as we essentially allow the edges and DT’s to just tee off after the QB. It seems like defending the run is absolutely secondary to getting after the QB for the DT’s and Edge players. How many times did we see the Edge players complete abandon outside contain on run plays to crash down the line of scrimmage? That leaves a wide open cut back or RPO option for the Qb to bootleg outside and we don’t have great CB’s for tackling on the outside.

The one gap penetration we seem to be enamored with under Tomlin is great when the DT picks the right gap and stuffs the run or gets to the Qb. But when he doesn’t it affords big chunk plays in the run game or in screen passes. This style of play affords no protection for the Inside Linebackers who are now tasked with having to get off the block before they fill the hole. Why not just get big space eaters and have them occupy multiple offensive lineman and try to collapse the pocket so the QB can’t step up? That helps the edge players get to the QB it helps the Inside Linebackers flow to the ball freely and it allows the Safeties to stay back and play coverage because the Inside Backers don’t need help stopping the run. In addition you can get smaller faster linebackers who are more suited to cover the pass when you have space eaters in front of them. Instead Tomlin wants to keep the scheme and hope we can find ultra Athletes like Troy P or Ryan S. to fill the Safety and Inside Linebacker spots. Its hard to find those kinds of guys so why not go with a system that is much more friendly for Inside Linebackers and Safeties?

Like I have always said tomlin has been enamored with the Warren Sapp DT type who is smaller and quick. Ever since he coached him in Tampa. I liked Lebeause defensive scheme better or a combination of Lebeause and Tomlin’s like in 2008. We just seems to have gotten away from Gap Contain and have sold out to Gap Penetration. Cam Heyward lived this out. His first five years he didn’t get alot of sacks. Everyone said it was because he was in experienced. No it was because we were asking him to gap contain and occupy blockers early in his career. When we switched over to Tomlin’s scheme completely you saw the transition with Heyward where his sack numbers went up significantly because he was playing gap penetration.

 

I don't recall anybody saying the defense has been good in the playoffs .