The Steelers philosophy

lol'z

I still believe we need to find a franchise DT who can consistently attract double-coverage. A lot of things would change if we had this...

 

Maybe tuitt, maybe Heyward commanding the doubles in time. I agree we got to get a stouter front, but it doesn't hurt to have the cover guys sprinkled in. I had hope for Hawthorne and Richardson, both gone from the last 2 drafts and lake had high hopes for both as well. Still not giving up on Tez but he's got head issues to work through.

 

Yep. The play of Cortez this season is one the biggest mysteries. If it gets solved, and he turns out to be as good as we hoped, then it eases a lot of things. I'm remaining fairly positive, as even when William Gay wasn't as good in coverage, Lebeau found a way to use him on blitzes that could often be effective. Then, his ball-reading skills got better, and now he's a solid contributor (although admittedly there isn't too much competition at that spot...).

 

Both those guys received injury settlements as well....I would love to see some at least 6'-6'2" in there as there's no one on the roster for the Steelers in that secondary besides IKE and Mitchell even close.

 

Again sub package Football why draft part time players when you have huge holes at full time spots ? Look at the snap counts . The 4 most important guys are the guys who play the most .How can anyone argue that ?

I watch Teams every Sunday who have 1 or 2 great pass rushers give up 30 and 40 points consistently .The reason is they have poor DB'S .

In a passing league the object should be to be able to defend the pass . Heck Team rosters even dictate more and better DB'S . Back in the day when we had a so called good pass rush Teams would carry 4 or 5 RB'S and 3 or 4 WR'S now most Teams carry 2 or 3 RB'S and 5 or 6 WR'S .

And the kicker is the 4th. and 5th. WR'S are as good as Starting WR'S where 15 years ago and that trend is on a up swing . You either change with the times or get left behind . We need to Value the 2 starting CB'S higher and we need to value the 2 safety spots higher period....

 

let's see, the steelers have 6 super bowl titles and you and fouts have .....................

 

To be fair, we don't know how good Fouts is at Madden Franchise Mode.

 

Jackpot!

 

they took McFadden in the 2nd rd. and injuries did him in. he never did make his mark as a starter. I just don't see much in the way of a can't miss first round corner in this draft, so reaching just to say you went after a 1st rounder is crazy.

I also think the corners may be getting a lot of undue ridicule that the safety position deserves. these big plays are not all on the corners if there is no help over the top. troy and Mitchell are terrible. shark is hurt always. will allen is old and golden just ain't the answer.

this may be the spot they need to look at first and allow our corners to keep gaining experience in this defense. add some youth to what we have in the mid round of this draft to go with what we have. excluding ike and troy and save that money. b.w.webb was a high draft pick if that says anything. he has yet to see the field. blake and McCain have shown some glimpses of improving as they learn this defense. gay is solid. we have two young guys on the PS that will be learning the rest of the year. throwing away the work these guys have put in just to add a green player will not make us better. fix the real problems and allow these guys to gain valuable experience and field time.

cortez allen, I'd still move to FS to see if he's capable there. I'd love to draft Anthony harris as a safety to bring along with a mid round corner. just flooding the team with new players really doesn't help us. get the problems off the field and move on. troy and ike, I love you guys but it really is time to hang em up after this season. thanks for the memories.

 

I agree with you Mac. I'm not sure about the move for Tez though. I also agree strongly about the fact our corners look so bad has a lot to do with the safety play and that goes hand in hand with Lebeaus strategy. We all know our front 7 is still a work in progress but is still a strength compared to our secondary,correct? Then why on gods green earth does Lebeau continually leave them on a island so he can use our safeties in run support. Either both Troy and Mitchell are atrocious at playing deep halves or Lebeau is just too stubborn to adapt to the NFL and it's propensity for the forward pass. I think it's a combination of a few issues talent being one and scheme and the complexity of it a couple of others. Is it me or does it seem like the D is always unsure of what is going on ,whose got who? ,what am I supposed to be doing on this play?

we need to put the pressure on Ryan this week. And in fact from here on out. I don't think we are nearly consistent enough to be playing it close to the vest on either side of the ball but even less so on D. With the way Bell is running and the OL blocking we can ride that along with some timely passing and a few deep passes. The D on the other hand has to sell out like we did against the Colts and Ravens....live and die by the sword.

 

I agree about that also. We really need someone on the dline to draw a double team. I think that would benefit JJ the most because it looks to me like he has a lot of trouble going one on one and if he gets double teamed he is definitely not gonna be anywhere near the qb. Have you noticed him getting mauled on the edge also? Seems like he did have a nice play against the run sunday though.

 

first clean all the washed up players ..troy ike , bring a couple of safeties and a couple of cb . make them battle in camp then cut the worst . if allen doesn't rebound cut him and eat the the dead money give mitchell another year if he doesn't pan out cut him too .. we can't play people only because they just wrong signed them or for their history

do we have somebody that can evaluate dbs?

 

Dude I wasn't being that serious about it in the first place, maybe you didn't notice that lol symbol in the original post. If the Steelers don't improve their secondary soon there won't be a 7th Lombardi trophy anytime soon.

 

Whomever they have evaluating DBs right now should be fired, the scouts are doing a terrible job they are scouting guys who can't even play at the NFL level.

 

Absolutely. It seems a lot of fans are forgetting the lessons learned the past 50 or so years.

Fouts also must have noticed that Cinci's 2ndary was loaded with #1 and #2 picks. Uhh! Where have they been?

Also, there have been some threads about the how the top handful or so drafted DB picks the past several years have been doing. Except for a very very small few atrocious would be a compliment.

All what is happening now is proving is that Ike Taylor should be in the hall of fame. Without his earlier skills Pit would probably have won kudats in the past 10 years.Kudats??? I can't think of a better word for it.

I stop at a bar sometimes that has a number of Slavic patrons. I hear the word tossed around a bit. I think it means nothing or zippo. Not sure how it is spelled though.

 

Your right, the good above average QBs can pick a blitz apart, a perfect example was Arron Rodgers picking our pass rush apart in the superbowl by getting rid of the ball with 2 second throws, Belichick didnt spend huge bucks in the offseason to get Browner and Revis because it doesnt matter who you have in the secondary, you think Mel Blount didnt matter when we won those 4 superbowls???

 

You can have the shut down corner but if Rogers has time to throw he will complete the pass. The key is to have the balance of both. Being able to put pressure without compromising in coverage. Some guys no matter what you have are going to complete passes. See Manning, Brady and especially Rogers. Rogers might go down as the best ever to play QB by the time he is done in terms of just flat skill set. The guy is fun to watch just because of his physical and mental talent. He throws passes that no one else in the league can complete or even think about throwing.

I hope they find DL and secondary help in the draft or FA this off-season. A great secondary can't cover forever and a great pass rush is ineffective if there is no one competent at the CB/S position.

 

Whoa! I don't think anyone is saying you can get by with 4 Harvey Clayton's back there, or more recently Hank Poteat's. [These are players who fans usually mention as not being hof candidates]

What I am reading is fans are thinking the B&G have a number of decent young players back there and they would do a lot better with some more help from up front. What is frustrating about this is it seems they are getting some good pressure from the front 3 but not much from the LB corp.

btw: I was not too familiar with Clayton but I didn't think Poteat was all that bad.[Shows what I know?] He just wasn't all that good I guess, so he was replaced which is what teams are supposed to do.

 

I have to think we have worked on the front 3 with heyward and tuitt. I believe they will only get better. mclendon is good, but his ability to stay on the field hurts. McCullers was a step in the right direction, but even at that it seems we have to have 3 NT's on the team to cover for an often injured mclendon.

while I like the thought of a guy like cam Thomas, he's just not the guy if we are going to play it this way and keep mclendon around. the front office will have to mull that one over. hemmer I believe can be a legit backup at DE for next year.

adding a guy that can give us that DE/NT type player would be needed. possibly a draft pick here. we could very well have a decent front 3 if keisel could come back for a final year.


now comes the second line of our defense, the linebackers. I have talked about this in other threads and believe with the two youngsters we have on the PS and IR we could afford to lose worilds and sign moats instead. I think we could be in pretty good shape at that position going forward.

safety is my biggest concern. while we have shamarko Thomas back there, his ability to stay healthy is in question. Mitchell is also a question. I'd sure like to shore up the backend of this defense first and take some of the pressure off of the corners.

going forward we could be in good shape up front and at the next level at LB'er and then fix the back end and add possibly one young corner to our group that's here. I don't think we are in that bad of shape if we just add a couple of spots to this defense as it sits now, just strengthen the deep part and allow the corners to grow with that. looking at it as 4 layers of our defense kind of puts it in prospective.



front: McCullers, mclendon
heyward, tuitt, hemmer. the addition of a guy like say danny Shelton from Washington as a top pick would go a long way. dumping cam Thomas and seeing where keisel stands for another year.

LBers: jones, moats, jones, zumwalt
Timmons, shazier, spence, Williams. garvin??? or a draft pick possibly here would be a pretty decent group by next year. worilds depending on money could be a consideration here and would more than likely rule out a draft pick. overall decent shape.

corners: gay, blake, McCain, webb, fogg, sullen. cortez being the guy we need to make a decision on, but he is in our pocket as of now. definitely a draft pick to add here, but something to build on. ike gone.

safety: Mitchell, Thomas. this part of the defense needs some makeover. out would be troy, allen and possibly golden. cortez allen added back here would make some sense and also give us that guy that could be used as a corner in a pinch. definitely a draft pick or free agent here and maybe both.

sullen and fogg do have some safety background in college too. if they turn out to have any type of skills it would help. golden is also a guy that would have to show a little more if he'd be a consideration to be kept. he should know the defense by now. he would be a backup option.

to sum it up, we are not as far off as it may look at this point, because with the more time these guys can play together and more years in the system, they should improve. we expect a lot from new guys and sometimes it take time to mesh together. tearing that apart just puts us farther away from our objective. just my thoughts on this matter going forward.

 

Some of the current criticisms I hear about the Steelers were heard in the 1980's as well. Trying to re-build while staying competitive is difficult, perhaps more difficult than tanking for a season or two. The way the Steelers do things we may have to deal with a mediocre team for a while as opposed to 1-15 or 2-14.