What's wrong with the Defense?

Who was sporting the number 37? Guy stood out to me as one who would make a good play then two bad, then an alright play and three bad. the reason he stood out was that he celebrated every play like he was James Harrison running a 100 yard interception back except he sucked.

 

Thanks Chief. I figured he had to be one of the bubble CB's

 

Not really sold on Tuitt at this point in time. He was driven off the ball and did maintain his gap in most of the preseason action he saw. Timmons needs to come back to give the Steelers a fighting chance to solidify their Defense. One last thought, if they do not get pressure on the opposing QB's, it will be a long season with out a doubt!

 

Common sense says, if your CBs gonna consistently play back 15 yards in all situations, you gotta be able to close fast & be an excellent tackler. Our CBs always fail at both task. Which leads to always losing battles. If you can't win any battles on defense, you can't stop anybody. If we don't have the talent & scheme to stop the pass & run, what can the possible result be?? What we saw on Sunday against scrubs. They say our CBs are too small to compete on the LOS. Then our CBs better be good at doing something or this gonna be another long season. Why do the Steelers always draft CBs too small to compete??

 

The Bills scrubs treated our safeties as if they didn't exist. Can you imagine what they would do to our secondary when all their skilled players is on the field?? The middle of the field was open like the Pacific Ocean; as if we are playing with 9 players. Shamarko Thomas has gotta play better...

 

The tackling as a whole has looked bad. Almost Bengal-esque.

 

For those who think the performances by the team in these games matter:

The Ravens are ranked 32nd in yards per game and points per game.


http://www.nfl.com/stats/categoryst...eStatisticCategory=GAME_STATS&qualified=false

 

That's a top of the rope statement but rings true.

The unproven meltdown Cortez Allen is 6'1". It's going to be ugly for awhile. What concerns me most as others have said is the total confusion of the secondary. Seems NO one is in the right place at the right time. And experimenting? TICK TICK... That's what camp is for. Yes pre season is a place to try new wrinkles, like totally changing the face of your Defense, but what we have seen is nothing but disturbing. Hopefully they can iron out these issues and soon. But at this point the glass is half empty.

 

And Cleveland and Cincinnati are near the top right now

 

Exactly.. Cleveland is number one lol. At no point in my lifetime have I ever written those words lol

 

Someone said that the secondary has not been addressed in a long time and this is what I agree with.

Nothing gets fixed unless it is completely broken like the OL starting Sean "I'm allergic to blocking" Mahan and Chris "Offside" Kemoeatu.

If the Steelers had not gotten lucky with Beachum on a late pick this OL would still be bad instead of decent. A mass retiring of linemen from 06-07 who werent replaced fully for over five seasons.

Will the Steelers ever have a kicker who can kick a 50 yard fg? Tomlin will kick 45+ fg his kicker can not make rather than go for 4 and 1. So...

Now it is the secondary. Not one first day pick among them. Those first day picks were used on the OL out of desperation. Gilbert and Adams both have not played up to 2 round status.

Hopefully when the Steelers draft secondary high out of desperation next couple years they make the right picks.

 

i can't really fault what you are saying mf. i remember them having trouble at safety too, for years and the thinking that it wasn't that important of a position for the higher rounds. similar to they're drafting of the o-line. as you also are saying about drafting the right players that high. we seem to stick with guys that under preform because of draft ranking at times. olb doesn't seem to fall in that category. we seem to like going early and often at that spot.

 

I don't put too much stock into preseason but with that said it's no secret that clevelands d has been on the up swing the past couple of years. But that's what years of high draft picks can accomplish. Same with buffalo

 

points allowed Steelers are the worst. It's preseason though, I am not going to take much into it. We will be bad, especially in the beginning. I think as the season goes on our Defense will gel into a mediocre one. Will it be too late to recover though? That is the question. Ain't going to be easy, have faith fans.

 

Well, to be fair, we've played one more game...

 

I agree that for both the secondary and the o-line the team has tried to get away with diamonds in the rough, before turning a proper focus on to them in the draft. However, I'm not sure I really get your argument here. The line was awful; so they picked Pouncey, Decastro, Gilbert, Adams... so they addressed it. I don't see the 'desperation' there. It's not like they weren't picking other positions of need before then.

The current situation at LBer shows why it's so difficult to play "make the right pick". The team was drafting OLBs because they anticipated their big names moving on or retiring. But then Harrison simply hasn't aged, and the likes of Moats have shown more promise than was perhaps expected. So suddenly it looks like the team were wasting picks on Jones and Dupree when they could have been getting DBs. Fair enough. But imagine if Harrison retired, and Moats turns out to be Cam Thomas mk 2... then the FO look like they've kept the roster turning over in a balanced way. As it is, that didn't happen, so now we're overloaded at LB and drastically short at DB.

 

I cannot for the life of me figure out why our DBs are so slow. They are getting outrun by tight ends and cannot even begin to catch them. It is pathetic. Instead of putting the CBs in 15 yard cushions, they need to keep at least one of the safeties back so they don't get burned over the top on every freaking play. 30 for 33 by 4 different QBs???? Are you KIDDING ME? There is no way Ben and the offense can score enough points to keep up with this kind of incompetence.

 

You cant take a lot out of pre season games, we always look bad in pre season as do a lot of other teams, you see teams win all of their games in pre season, then struggle to win 7 or 8 games in the regular season; and other teams may win 1 or 2 games in pre season, maybe none, then make the playoffs..I don't take a lot out of pre season and most starters don't go full tilt until the games count and a game plan is in place anyway, so my advice is to just chill out and don't be too concerned over this pre season, we're down to the cuts and 22 starters will be named and they have to play at a much higher level to keep their job or lose it....

 

i agree it's preseason but my trouble is our safeties especially taking bad angles and being out of position. thats not scheme related usually.

 

they also addressed it for a few years thig. ( o-line that is) we cut quite a few too. that's how foster became a roster spot holder. a first rounder on a right guard when we had Lt trouble was a head scratcher too. don't get me wrong i like DD. it just seemed so hodge podge in the selection process of the o-line. the coach helped to get us this far. letting munches johnson slip away was just another blunder amongst this unit. i guess you keep drafting until you hit a homerun, but our biggest homerun was the coaches brought in. i still believe that. rb, o-line and wr.

 

Everything you are saying I already know. Preseason or not I am pointing out though that's Cleveland's defense is legit and has been legit for the last couple years. They probably are the best D in the division, I don't know about Cinci though.

 

First and formost it's the play from the Safety position. Or the lack there of. The whole group really can't recognize routes , they don't understand proper angles, they don't have enough speed , they don't get into position to make plays on the ball,at that position we simple don't have the talent on the roster .

Next we have a bunch of Dime CB'S trying to play as 1's and 2's . They are slow as whole, lack recovery speed, take poor angles , can't recognize routes , don't get into position to make plays on the ball, unless some of our new guys prove this wrong we don't have the talent on the roster at this spot either.

I know the Steelers want to keep that great LB tradition alive , but we need to stop spending on that position until we get a back end. People have argued with me over and over about pressure no team can cover if you get no pressure while this is true Teams can simply go to the Quick passing game and negate the play of the front 7 if they can't at least cover the quick routes.

The Team should keep drafting CB'S and DB'S until we get some who can play at a high enough level. Any good D has at leat 1 or 2 good DB'S as of now we still have none thus it looks like the Varsity against the JV we are simply out matched.

 

Well it is preseason as many have mentioned. But to think there will not be a drop off in defense after losing one of - IF NOT THE - best D-coordinator in NFL history is probably pretty stupid. Call me crazy but could there be a chance that DL was getting the most out of the players he had ? Love DL or hate him.. You have to admit there's a chance that our players just weren't all that great and DL was getting the most out of them. I mean he kinda did produce some unbelievable defenses over the years... no other coach has put up the defensive stats for as long as DL has.

The guy is a legend and has made a living out of making nobody's into pro bowlers. When we had good talent on defense we were often unbeatable. Maybe we will be awesome this year? Maybe Keith is better than DL at this point? Seems like a risky bet to take though. If I had $ on it... I wouldn't bet against DL.

 

A better question is what's wrong with fans that learn very little after paying attention to this game for years? Very little can be determined about a team based on preseason performance. Some fans believed that this team was doomed based on the way they performed last season.