2012 Steelers Draft Analysis - My Write Up

I agree with your evaluation of Lewis ,but I think Brown is the best CB of the bunch.....I think once he gets some snaps he will force his way to the starter....Don't get me wrong I think Allen is a solid player ,but if I was placing a bet on who the next Probowl CB from the Steelers will be,,my money is on Brown that might be a year or 2 away IMO he is the best of the bunch...

 

I thought Curtis Brown would be the slot corner last year, but Lebeau made him sit the obligatory rookie season on the bench.

I fully expect Brown to be the slot defender this year and the #2 corner spot a fight between Lewis and Cortez Allen, with Lewis pretty far ahead right this instant (but that could change).

That's the depth chart.

 

Not sure you can say Brown sat the obligatory rookie season on the bench....he was passed by fellow rookie Cortez Allen.

Now if we are saying both should have been playing over Willie Gay....well then we can agree on something.

HACK

 

Cortez Allen did only play 55 snaps last year. Wasn't like he was integral in nickle defense much at all.

I don't really know how it's going to shake out on snap counts between Lewis, Brown and Allen. It's going to be interesting to watch the first few games.

 

Which one did a decent job covering the Patsies' R Gronkowski?

 

Here's my link to the Steelers player participation chart (most of the information came for game by game data at Steelers Depot.com)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvfjNJoQjTjSdHhWUm1SMmFCX3JLcmJzaUtXeHpUSWc#gid=0

The New England game was very unique. We averaged only 2.22 defensive lineman on the field per snap (111 snaps total in 50 plays), with really it being a 2-man DL with Keisel and Hood. The nose tackle was almost non-existant that game (McClendon/Hampton combined for 10 snaps). So I would say we ran 2-DL, 40 times and 3-DL 10 times.

Due to an injuries to Farrior and Harrison, Lebeau changed up the LB's as well. We basically ran 3 LB's 80% of the time with the three starting out Timmons/Foote/Woodley but when Woodley got hurt, it became Timmons/Foote/Carter (Worilds was also unavailable). 4 LB's only happened 10 times and that was adding Sylvester to the mix. Ivy got one random snap.

So when we look at the 40 dime situations (2-DL, 3 LB, 6 DB) it appears it was adding Lewis (39 snaps) and either Mundy (23 snaps) or Allen (18 snaps).

If I remember the game correctly (and how Lebeau did things in nickel packages), when Mundy comes on the field, he normally plays "deep" and they slide Polamalu up into the box and let him "roam".

When Lewis comes into the game he goes outside and they slide Gay into the slot.

With Allen it was different because I think Ike Taylor "followed" Wes Welker around the whole game. When Welker went into the slot, so did Taylor (and maybe Lewis/Gay played outside). Maybe Allen played outside and they let Gay AND Taylor play slot receivers.

In this very special case, they let Taylor follow Welker around and they really "doubled" Gronkowski with over/under coverage (a DB gets him on his release and we have a deep safety watching him over the top).

It was a really good game plan, but I don't think it was Lebeau's first choice and really had a lot more to do with how thin we were at linebacker that game (especially pass rushing linebackers).