Another rookie question from Europe, i dont understand why the Texans D did better than ours?

I makes no sense to me regardless of systems etc etc I just dont get??????

 

IMO, a big part of why the Texans succeeded is that their defensive coordinator (Romeo Crennel) had the same position in New England for years. He watched Brady work every day for a long time, and he knows his weaknesses in and out.

He gave the Steelers a beautiful blueprint just a week ago on how to disrupt Tom Brady, and I don't recall once seeing ANYTHING that replicated what Houston was doing last week, such as blitzing up the middle, which is the weakest part of New England's line. Not to mention the fact that our CB's didn't press up on the line once. Constantly spotting them 10 free yards to run their routes.

I swear, it feels more and more like there are too many ego problems on the Steelers team, and I'm not just talking about the players!

 

we just don't have the pass rushers that the Texans have. see romeo use to run a 3-4 I think, he has adapted to the new nfl. until last night I was a butler defender. I like him. not anymore.

I got into a discussion with a former nfl player last night and at first it made since but the more I thought about it I got pissed.

he told and I quote "they got to the championship game. they are in the final four. you don't change what got you there. these coaches are the best at what they do. they are not gonna change because they feel their scheme works in any situation."

I get that. but when you see it not working, change. hell they played better the first time this year.

I am reading for tomlin to implement the 4-3. it will take a year or 2 but this isn't working anymore. capers found that out yesterday as well. he was same way. they made no adjustments.

I think burns can play man. I think davis is gonna be a good safety. I think Dupree can play in a 4-3. shazier should be able to. we have good young dlineman. draft a 4-3 de. get a corner and replace Mitchell.

I am in the minority but the offense is what it is without a solid number 2 wr. I don't care how good you are. you are not gonna consistently beat double and I even seen 3 on him once. brown was smothered.

 

I'd love to know who this former nfl player was. If I had to guess it's someone who wasn't in the league very long because I don't know how someone who was a successful player would EVER say that you don't make ANY changes, especially against a Tom Brady/Bill Belichick combo. You have to game plan for EVERY team EVERY week, which means changes must be made based on who you're playing and what they're known to do. I would've been happy if we had tried press zone coverage for just one damn drive, and if it didn't work then go back to what we were doing. But not once did they even try this...absolutely no adjustments the entire game. It's highly unlikely that what worked for Miami and Kansas City is going to work against NEW ENGLAND!

And as for a #2 wr, my gut is starting to tell me that they're either going to make a somewhat of a splash at this position in FA, or they're going to draft one a lot higher than some may think. This of course hinges on how they're feeling about Martavis Bryant.

On another note, I think the Ladarius Green dream is over. This guy is clearly a literal head-case. Once you start getting repeat concussions, it starts to snowball. If I were him, I'd never play another down on my own terms. But my guess is if he plays next year, he will get another concussion, and it will linger. We are going to have $35-38 million in cap space next year. As much as I hate it for him, we need to eat that contract hit next year and move on. Jesse James is definitely starting to show he's worthy of a roster spot, but it would be nice to find another TE to compliment him because I think Haley would have had a field day if he had two healthy TE's all season.

 

Better players and a much, much better scheme.

 

Better players

 

They played man and guarded the wrs
We played zone and left them wide open

 

Yep, Steelers played zone and that does not work well against the Patriots.

 

The defense did not lose this game for the Steelers. Did anybody watch the same game I did? The offense was pathetic in the red zone, yet again. I counted 4 missed opportunities at TD which would have made the game much closer and competitive.

 

The defense stayed in zone the whole game, and thats Brady's favorite scheme he picks zones apart, then they let hogan run free in the secondary the whole game you would think at some point butler would say we got to put a cover guy on him, no pressure on brady spells disaster, the offense was terrible once again to go along with the same poor game plan Haley seems to be in a habit of calling lately, I think it's time to get a couple of new coordinators to change the way we have been playing these last two games....

 

I agree the Offense was not great and I think losing Bell was a game changer for them. But The D definitely lost it for the Steelers. Even if we got TD's or scored more the Pats could have scored 70 if they wanted to. I think they only punted two or three times if I remember and that's because they were barely trying in the 4th.

 

Texans made a priority to knock Brady around. They walked the line of cheap shots and probably crossed the line a few times but they knew they had to rattle him. When you rattle Brady he's not so special. The Texans have a better D-line and they were able to get pressure up the middle. They also disrupted the timing of their WR's. Brady thrives on timing routes. If he can get the ball out quickly you will lose. Slow down the WR's off the LOS and that leaves Brady holding the ball for another second.

The Pats O-line is very good, especially neutralizing pass rushers on the out side like Bud and Harrison. (Bud has no inside move btw) We had no ability to get pressure inside. That mostly due to the fact that Shazier is really fast but cannot run over people and struggles shaking blocks. He over commits and offenses can easily take advantage of that. Shazier runs him self out of plays 3-4 X the plays he actually makes. Timmons can't get to the QB - period. Our D-line is not good with out Heyward. Tuitt is good. Hargrave needs to improve. You can't have a 1/3 of your D-line stinking up the place. We need a stud NT. NT is the back bone of all good 3-4 defenses. Our defense was great when we had Hampton in his prime. We MUST get a stud NT if we want to be a great defense. This would make everyone around him better.

A point was made about playing the system that got you there. In today's NFL every team mixes it up. We don't just line up in a 3-4. We play zone, man, press, soft, etc Every team does this. This is called game planning. If our corners can't successfully slow a WR down at the LOS Brady would have picked apart our man coverage as well. The zone wasn't working at all. We weren't getting pressure and I think the game plan was to play zone and bring presurre quick and disguise blitzes. It didn't work. We couldn't get any pressure. That instantly blew that game plan out of the water because we thought we could get pressure from our OLB's.

 

The defense gave up 36 points, that's all you have to say about that.

 

well I didn't state the whole conversation. he meant that we are a zone team. we don't have the man corners. his point was we got to where we are doing what we do. he played 11 years with rams and pats. has 2 super bowl rings. obviously after seeing the fact we didn't change last night he must know something about it.

I don't agree

 

it was sad how #15 was wide open all game - not even close to contest a pass. looked like the bad news bears out there

 

Can't believe he didn't mention anything about how they should have at least tried something different even if for a single drive, in-particular something like pressing at the line and dropping back into zone

 

Yeah 10 yard spots not good.

 

well we did talk about disguising it. he left the pats 2 years before spygate. he has told me that there are no secrets with the steelers.

 

This should have occurred the moment Tomlin took the job in 2007. I expected him to let LeBeau go and bring in guys who could replicate the Tampa defense he coached in 2002, that took the Raiders apart in the Super Bowl. He didn't do it, of course, and opted instead to keep the status quo, which was an early indication to me that Tomlin had no rudder. he still doesn't have one.

 

well he would have lost the fan base and probably the team if he had. lebeau at the time was so beloved

 

The coaches lost the game for us. Obviously.

 

true. But Mean Joe was beloved, too...and Cowher wasn't planning to keep him as DL coach in 1992. So he split and coached for Shula and then Buddy Ryan.

 

How do you mean this? The Cheats don't know any Steeler secrets, or nothing the Steelers know is a secret from NE?