No WR separation

I take your “No WR Separation” and I trump that with no Rushing game, or no five man fronts to stop the run, or no innovative blitzes to produce QB pressure or finally a lack of production with third down defense.

 

I think the team was doing fine with TJ and Herbig on the field getting pressure. It is when Herbig went out that the pressure seemed to stop.

As far as WR separation goes; we gave away our best WR at getting separation, and then never brought in someone to replace DJ.

 

Funny, Cris Collinsworth(spelling??), and Brian Balddinger(spelling???yes I could look it up , but Im not).....Have both said there are guys open, and when I look at an all 22....I see guys open.

 

K. As I said I haven’t studied it in any detail myself and it’s near impossible to tell watching on TV

I think it was Dale Lolley or DK that was commenting on the lack of seperation in a general sense recently. Of course there are going to be guys open at times on certain plays.

Here are the separation measures for the individual receivers. CA3 and Jefferson near bottom of the league, Pickens is average

 

That is a fascinating graph. You would think that with greater separation, accuracy would go up, but except for one outlier in the top right corner, there is no clear relationship. What is clear, if you believe this graph, is the Steelers WR get no separation. Wow.

it’s not just separation, but the Steelers D several times a game has what looks like busted coverage that gets taken advantage of, but our offensive schemes rarely seem to confuse opponents defenses. Our receivers are rarely wide wide open due to some clever scheme.

 

I think my friend You should watch the all 22, and Your whole idea of separation will change. For Example: I'll give two.... the pass to Pickens down the left sideline .....when he first hit the break in his route.....he was wide open, but by the time Field seen him, and threw it... the DBs converged on it....the 2nd one, and there are many more.....the pass way over Pickens head as he's going out of the right sidelines.....He is wide open for about a good long while, but by the time Fields sees, stops, and sets his feet(because he was starting to take off).... it was way way too late. Those are just a few that stick out like a sore thumb. Also. I love listening to DK, but He becomes friend with some of these players, and doesn't look at things critically sometimes. Example: to the very end He said T. Edmunds was a great player, and people were wrong about him. What he should have said was.....T. Edmunds is a great guy, the team likes him, but he's not a very good player....., but he gets too close to some of them sometimes

 

Tough to blanket the receivers when our guys start 7 yds away from them

 

Our you referring to our db!s in coverage? I’m confused.

 

Yes. I think the OP stated that the Cowboys WRs consistently had separation

 

That's amazing that Calvin Austin is last in the league in separation. There are very few WR's in the league who has his type of speed but why can't he get open?

 

This is a telling chart. Our best WR is just below average at getting open. The other two are nearly the worst in the league. Our WR corps sucks.

 

more to getting open than just speed. Route running, timing, etc.

 

I doubt it would change that much tbh. Nobody is saying that the Steelers WR’s never get open.

What we can say from the WR separation chart that I shared is that game to game and down to down this group is the worst in the league at getting separation. That isn’t going to be a surprise to anybody, and it reduces the margin of error for your QB dramatically.

We can cherry pick plays where guys are open and the QB doesn’t see them but you could also do that for Mahomes, Stroud or even prime Brady and point to multiple plays they missed in each game. It wouldn’t prove anything.

I’m no Justin Fields apologist and we all knew when he signed that he had trouble reading defences and that he is not a consistent passer. The situation around him isn’t helping however.

Re your final point I know DK is a homer, as is Lolley. I honestly can’t remember which of them commented on the situation but given the evidence we have I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong.

 

Other than that big play he made against the Chargers, his speed sure doesn't translate on the field does it?

 

I think the original post was referring too our receivers not being able to get separation which I agree with. I also agree with your assessment that the Cowboys Receivers had a ton of separation. We were however playing soft zone which we are terrible at. Makes no sense to have Joey Porter playing 10 yards off in soft zone when he is very good at press man. That is flat out Tomlin playing in his fears. No aggression on defense whatsoever. We have two of the fastest middle linebackers in the NFL and we barely ever blitz them. Instead we neutralize their talents by having them standing in the middle of the field like statues. So many other coaches could do so much more with the talent we have on defense. It is a shame.

Regarding our receivers not getting operation. Opposing teams our playing press man against them because they figured out our receivers aren’t good at beating press man.