what does our DC think?

http://www.steelersdepot.com/2017/06/keith-butler-admits-team-played-much-zone-2016/

shouldn't this revelation have started 2 years ago? our head coach was a DB coach. i go back to our coach not having enough familiarity of coaching man coverage. lake never played in that type of system.

sure we had young guys but wouldn't that have been the time to teach it? the same could be said in the opposite of the older DB's that are pretty much zone type players. can they play man? we may have a mix of both types of players. do we put certain players in when we play zone and certain players in when we play man? they better figure it out soon or it will be another wasted season waiting for the defense to get up to speed with the offense.

 

Agree Mac, sometimes they should listen to us here, some of us have been saying this for years now. Also 15 yard cushions don't help, and having your best pass rusher (and slowest speed) in pass coverage so often is just plan stupid.

 

I think Lake would disagree with you that he never played man coverage:

Carnell Lake, who played safety and cornerback for the Steelers. ... “We played man, single-high or some form of man coverage every single play". ...

 

We still don't have the right guys to play man ..I still blame KC and whoever is making the picks . We need to move up in the draft and get at least 1 CB who is good at man.We keep holding pat and waiting and it is not working...

 

I'm sure this isn't a completely new realization to anyone within the Steelers organization. With that being said if you don't have the players to successfully play man then you don't. We saw it in the arc championship game. We tried playing man on more than one occasion and got torched. The Steelers have been rebuilding an entire roster for the last few years. That's a process that doesn't happen overnight. You draft players that you hope/believe will allow you to build the team you want. Some pan out and some don't. The simple fact that this team hasn't gone through any sub 500 seasons during the rebuild is a testament to the coaches ability.

 

I agree with most of this , but I would also like someone to grow a pair in the draft or in FA...We know we need man CB'S and picking the 4th. or 5th. best one on most boards has a lot less chance of panning out than if they picked one of the top guys...The same goes for FA they keep shopping at Walmart hoping to get better product.If they want better product they need to increase their chances by shopping at a better store..

 

I don't see it that way at all. What you propose only makes sense if(if) we were that one piece of the puzzle short. However, that isn't the case with Steelers. In our situation trading away draft picks in order to get one player or signing one high dollar free agent just leaves holes elsewhere. The Steelers are going about this the right way. It might not be fast enough for some fans, but long term success is the goal.

 

they knew this was a concern by his own words though. why wasn't it taught early on in camp or at least mixed in so they were comfortable with it as the season went on. you don't wait until the end and say well we haven't done it so we won't or can't.

 

It's not a matter of being comfortable with it. If you don't have the horse to run the race don't run the race. You have to play to your strengths. Yet once again we have less than 50% of the teaching time that teams used to have. We don't have two a days any more and are only allowed something like 14 padded practices during the season. You can talk about it in a meeting room until the cows come home, but if you can't actually practice it then it's not worth a hill of beans.

 

thats not what butler said though.

 

Do you expect him to throw players under the bus?

 

he played in a zone blitz scheme for nearly all of his career. i also said not enough familiarity with it. even MT a couple of years ago was helping the DB's learn a cover two system in camp. they hadn't done that until then. sure we played a safety over when ike was here against certain teams and it worked out well. usually against aj green and the bengirls. it wasn't something they stuck with though. it was more hit and miss against certain receivers at times.

 

there was talk about getting corners with more man ability since lebeau was here. butler was part of that. they knew it back then.

 

And they've been rebuilding the whole team

 

I guess there are two issues I have with the article and this final point, mac.

First, Butler's mantra when he came in as DC was to simplify the defense so that the young players could get out there more quickly. Which he did. It feels to me from the article that they're reaching the natural next stage of the evolution of Butler's defense: we've got the young guys out there, they've got a solid(ish) D, and now it's time to start throwing in some more complex stuff to deal with the likes of Brady.

I go back to the point I always make about the AFCCG - it wasn't just the fact that the defense played zone. It was that they played it really badly.

Second, weren't there a number of games last year where the defense kept us in the game despite the offense's best efforts (e.g. against KC the week before the Pats)? Again, the AFCCG may have been a different story had the offense found their top gear.

 

it's not all about the afccg. lebeau made that comment about the corners when he was still here for 3-4 years. we brought back gay and at one point made him our top db.

we stayed too long with ike. golden. thomas. both those safeties stayed too long. dangerfield. even mitchell. boykin. gilbert. golson was the big draft pick. these are not man cover defenders by any means or support to it. so we have brought in some new guys and we are still doing the same thing. there is a word for continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

simplify the defense? doesn't that simplify it for the offenses we play against too. they already know we don't change things up or do so little that it doesn't matter. even if we would have put it in and ran man at times 3-5 years ago we should be or would be a little more proficient at it by now and could actually keep teams having to prepare differently. it's not just about our guys it's about the opponent too. this is the problem i have with this approach we use. we do what we do and don't adjust. if we don't do it they won't learn it. this article just floored me.

 

Although in their defense when was the last time you saw a team play zone against Brady well?

 

isn't putting players in a defense that is stagnant also throwing them under the bus?

 

It doesn't really matter. He's the best qb in the league and it's not even close. I'm not saying we should just throw our hands in the air and declare them winners. However, you still have to play to your strengths. Our strength wasn't man coverage. If your offensive line can't run block, but is a good pass blocking team you don't run the ball 60 times a game.

 

You have to play to your strengths. It's a pretty simple concept.

 

i guess my friend. kinda like i play to my good looks and brains.

 

he probably thinks something like this...

 

we aren't very good at the deep ball on 3rd and 1 but we keep doing that even with the best back in the league.

 

20 passes more than 15 yards on 3rd and 3 or less. 11 completions for 453 yards and two touchdowns.


Over 50% success rate hardly constitutes "not being any good at it".