Darius Slay Blasts Steelers Defensive Scheme: ‘Backwards Over There’

But he still did not get a degree

I was just looking for honesty and accuracy

Some other posters aren’t concerned in that regard

 

Slay was not very good last year, but our design and schemes were also not very good.

 

Serious question....if the design and scheme were fatally flawed....why did swapping Slay for Pierre work out so well? Why does JPJ flourish?

It could be that the scheme can work but you need a specific athletic profile to succeed in it and Slay no longer has it?

Let's not forget that Slay started basically giving up on plays before he got cut: https://steelersdepot.com/2025/10/steelers-begin-reducing-cb-darius-slays-role/

I speculate that the issue was that a 34 year old Slay was a poor match for a man heavy scheme. The Steelers approach exposed Slay's physical decline and his ego got hurt. Go from "Big Play Slay" to getting cut. This is not a robust defense of the Steelers 2025 coverage schemes. But pointing out that there is a great deal of middle ground between "the Steelers are great" and "Slay is right, they were the dumbest staff in the league". That massive middle is where the truth most likely resides.

 

GIT R DUN

 

I'm always at least a little suspicious of someone who sucked bashing the team. But he's doing it in a way that's (1) talking about Ramsey getting beat, not excusing himself and (2) we've heard similar things from opposing teams about how we're easy to prepare for because we always do the same things.

If he's right that we're playing outside leverage all the time, it also might be part of the reason that every team we play is able to have their shortest time to throw against us. Teams that are not us realize that there are things like slants that you are indeed allowed to call in NFL offenses.

With out OLBs, I think we should be daring teams to hold on to it to make big plays. If Slay's correct here, we're doing the opposite...which I would think negates our biggest strength (pass rush).

Part of the reason I'm excited to have a new defensive coach is that just changing up things like verbiage and play calling could make a big difference for the team. Even if the general schemes stay similar (and I'm sure we're not going to overhaul the entire D). Maybe fewer instances of ILBs covering WRs?

 

He said only thing he didn't like with the D, but he didn't say he loved the rest either. We know Tomlin is mediocre at coaching and scheming D and Edelman said what all of us frustrated fans knew, Tomlin was stubborn and VERY easy to plan against. Tomlin had NO creativity or flexibility and thats why we didn't win another SB after Zona game and its also why we have sucked and been an NFL laughingstock in the playoffs. Conservative, safe, play-for-FG offense and bland, never-changing, never-adapating defense, lead by the most overrated coach in my lifetime.

I don't care WHAT the future brings. I am just glad he's gone, there is now a glimmer of hope that we might sniff another Super Bowl title. A change in coaching might unleash the defense to be AGGRESSIVE. Depending on the DL to bat down passes is STUPID. They bat down, what, like two a game? Thats about 15 fairly easy pass-n-catch with DBs letting WRs free run into the middle of the field. Figured Tomlin was barely high school level coach, but that might generous. Wing T offense anyone? Geez.

What is more surprising, over at STill Curtain, they posted article on this same Slay stuff and the posters below were mostly defending Tomlin and gashing Slay. What F'ing planet are these SC posters on? Good god, it was nauseating reading the replies. I guess alot of them love thme some predictable, boring, losing football come December/January. Go be a Browns fan then...or Panthers or something.

 

The Patriots playoff games showed this clearly. DBs way off and free run for the WR to the middle on slants, ins, whatever. Pitch n catch. The one and only way to frustrate Brady was tight DB bumping and man to man coverage. When Brady could just cound 1, 2 and throw every single play, pitch n catch, 5, 7 and 10 yard passes. Marched right down the field. Tomlin NEVER changed. There is a reason other teams had some success against Brady and Patriots, see the Ravens (ugh) and the lowly Jets under Rex Ryan. Yes, the Jets didn't win many, but they did stone Brady a few times and we NEVER did when it ever mattered. I think we had ONE good game agasint Brady over the years (a regular season win), that was it. He owned us like Rodgers owned the Bears. Both the Bears and Steelers had AWFUL coaching and Rooney stuck with ours about 8 years too long. WTF, all those years wasted, WASTED.

 

Like Cowher, I think Tomlin needed good DCs.

Guys like Ike credit Tomlin with teaching him a lot about playing CB.

But I think a wizard like LeBeau (for both Tomlin and Cowher) is what really made the D great.

We also saw more creativity in the year we had Flores.

 

and still seeing posters here trying to defend Tomlin and his puppet Austin. It was bad enough Rooney had no spine to fire Tomlin or at least not extend him 6+ years ago. We still have posters here that think Tomlin was a good coach. Clearly he was not a good coach. Mediocre? Maybe, but hardly good.

 

The Steelers defense was both were truths.

 

I agree, but after Lebeau left, Tomlin chose the DCs, which were either bad or DC in name-only. Clearly Tomlin was the DC and the DC was the assistant or figurehead that lended a hand, but had little say in scheme and adaptions.
His defenses could have been...workable had he found agressive OCs and let them unleash aggressive passing and creative running games. He chose conservative offense and that doesn't work with bend-and-break defense. One side of the ball MUST be aggressive, in your face, taking risks, both cannot be simple and conservative and beat ANY team come January. We saw all the evidence we needed on that. Case closed. Tomlin gone. Sun is shining again after years of overcast.

 

I certainly agree that Tomlin didn't do a good job hiring coordinators. One of his bigger flaws IMO.

I do wonder how much of this was budgetary constraints. But even still, he owns his record (the good stuff and the bad stuff).

He did have a more aggressive offense initially with Ben. But I think that Rooney pushed back on that with the "let's not have the guy I'm paying $100MM to get destroyed on the field". So we got rid of Arians and brought in Hayley (who I think was a good OC for us...even though it does sound like he was an *******).

 

Yep.

I'm generally a fan of how our FO runs re: not knee jerk firing guys.

But that Flores thing was just such a massive opportunity for us. I'm glad we capitalized on it for one year. Props to Rooney here. Tomlin was advocating for him, but Rooney said yes even though Flores was involved in a lawsuit that involved not just the NFL, but Rooney's in-laws (Mara family).

I wasn't here at the time, but I didn't think we'd hire Flores specifically because it was the Giants he was suing. And not just suing, but suing alleging that Mara was using racist hiring practices.

It's too bad we couldn't keep him long term.

I think part of that is that we wouldn't part with Austin.

But I also think part of it was Flores probably wanting to go to DC for an offensive minded HC so he wouldn't just look like a puppet for Tomlin (how at least I view Austin).

 

Yep. And not just Tomlin. Rooney too.

Tomlin was the perfect coach for Rooney IMO. Part of this is likely that the Steelers hired him young and molded him into the perfect coach for our business model.

 

The other thing is that if the defense has good pass rushers, but offenses are having the quarterback get rid of the ball quicker......Play press man coverage. Playing with outside leverage doesn't disrupt the wide receivers the way that press man coverage does. When receivers get free releases, they get to their stems and are able to run their routs on time. The quarterback doesn't have to hold the ball as long, and the pass rushers have less time to get to the quarterback.

If you are going to play man coverage....play press man to disrupt the timing of the routes and give pass rushers more time to get to the quarterback. Playing man simplifies the reads of the quarterback but if you can disrupt the pass routes and the coverage is tight it really makes life difficult for an offense.

If they don't play man and play zone, then it becomes about mixing coverages and disguising coverages to confuse the quarterback and make them hold the ball longer, while finding players that really work well in zone coverage to force very tight windows.

It's tough to make a living playing only man coverage. You need multiple coverage people that are great at it for the whole process to be really effective. I think mixing press man with some zone and disguise works best if a team doesn't have elite cornerbacks and coverage safeties.

 

We like to call that the Tomlin Factor.

 

With the amount of current tense used in this post and many others I am starting to realize I’m one of the few who know Tomlin and Austin are gone and there is a new head coach new OC and New DC

And that is a good thing

( above inserted for the resident trolls who think if you don’t agree with their constant whining that somehow means you agree with everything the Steelers do )