Zone Doesn't Matter

[Mojouw]

It was the total lack of pressure on Brady that was the killer. Completed passes were just the symptom and the diseases the pass rushers didn't get there.

Now we can talk about the decision to drop the ILBs in coverage rather then send them hell for leather after Brady. But the plain and simple truth is that this team struggles to generate pass pressure against good offenses.

And we also need to acknowledge that the Patriots have specifically constructed an offense to beat zones and blitzes - specifically the 3-4 schemes that for most of the past 10-12 years have been the preferred system of the "elite" AFC playoff teams. The only time their offense gets in any real trouble is when your pass rushers are just good enough to get their on their own. That is how the Giants, Broncos, and Jets have beaten them and the Texans very nearly did as well.

The Steelers need more pass rushers. Plain and simple. An ancient Deebo, a still developing Dupree, a raw Hargrave, and Tuitt are not enough.

[Rotorhead]

I agree, we better sign a vet pass rusher this year.

[steelreserve]

Don't forget we were missing Heyward.

But yeah, much as I hate to say it, we could really use another guy to rush the passer. I don't expect Harrison back, and Dupree, while he has his flashes, is not going to be the guy you can count on every game, every down.

Still wouldn't have mattered in this game anyway; it was easy for them to just run to a spot and throw it.

[teegre]

Brady does not like pressure up the middle. The Steelers have two dynamic pass-rushing ILBs.

Yet... they dropped them into coverage. :doh:

[JimHarbaugh'ssoakedtissue]

Zone does matter and leaving wr's 8 yards open with any defender in 20 feet does matter. Mark Malone would have pick us apart. Anyhow luv ya guys and see what happens off season. Take care.

[EzraTank]

When Chris Hogan a Lacrosse player is running wide open in your COVER NONE zone coverage and looks like the ghost of Jerry Rice, I do think they matter.

The teams that beat the Pats like Denver get pressure on Brady and play man to man.

[SteelerFanInStl]

It does matter if you play a soft zone like we do with the CBs 8-10 yards off the line of scrimmage but yea, I get your point. We needed to bring pressure. Without that pressure, any QB will eventually find an open receiver.

[86WARD]

Agree with the above. The zone does matter because even in the few cases they did get pressure on Brady, he was able to complete a pass to a wide open receiver. The Patriots offense ALWAYS has one guy wide open. The only way Brady doesn't succeed if if a WR drops it or if he's pressured...as in moving , hit or sacked. That's why the likes of Matt Cassell, Jimmy Garroppolo, etc., are successful. They are finding the wide open guy and completing the pass. You need to disrupt their receivers and they didn't do that at all.

[GBMelBlount]

Brady does not like pressure up the middle. The Steelers have two dynamic pass-rushing ILBs.

Yet... they dropped them into coverage. :doh:

Play calling and strategy was terrible.

Because pass rush is arguably our biggest weakness in an otherwise solid team, I would like to see us go after two high quality edge rushers this draft.

[steelreserve]

When Chris Hogan a Lacrosse player is running wide open in your COVER NONE zone coverage and looks like the ghost of Jerry Rice, I do think they matter.

The teams that beat the Pats like Denver get pressure on Brady and play man to man.

That's about right. If you bring pressure against Brady but are playing zone behind it, he just throws the ball before you get to him because their ENTIRE OFFENSE is based on quick underneath and outside throws, and you aren't defending against that. He just gets rid of the ball as soon as you get close, and there's probably someone open because YOU AREN'T DEFENDING AGAINST THEIR OFFENSIVE SCHEME.

You get pressure on Brady by rushing 4-5 guys AND playing tight coverage against the underneath stuff. Then maybe he can't just get rid of the ball whenever he wants.

omg, but man coverage means you might get beat deep! Well, better to take your chances with that, than the strategy that has been a GUARANTEED ASS POUNDING every time you've tried it for the past 10 years.

It seriously blows my mind that, as a professional football team, we can know ahead of time exactly what our opponent's game plan is going to be, and fail so miserably to prepare for it. And in fact, come out with THE WORST possible counter to it. For Christ's sake, the fans were calling this one, how the FUCK could you not see something this obvious as a professional football coach who has seen it before and had a week to prepare. That is horrible, horrible coaching all around.

[zulater]

Patriots converted 9 of their first 12 3rd downs. The Steelers had zero passes defensed in Brady's 42 attempts. Kind of hard to make the case the coaches were putting the players in position to succeed.

[43Hitman]

A majority of their completions were to guys without a defender with in 5 yards of him. Completely blown coverages. It wasn't just Burns either, I saw Gay, Mitchell and Cockring all get destroyed routinely. Bad game plan with even poorer execution leads to zero passes defensed. Freaking zero. I can't believe we couldn't get our hand on one ball.

[Method28]

That's about right. If you bring pressure against Brady but are playing zone behind it, he just throws the ball before you get to him because their ENTIRE OFFENSE is based on quick underneath and outside throws, and you aren't defending against that. He just gets rid of the ball as soon as you get close, and there's probably someone open because YOU AREN'T DEFENDING AGAINST THEIR OFFENSIVE SCHEME.

You get pressure on Brady by rushing 4-5 guys AND playing tight coverage against the underneath stuff. Then maybe he can't just get rid of the ball whenever he wants.

omg, but man coverage means you might get beat deep! Well, better to take your chances with that, than the strategy that has been a GUARANTEED ASS POUNDING every time you've tried it for the past 10 years.

It seriously blows my mind that, as a professional football team, we can know ahead of time exactly what our opponent's game plan is going to be, and fail so miserably to prepare for it. And in fact, come out with THE WORST possible counter to it. For Christ's sake, the fans were calling this one, how the FUCK could you not see something this obvious as a professional football coach who has seen it before and had a week to prepare. That is horrible, horrible coaching all around.
Preach! Hallelujah!

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

[pczach]

The reason press man coverage works so well is because it throws off the timing of the quarterback throwing the ball on schedule with the routes. It takes the receivers longer to get off the line and off the free release path that the quarterback practices with his WR's every day.

The additional time gives the pass rush more time to get there for pressures and sacks which have a huge effect on the quarterback and the offense in general.

[AtlantaDan]

The reason press man coverage works so well is because it throws off the timing of the quarterback throwing the ball on schedule with the routes. It takes the receivers longer to get off the line and off the free release path that the quarterback practices with his WR's every day.

The additional time gives the pass rush more time to get there for pressures and sacks which have a huge effect on the quarterback and the offense in general.

Yep - link to video (could not embed) with Warren Sapp of all people explaining how Steelers switching to man coverage in the 2011 win at Heinz threw off the Pats passing game

http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-network-total-access%2F09000d5d823a8fb0%2FSteelers-defense-steps-up

[pczach]

Yep - link to video (could not embed) with Warren Sapp of all people explaining how Steelers switching to man coverage in the 2011 win at Heinz threw off the Pats passing game

http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-network-total-access%2F09000d5d823a8fb0%2FSteelers-defense-steps-up


Nice find.

[Dwinsgames]

It was the total lack of pressure on Brady that was the killer. Completed passes were just the symptom and the diseases the pass rushers didn't get there.

Now we can talk about the decision to drop the ILBs in coverage rather then send them hell for leather after Brady. But the plain and simple truth is that this team struggles to generate pass pressure against good offenses.

And we also need to acknowledge that the Patriots have specifically constructed an offense to beat zones and blitzes - specifically the 3-4 schemes that for most of the past 10-12 years have been the preferred system of the "elite" AFC playoff teams. The only time their offense gets in any real trouble is when your pass rushers are just good enough to get their on their own. That is how the Giants, Broncos, and Jets have beaten them and the Texans very nearly did as well.

The Steelers need more pass rushers. Plain and simple. An ancient Deebo, a still developing Dupree, a raw Hargrave, and Tuitt are not enough.


I could possibly agree with this premise had we not dropped our primary rushers into coverage so much , when you do that there is not hope or plan of pressure at least on those specific downs ... that is poor preparation and game planning as well as a lack of adjusting in real time to what is going on within the field of play ... only 2 people you can blame for that the Def Coordinator Butler and the head coach Tomlin for not over riding Butler when he seen adjustments where not being made to combat the attack of the opponent that was eating his team apart against the coverage's they where employing .

the Body of evidence is empirical as to how the Brady led Pats eat a soft zone up . vs this Steelers team alone ...

Including playoff games, Brady has won 85 percent of his games against Pittsburgh. By comparison, he’s won 76.5 percent of his 258 career starts, including the postseason. Of all the teams he’s played at least eight times, only the Bills have a worse winning percentage against Brady than the Steelers.

According to NFL Research, Brady had 19 touchdown passes and zero interceptions in six games against Tomlin’s teams.( prior to this latest afc championship game where he padded those stats ) Brady’s passer rating in those games is 127.5, his highest against any head coach he’s faced at least three times. His completion percentage against Tomlin’s defense is 71.2 percent and he has averaged 314.8 yards a game.

Brady has never failed to throw for at least two touchdown passes against Tomlin’s Steelers.

to win championships you have to be built to beat the teams you will face to get there , you have to scheme to beat them .. what we did Sunday was play right into their hands and that in itself is why they have beat us 85% of the time we have played in the Tom Brady era

[Mojouw]

http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/steelers-patriots-2017-afc-championship/2017/1/26/14382000/steelers-film-room-pass-coverage-gaffes-doom-steelers-against-patriots-analysis

Just to stir the pot more. This kinda demonstrates that on 2 of the TD plays, the coverage scheme was sound - their were at least 2 players to cover Hogan on each play. In each case, the players FAILED to properly execute their assignments.

Again, I am not arguing that I liked or agreed with the game plan. Nor do I sit in a darkened room fantasizing about Butler. However, I refuse to tear my hair out and rend my garments just because they got whupped and whupped good. This seasons marriage of Cover 2 (Tomlin) to Zone Blitz (Butler) and the move away from the Cover 3 of the Lebeau era was a large-scale success until the Pats shredded it. It also allowed younger players to get up to speed and make an impact. That is a massive step forward - remember when this team had to pay and over-pay about a half dozen guys to field a great defense? Don't have to do that if younger players on cheap contracts can play.

Hopefully as has been mentioned elsewhere, the Steelers can continue to upgrade the players and incorporate man coverages into their tool kit.

[Mojouw]

Evidence that the Steelers tried inside pressure and got burned for big plays - http://www.steelersdepot.com/2017/01/film-room-brady-burns-steelers-blitz/

Sacks not passes defensed beat Brady in 2011 - http://www.steelersdepot.com/2017/01/revisiting-steelers-2011-victory-patriots-facts-not-memory/

Sure man coverage would have helped, but look at my previous post and the linked article - they had the defenders to cover the players - the players screwed up.

Here is who I fire - Carnell Lake and Joey Porter. Take all three of the articles in my recent posts in this thread together and what I think we can see is a viable game-plan that was poorly executed when players did not trust their assignments and tried to make "big plays". There also seemed to multiple breakdowns in communication. That's a position coach issue - right?

But, hey, don't let film, detailed analysis by the good folks at Steelers Depot, and facts get in the way of a good ole head coach bashing session!

[Mojouw]

This morning's amazing set of articles over at Steelers Depot, allows us to hammer away at the point some more.

1. http://www.steelersdepot.com/2017/01/film-room-secondary-miscues-prime-cause-big-plays/ - shows that almost every big play in the AFCCG was the result of busted assignments and poor communication. Typically involving one or more of the rookie defenders and/or guys like Golden and Dangerfield.

2. http://www.steelersdepot.com/2017/01/analyzing-tom-bradys-release-time-compared-steelers-pass-rush/ - Steelers don't have the pass rushers to get home to Brady in time. They knew it. He knew it. Everyone knew it but us around here it seems.

Bottom line - they tried to play zone to maximize their coverage results because they needed to buy time to get the few pass rushers they sent home. Brady was simply too damn good and the defenders too mentally unsound. Almost like the GOAT is going to beat a young mediocre secondary every time?

Steelers need pass rushers. Plain and simple. That 2011 games was more Woodley, Harrison, and Kiesel creating pressure than man coverage stopping passes.

[polamalubeast]

It's going to be up to the steelers to find a solution in the off season to his problem for that it does not happen again.