The defense's two worst outings of 2014 have come against teams using hurry-up no-huddle
Scouting the Steelers’ defense isn’t all that complicated of a proposition from strong safety Troy Polamalu’s perspective in the secondary.
“What we’ve shown is if you want to huddle and play against us we’ll do fine, but this no-huddle (offense) has given us some problems,” Polamalu said. “We have to do something to rectify that. Coach (Dick) LeBeau is the genius of all defensive coordinators, and he’ll figure it out.”
The Eagles’ no-huddle approach confounded the Steelers’ defense throughout a 31-21 preseason loss on Aug. 21 in Philadelphia. And the Browns were able to erase a 27-3 halftime deficit on their first four second-half possessions in Sunday’s regular season opener by switching to the no-huddle offense.
The Steelers managed stops on Cleveland’s final two possessions, the last of which lost 11 yards in three snaps, and they were ultimately able to escape with a 30-27 victory.
“The problems attending (to) no-huddle are the same,” LeBeau maintained. “They’re never going to change. They’re certainly not unsolvable. We have to do a better job keeping our poise more than anything, and that’s what we’re working on. We’ll definitely be better on that.”
Coach Mike Tomlin cited a lack of defensive communication as a factor in Cleveland’s second-half success on offense.
“Communication is integral to execution and I thought we could have communicated better,” Tomlin said.
“It was a big issue,” LeBeau agreed. “We became a little bit rattled, and we can’t allow that to happen, and we’re working on that. To me that was the biggest issue. We didn’t give ourselves a chance and it showed.
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