Originally Posted by
Mojouw
You guys are a broken record. Its getting hilarious the level of obsession this is reaching.
Under Tomlin-Lebeau the Steelers rarely had the personnel to play man coverage. There was a brief stretch where Harrison and Woodley supplied enough pass rush that they could pull someone else into coverage. Plus man coverage went against what Lebeau philosophically believed about defensive football. Whether that philosophy was right, wrong, outdated, or whatever is another debate entirely.
Tomlin-Butler is bringing in a totally different "flavor" of the 3-4 that appears to want to incorporate more man coverage and other non-Lebeau elements. Burns, Sutton, Shazier, Hargrave, Tuitt, Davis, Golson, Dupree, Feeney, etc are all player types that would not have been drafted under the previous defensive model. But rebuilds and renovations take time.
Multiple discussions with Butler in the past month have documented that he knew that match-up zone was not the most ideal plan against the Pats. However, when you are (unexpectedly) in the AFCCG with a young and inexperienced defense, that was not felt to be the time to completely change the defense. We can now argue that this was a bad strategic decision, but it wasn't made because the coaching staff are a bunch of drooling morons either. And comments about building in more man coverages are not some post-facto CYA statement either.
In 2017 - IF everyone stays healthy. IF Watt and Dupree can get pressure on their own outside of overloads and fancy blitzes. IF the young DBs all step up. THEN the Steelers finally have the horses on defense to play the man coverage pass rush heavy style that everyone from Tomlin, to Butler, to the fans wants to see.
Why does that simple fact get so complicated and bent out of shape around here? You can only do so much on defense when you are missing key pieces or those pieces have like 14 games of NFL experience. Man focused coverages are still going to be difficult for this team and potentially prone to breakdown because they really don't have an ideal dime defender. Golden, Dangerfield, Gay have all struggled in that role. The cast-off from TEnnessee is no great prize either.
The two most man coverage focused teams of the past handful of years, the Seahawks and the Broncos were able to do that because they had 2 things - 3-5 all world DBs, and a phenomenal pass rush. Since about 2009 or so, the Steelers can not say the same thing.