https://www.dkpittsburghsports.com/2...e-linebackers/
On the OLB position in the Steelers defense:
The sacks saw a huge leap, but they didn’t come from the typical source. According to Arthur Moats, that’s probably not going to change anytime soon. In his third season as the team’s defensive coordinator, Keith Butler completely changed what is being asked of the team’s outside linebackers.
“Absolutely. It definitely has changed,” Moats told me Saturday at the Pittsburgh International Auto Show inside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. “I feel like my first year with (Dick) LeBeau, it was getting to that point where we were dropping more, but it wasn’t all the way to where it is now. Now, we are legit, like, we cover.”
On James Harrison:“I don’t want to say it’s over, but you do have to be more efficient,” he said. “When you rush 80 or 90 percent of the game, you can have bad rushes. You can have some rushes where that wasn’t particularly your best rush. But that’s OK because you know you’re going to get another three, four or five on that same drive. With us, you might only get two rushes in a series of eight plays. You had better make sure they are top-notch and hope it’s not play-action.
“We are hybrids. That’s what I like to call us. As a linebacker, your job just isn’t to rush the passer. Your job is to cover, as well. … When you talk about Von Miller, Khalil Mack, those guys aren’t linebackers. Those guys are d-ends. They rush 90 percent of the time. So when you see their sack numbers, that is a different comparison to what we’re doing. When you look at T.J., when you look at Bud and see how much they drop compared to the guys who are getting 10 sacks, it’s night and day.”
Moats has been the Charlie Batch of this defense. Decent backup OLB and class guy. Wish him well wherever he goes.
At the Super Bowl, where Harrison and the Patriots lost to Philadelphia, he told DKPittsburghSports.com he understood some of his former teammates lashing out at him because they were upset.
Moats said that was part of their conversation.
“I had no issue with you going to New England. You were getting a job, cool. It was just the way you went about doing it. That was my biggest thing,” Moats said of what he told Harrison. “A lot of guys, that was their issue. And as he said to (you), guys were hurt. That’s a guy you viewed as a big brother in the locker room, somebody like that. For you to go through the whole season on this tirade and when you get released, we’re the bad guys, we’re the ones who caused this, that wasn’t cool. That’s what a lot of guys had issues with.”
But it’s all good now considered what transpired, at least for Moats. As he told me, seeing Harrison win a Super Bowl with the Patriots would have only rubbed salt in the wound. Given that didn’t happen, well …
“For me, we were able to hash our issues out and since he lost the Super Bowl, no harm, no foul,” Moats said with a laugh. “We’re all good.”