Originally Posted by
Craic
The question, then, is do other teams have the same problems? Is this a league-wide issue spawned by rule changes and offensive scheming changes? Here's a telling stat. Of the fifteen QBs with the most 4th Quarter comeback in NFL history, almost half of them are active today. Matthew Stafford, Eli Manning, and Matt Ryan all have 26. Drew Brees has 28, Ben R. has 29, Tom Brady has 34, and Peyton Manning leads everyone with 43 (played through 2016). We can break this down another way as well. Matt Ryan led 4th quarter comebacks in almost 1 out of every five games he played, and Romo and Stafford are not that far behind him. The QBs with game winning drives starts with Ryan at almost 28 percent of career games ending with game winning drives. Ben R. is second with 22.1 percent and Stafford is just behind with 22 percent. Manning and Brady are 21.5 and 21.7 percent, respectively. When you look at the career QB passer ratings, the top 10 of 11 QBs on the list are active or retired during our current DB problem streak. And, that list extends to 19 of the top 23 QBs.
So, I'd argue the league has unsolved problems on the defensive side of the ball right now. Only a few teams have been able to manage it. Seattle could because they were in a very unique situation with a coach that knew college players extremely well. The Pats,* to this day, are most-likely still cheating as is their wont. The Jags were good for one year on defense.
Now, does that mean the Steelers coaches and players are excused for the defensive performances? No. Not that they were terrible, but they seem to always have breakdowns at the worst time. Interesting, the defense really took a turn for the worst, however, when Timmons was let go (age, contract) and Shazier was injured.