It sux but definitely not a Shazier loss.
It sux but definitely not a Shazier loss.
Cool fact: Spillane’s grandfather won the 1953 Heisman. He then played for the Steelers in 1954 as their first round pick and made the Pro Bowl. Only season he played in the NFL.
With King Henry and career rejuvenated Tannehill on deck as well. That sucks hard.
We can only hope Spillane isn't a complete stiff. He did pretty good today in absense of Bush.
Well, if we can slow Henry I think we can beat the Titans, Henry has over 250yds today.
Any reports of what Hilton's shoulder injury was like? Layne had to come in and Nelson play in the slot.
Next week will be a good measuring stick. Remember they Titans defense isn't great they gave up 36 points to Houston today. Losing Bush is going to hurt in stopping Henry. The key to Henry is bottling him up early. If he gets in open space you're screwed.
I don't see them winning on the road next week.
Titans OT Taylor Lewan may have a torn ACL too. Sucks for him.
I don’t know if this is anything that anyone considered but it will definitely help with the loss of Bush and maybe make the loss a little less of an impact that we think it will be...Minkah is still back there and he’s still back there making sure people are in the right spots. So whether it’s Spillane, a free agent, next man up, whoever, they are most likely at the very least set up to be in the right place...then they just have to make the play. I can’t help but think that this was the case with Spillane yesterday.
Man that bites and, after watching it looked serious.
I see this as a opportunity for a backup to step up. This defense has been built with depth and versatility in mind. Until there is a reason to panic, let's trust the process. Sucks for Bush but he'll be back and probably be even better.
To me, it all comes down to what UG3 brings to the table. I took a look at Bush and UG3's combine/pro day #'s side by side. UG3 is slower and less explosive by a tenth here and tenth there across the board. But he does have an overall athletic profile that isn't awful.
This scouting report is not all that bad: https://steelersdepot.com/2019/02/20...s-gilbert-iii/
But either he didn't get a hat on game-days because Allen and Spillane are better special teams players and the Steelers were rolling the dice on LB depth OR UG3 has been passed on the depth chart by a converted safety (which might not be that big of knock) and a journeyman special teamer type.
I guess I am at a 6 with the willingness to go to a 3 immediately on seeing defensive breakdowns.
I also wonder if Sean Davis has a role to play? I am not going to argue he is the total solution or without problems to his game, but he has shown that he can be sturdy enough to play around the LOS. Could he be active as a "dimebacker" or whatever role they keep trying to find people for and never doing...
Every team is going to have injury attrition. I'm just glad it's not Ben, TJ, Cam, or Bud.
A tenth here or there on field isn’t going to make a difference in my opinion. Straight speed and on-field speed are way different. Look at Hines Ward. He was one of the slower WRs ever to wear a Steelers uniform and he played fast at times.
I think an argument could be made that Watt, Fitzpatrick, Dupree, Tuitt, Heyward, Nelson could all be a more critical loss than Bush.
I don’t think it’s the end of the world, but I definitely agree that it’s going to depend a lot on how they replace him.
Agreed. It is how the cascade from Bush impacts other players. If the Bush replacement is not as strong in the run game, then Edmunds has to come down into the box more often to help clean that up. That means MF has to almost always be the deep safety. Gets harder to run things like what lead to the pick 6 against the Browns. If the Bush replacement struggles to disengage with blockers and fill gaps; maybe what Heyward, Tuitt, and Alualu are asked to do changes to more occupy blockers than create havoc behind the LOS.
I don't mean to be all doom and gloom. Nor am I arguing that Bush is irreplaceable. But I can't shake what happened in 2017. The defense literally fell apart. I also remember when Aaron Smith used to get hurt. He wasn't the splashiest player on that era of defense. Nor did he put up the best stats. But every single time he got hurt, the defense was noticeably worse at everything. I feel like Bush and Edmunds are asked to do roles in the LB and DB levels of the defense that allow everything else that does get stats and highlights to happen. That could also not be true. I am not the strongest analyst of schemes and individual assignments. Just a feeling I have.
We will lose some games as we are going to play some really good teams such as the Titans and Bills. but that doesn’t mean that our defense and season are down the drain because of Bush.
if our defense is as only good as one player on the team then it wasn’t a good defense to begin with
He's third on the team in solo tackles with 13, only one behind Edmunds (14) and five behind Hilton (18).
That's a big hole to fill.
I’m almost as concerned about who will have the “green dot”. For a second year player he was doing a great job. Fortunately there are a lot of smart players on the “D”.
Depends really. Some really good Steeler defenses dropped off a lot when we lost Troy or Aaron Smith. However, I don't think Bush was as crucial of a cog as those 2 guys (Troy was well, Troy. And in the 3-4 IMO a solid D-line is probably the most important pieces). But the loss definitely does hurt.
A trade is possible...
They've certainly tried with Wilcox, Vannett, Bostic, Barron, Burnett. I realize some of those were FA signings. But all of those guys were only every supposed to be in Pittsburgh for a season. I suspect they don't go that route now for the reasons of draft pick cost (surely someone will trump their offer of a low 6 or 7 for a guys that can still play in the NFL) and how many weeks until that player can come in and be a highly integrated piece? Certainly 2-3 at least. With no bye week, they may feel that the guys who are currently on the roster are better in aggregate than the outsider with the "moving train" learning curve.