When the Pittsburgh Steelers receive the New England Patriots on Sunday (from 10.25 pm at the RedZone conference on DAZN), then nothing less than the home advantage in the playoffs is at stake. In the past few years, Pittsburgh looked rather bad against Tom Brady – so what do the Steelers have to do differently? SPOX shows the defensive keys.
In the past few years, the situation was usually clear. Since 2013, it has claimed four defeats for the Steelers against the patriots in four games, and that was sometimes very clear: 31:55,21:28,16:27 and – perhaps the most one-sided game – a 17:36 in last season’s AFC championship game.
For weeks now, both teams have been on a collision course for many experts in the AFC’s title game: The Steelers and the Patriots are the favourites for the two top seeds of the conference, Pittsburgh are heading for a slightly better starting position after their victory over Baltimore and New England’s surprising bankruptcy in Miami on Monday evening with a slightly better starting position in the last three rounds of the game.
Nevertheless, the Pats still have their destiny in their own hands: Three victories, and the AFC’s way to the Super Bowl is once again through Foxboro – the direct comparison would make it possible in this scenario. That’s what makes the duel between the two AFC heavyweights so significant on Sunday: whoever wins holds all the trumps for the number 1 seed in their hands.
And so a simple question arises for the Steelers: What lessons should one draw from past games and especially the Championship Game against the Pats? How does Pittsburgh have to adjust its coverage – and are the Steelers able to do so? SPOX analyses Pittsburgh’s problems with New England before the crash on Sunday.
It’s probably the Steelers’ biggest, best known problem: Pittsburgh relies heavily on Zone Coverage and was particularly stubborn in the Championship game against the Patriots here. The Steelers played their soft zone coverage concepts over and over again – and Brady took them apart at will.
At first, there were no exotic or particularly difficult route combinations, which were simply not necessary. Instead, a pattern was recognized early in the game: The patriots preferred Empty Formations, with five receivers on or just behind the Line of Scrimmage. Most of the time, there were three Routes in different variations and divisions: In-breaking Routes, Comeback-Routes and Go-Routes.
The idea is simple in theory – and it looked just as simple on the pitch. Comeback-Routes were often completely open against the very soft coverage, i. e. with low positioned cornerbacks and safeties. The coordinated in-breaking routes, i. e. the running paths that lead to the ball, overloaded individual zones by targeting a zone defender on two levels in front of and behind them. The go-routes pulled the coverage apart and occupied the safeties.
Pittsburgh must not allow this passivity to happen. However, the problem is their own secondary: since Joe Haden’s retirement, Pittsburgh has found it very difficult to implement more aggressive man concepts. Against the patriots, however, they will need it, at least in a man-zone mix and with more press coverage. Rookie-cornerback Cameron Sutton, who seems to have ousted Coty Sensabaugh, will be in focus against the Pats if Haden can’t play.
Above all, however, there is the question: Are the Steelers even willing to change their coverage approach against New England?
Over and over again, it has been seen in past games against the patriots: Pittsburgh makes mistakes in coverage, especially when it comes to handing over attacks within the zone responsibilities. On the one hand, it is another argument for more man-concepts, on the other hand, it may also be a mental problem.
The Steelers recently had several coverage errors against the packers, for example, which were apparently attributable to carelessness rather than scheme problems. There was one of them, at least that’s how it works on tape, also in the Championship Game: At the first touchdown of the game the safeties obviously didn’t agree on what kind of coverage to play and so Chris Hogan was completely uncovered in the end zone.
A task that Pittsburgh’s Defense under guarantee is New England’s versatility, and over the past few years, no team has been better at presenting a particular formation to a Defense than switching everything before the snap and performing the snap in seconds. Flexible players, especially in the backfield, make this possible.
Another example from the Championship game, and there are countless illustrations of this Patriots quality: New England comes in an I formation with a narrow formation from the Huddle, much points to a run. Brady recognizes the coverage by means of pre-snap-motion and makes an adjustment – suddenly the patriots are in a 5 receiver spread formation, so to some extent the crass opposite!
The Steelers have to be prepared for these things, and the failure of linebacker Ryan Shazier with his range will hurt particularly badly.
The Patriots are one of the most efficient teams in first-down rushing-yards, 4.7 yards per run in first-down runs are the fifth-best value in the league. Only Kansas City, Dallas, Philly and the Saints are better here. New England stands at a solid 4.2 yards per run overall and is quite capable and willing to build the game plan around the run game when the matchups dictate that.
But that’s not all: New England, which Pittsburgh had to fight with already in January, sometimes runs from completely obvious run formations without hiding anything. The key to this is what the patriots make of these formations in passport play: on the one hand in the Play Action Game, but on the other hand also in terms of passports to players from the backfield.
This is where fullback plays a decisive role – a phrase that is no longer heard too often in NFL-Offenses 2017. James Develin has played 278 offense snaps on the account, representing 30.1 percent of the total offense snaps.
Only San Franciscos Kyle Juszczyk (287 offense snaps, 31.8 percent) outdoes him in both categories: In the offense of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, the fullback has an unusually prominent role to play. Develin is a very good blocker, but the Pats are – as already mentioned at the previous point – quite willing to set it up as an outside-receiver via pre-snap motion.
As a result, the patriots play more than just an above-average number of 2-back sets, but they can make anything out of it: power runs, passes for running back and passes for full back. Pittsburgh got caught on the wrong foot by Fullback-Motions in the last duel and was not prepared for coverage.
Such missteps are taboo against the Patriots, and Pittsburgh’s defensive front is without question strong enough on paper to withstand at least in the run without aggressive lightning packages. But the past few weeks have shown a dangerous trend, with the Steelers front crumbling. Without Shazier, the speed element is missing to close larger gaps and because the problems in the secondary have increased recently, the pressure on the front became too great. If the patriots can run the ball, Pittsburgh will have no chance defensively.
In the last three games against the Patriots, Pittsburgh missed out on Le’ Veon Bell (21-28), Ben Roethlisberger (16-27) and finally Bell (17-36) for much of the past Championship game. This weakening and thus this excuse does not exist on Sunday: The Steelers are playing aggressively with a full band, JuJu Smith-Schuster has served his suspension – just like New England’s Rob Gronkowski – and is also back.
A big question from the viewpoint of the Steelers Open will be whether Pittsburgh will get its run game rolling. Pittsburgh stands with 3.7 yards per run in the absolute table cellar, even though they are exactly in the midfield with 26.9 runs per game. The very well manned line is usually not the problem, but Le’ Veon Bell as a runner is not on his usual constant, dominant level.
But now it’s against a Patriots Run Defense, which has fallen back into bad patterns against Miami. No team will allow more yards per run for the season than New England (5.0), the team’s big weaknesses are in the front and against Miami they saw it once again. Pittsburgh’s offensive line is much stronger than that of the Dolphins and if the patriots don’t manage to put pressure on Roethlisberger and keep the Gaps in the run-defense, the Steelers-Offense should be able to score points.
Then it will be up to the Defense to prevent a shootout against Brady. In a way, the Steelers have several blueprints of their own. Now they must show that they can draw the right conclusions. This will not be an easy task – but in Foxboro in January it would be much more difficult.