Reasons for Leaky Pass Coverage

[3rdandlong]

The defensive secondary may as well not exist for me when I'm watching the game. You only see it when the quarterback has thrown the ball, so it's hard for me to yell at players or intelligently critique them because I can't see what happened leading up to a long pass. It seemed like Flacco had receivers wide open all day. Do you think this was indicative of a poor secondary or poor gameplanning by Lebeau? I do know that the Steelers are not getting the kind of pressure on the quarterback like they did in the 2008 season, so that obviously can't help the secondary. Would like to know everyone's opinion.

[SteeleReign]

Originally Posted by 3rdandlong

The defensive secondary may as well not exist for me when I'm watching the game. You only see it when the quarterback has thrown the ball, so it's hard for me to yell at players or intelligently critique them because I can't see what happened leading up to a long pass. It seemed like Flacco had receivers wide open all day. Do you think this was indicative of a poor secondary or poor gameplanning by Lebeau? I do know that the Steelers are not getting the kind of pressure on the quarterback like they did in the 2008 season, so that obviously can't help the secondary. Would like to know everyone's opinion.

Not sure I agree with you - I think we are getting adequate to good pressure on the QB. Our DBs aren't shut-down guys so we need quick pressure on the QB. The defensive philosophy seems to be a "bend but don't break" mindset.

Did you notice that most of their open receivers were across the middle or quick out routes? I've got no problem with that. The defense really played a good game, they provided all the stops that should have mattered...two turnovers in Raven's territory...and a 4-down stop in the red zone...our offense just didn't do enough to supply the "W"

[SCMom]

Originally Posted by 3rdandlong

The defensive secondary may as well not exist for me when I'm watching the game. You only see it when the quarterback has thrown the ball, so it's hard for me to yell at players or intelligently critique them because I can't see what happened leading up to a long pass. It seemed like Flacco had receivers wide open all day. Do you think this was indicative of a poor secondary or poor gameplanning by Lebeau? I do know that the Steelers are not getting the kind of pressure on the quarterback like they did in the 2008 season, so that obviously can't help the secondary. Would like to know everyone's opinion.

I think it was a little of both. Though, I will say, they did an ok job most of the game of not allowing too many points. That last TD was hard to take, and was very poor playcalling, but the D was continuously putting the O in a good position to make something happen. With Ben back I suspect that there won't be too many more games the Steelers lose when they're able to hold the opponent to 17 points.

[PhantomJB93]

Ike Taylor looked horrible the whole game, aside from that RARE, RARE int of his. He may not get burned or give up a lot of YAC but it seemed like literally EVERY TIME a ball was thrown his way, the receiver was wide open and made the catch.

[stb_steeler]

Originally Posted by PhantomJB93

Ike Taylor looked horrible the whole game, aside from that RARE, RARE int of his. He may not get burned or give up a lot of YAC but it seemed like literally EVERY TIME a ball was thrown his way, the receiver was wide open and made the catch.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves, stone hands Taylor had a pick today..

[3rdandlong]

Originally Posted by SteeleReign

Not sure I agree with you - I think we are getting adequate to good pressure on the QB. Our DBs aren't shut-down guys so we need quick pressure on the QB. The defensive philosophy seems to be a "bend but don't break" mindset.

Did you notice that most of their open receivers were across the middle or quick out routes? I've got no problem with that. The defense really played a good game, they provided all the stops that should have mattered...two turnovers in Raven's territory...and a 4-down stop in the red zone...our offense just didn't do enough to supply the "W"

I'm definitely spoiled when it comes to what I expect the defense to do, but I just felt like Flacco had way too much time to sit back. Our "bend but don't break" approach works well most of the game until the offense goes into a 2 minute drill. In 2008 I felt so confident that most offenses wouldn't even be able to muster a critical field goal because Harrison was unblockable. Now it seems like he's not getting to the quarterback the way he did in 2008 and that is hurting us some bit.

[cloppbeast]

I think if you only give up 17 points you should always win. This one should be put on the defense.

[SCMom]

Originally Posted by cloppbeast

I think if you only give up 17 points you should always win. This one should be put on the defense.

Well...wouldn't that be on the offense then? If a defense only allows 17 points, and that means you should be winning, doesn't that mean the offense should be scoring more than 17 points? How would the offense not scoring enough be on the defense?

[SteelKnight]

Our pass defense absolutely sucks.

The only good thing about it is Troy. When Troy can make plays, he allows us to be bend but don't break so somehow we manage to stop them before they actually score.

Our pass defense before the game was 17th and it is 19th now. It's really bad. There is a 2/3 chance of completing a pass (10th worst). We've allowed 49 1st downs in 4 games via pass (tied for 6th worst). Of the teams ranked worse than us in this catagory, all except two had more pass attempts against them except Jax, Cle and NYJ.

We were exposed and now teams know the formula to beat us.
1. Be patient and keep throwing the sort out routes to the sidelines. Since the defenders stay 10-15 yards away, complete them for 8-11 yards. Do it quickly.
2. The Steelers will feel frustrated that they are not able to get any pressure on you so at this poit they will start sending either Safety or corner blitzes. It is especially helpful if you can get them to send Troy.
3.Now beat them by attacking the numerous holes in their Swiss cheese pass defense.

Essentially we run some kind of prevent zone that only looks special if there is a dominant pass rush and teams refuse to settle for short out routes. Let's fix things before NO and NE.

Hopefully this will force us to actually address the issues.

[SteelKnight]

Originally Posted by SCMom

Well...wouldn't that be on the offense then? If a defense only allows 17 points, and that means you should be winning, doesn't that mean the offense should be scoring more than 17 points? How would the offense not scoring enough be on the defense?

C'mon SC, he clearly meant offense. This happens to all of us. lol It is like a brain typo.

I say the leaky pass defense was exposed. Let's not make excuses.

The other thing is great units step up at the right time at big moments. The Ravens D could have had that attitude too saying they held us to 14 points so there was no need to stop us at the end of the game. They had no such excuse. They had a chance to step up big and they came through by stopping us (forcing the punt).

Same at the end of the game,.. Lewis got his INT. They didn't play a leaky pass defense and allow us to complete pases at will where the only thing slowing us down was which open receiver to throw to.

The Ravens offense had fumbled and thrown an INT yet the defense kept coming through.

The defense had a chance to step up and force a 4 and out and protect our lead and they failed.

That being said, the offense should have had the guts to try to get a first down to end the game.

The bottom line is in this defensive battle, their defense stepped up twice at the end...ours only once. The offense would not have been so backed up if the defense did not allow so much field position in the first place.