Back in 2007, little-known Pittsburgh Steelers’ free agent safety Anthony Smith guaranteed a victory ahead of the team’s game against 12-0 New England. That of course was the Tom Brady-led team that went unbeaten before losing in the Super Bowl to the New York Giants. Smith’s words came back to haunt him as Brady picked on him for big plays in the Steelers’ 34-13 loss. Prior to last season, another free agent safety named Juan Thornhill stated that the Steelers’ defense could be “historic.” That didn’t go well either.
With Mike Tomlin and Teryl Austin now off to other things, Patrick Graham has been tasked with getting the Steelers’ defense back on track. Graham’s defense does not have to be the ‘Steel Curtain’ or another version of ‘Blitzburgh’ either. It just needs to be good so let’s talk about what being ‘good’ means.
Communication
If I had a dime for every time we heard about “communication issues” related to this defense I would have more dimes than the US Treasury. There will always be moments where two guys aren’t on the same page. That’s life and that’s football. It is the job of the offensive coordinator after all to make the defense confused and that occurred way too often over the last decade.
Graham does not have to be perfect with this but his unit has to be a helluva lot better and that’s putting it mildly. While the majority of communication issues were on the back end, that doesn’t excuse the linebackers and defensive line. If the linebackers aren’t getting the linemen in position and if they themselves aren’t in position then that leads to gaps in the run defense. I don’t need to tell you how inconsistent that has been in recent years.
Creativity
One of the hallmarks of Dick LeBeau’s defenses was his ability to create things that very few had seen previously. This is always easier when you have players like Troy Polamalu or James Farrior. Being creative isn’t just about how athletic a player is but its also about the mental aspect too. Being able to use guys in different ways each week was great but only if everyone was on the same page.
We’ve heard for the last couple of seasons that T.J. Watt was going to be moved around the formation more often in an effort to help him get loose. That never materialized yet here are once again hearing that this may be a ‘thing’ under Graham. Watt admitted he had been a bit stubborn about moving around and frankly, he needs to get past that. Being creative often requires sacrifice. Just ask Ryan Clark whose willingness to just do his job allowed Polamalu to do what he did.
Situational Football
The Steelers ranked 26th in the NFL last season in third down conversion percentage. They gave up first downs over 43% of the time. The Super Bowl Champion Seahawks led the NFL giving up first downs just under 33% of the time for perspective. All too often Tomlin and Austin relied on pressure to get off the field on third down. The problem of course was that when the pressure wasn’t there, the coverage wasn’t good enough on the back end.
While it’s still early, we’ve already seen that Graham prefers to use two deep safeties. This is vastly different than what we saw in recent seasons where the Steelers routinely deployed a single-high safety. What this change suggests is that Graham will look to cover more rather than relying on consistent pressure. Keep in mind that using a two-safety look doesn’t mean that Graham can’t be creative. He does come from the Bill Belichick tree and few defensive-minded coaches have been as creative and ‘football smart’ as Belichick.
The Patrick Graham defense doesn’t have to be historic and it doesn’t even have to be great. It just has to be competent and good. Players need to know their roles and they have to do their jobs so that other players can do theirs. Easier said than done but it probably shouldn’t be.
