When the Steelers decided to move on from longtime defensive coordinator Dick Lebeau, and promoted Keith Butler much of Steelers nation wondered how this defense may change.
We at Steel City Blitz heard rumors that there would be changes in the way the Steelers corners played. Last season I held the belief all through the draft process that Darqueze Dennard was a terrible scheme fit being a bump and run man corner.
This year though, word was that Keith Butler wanted his corners to play more aggressively near the line of scrimmage.
After the draft though, it appears as though that’s not true. It looks like Butler’s philosophy will remain a lot like Lebeau’s in a lot of ways, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
When the Steelers’ scheme was at it’s best, they leaned on star power at the linebacker position and valued corner backs that excelled in zone coverage and tackled well enough to not give up big plays.
Steelers fans have often loudly complained about Lebeau’s “tackle the catch” mantra, and the fact that his corners regularly lined up 10 yards off the line.
If you’re in that crowd, I’d say continue to be angry. Over the weekend the Steelers drafted the best zone corner in the draft in Senquez Golson, and possibly the best tackling corner in the draft Doran Grant.
I think that much will be the same as far as the pass rush being the most important part of the team’s defense.
There are a couple things that I think could differentiate from Lebeau’s teams in a good way though.
The first big one is ball skills.
Other than Troy Polamalu, the Steelers’ secondary over the past decade has had average ball skills at best. I’m saying that as a whole; we all know that Ike Taylor’s were terrible.
Golson is a guy I’m really excited to see on the field. While he is a zone guy that’s a good tackler, he doesn’t have the size and length that Lebeau coveted.
Instead, Golson will need to win with technique and his good instincts. Grant is also a highly instinctual corner as well, although he seems to be a little more aggressive and not the interception machine that Golson was in school.
While I think the chances of sticking with the team are very slim, I liked the pick of Gerod Holliman in the 7th round.
Holliman is 100% a ball hawking center field safety and I would say is probably a great complement to Shamarko Thomas… Which is great, but the problem is that he is so bad in run support. He had 44 tackles last year, and 20 missed or broken tackles.
Even if he doesn’t catch on, it shows that Keith Butler wants to infuse more game-changers into the defense.
It’s not a bad idea. A guy like Ike Taylor needed to completely shut down a receiver to be considered a vital part to the defense.
Senquez Golson isn’t going to lock down receivers, because of his size. He’s going to give up some balls to bigger receivers. Where he can become important though is making that one pick in the red-zone to completely turn a game around. If he gets out-muscled here or there, but comes up with 6+ picks a year, he’ll be well worth a 2nd round pick.
This defense isn’t going to shut people out, but if they give Big Ben and company short fields and more chances to score, they don’t need to be completely dominant.
I’m excited to see these guys in camp. If the young defense has some success against Ben and his offense they’ll be battle tested by the time the season starts in Foxborough.
