There has to be a reason the Pittsburgh Steelers decided to keep second-year cornerback Senquez Golson from the season-ending Injured Reserve list right? If you recall, Golson, the former second round pick in 2015, missed all of last season with a shoulder injury and then just three practices into this year suffered the dreaded ‘Lisfranc’ injury to his foot.
What was once thought to be a potentially long-term injury is now thought to be much less than that. Golson could be back in four weeks. This article assumes that he will be and raises the question of how Golson’s availability may alter what the Steelers do in nickel and especially dime package situations.
When the Steelers go with their ‘dime’ defensive package, it isn’t as traditional as some other teams will deploy. Going back to last season, the Steelers like to use safety Rob Golden as a linebacker and he’s played pretty well in this role. Defensive Coordinator Keith Butler on Sunday continued with this.
Sean Davis and Mike Mitchell manned the deep safety positions while Artie Burns and Ross Cockrell covered the boundaries. William Gay slid into cover the slot where, quite frankly, most of us would like to see him play more often. Until Butler and Mike Tomlin are more comfortable with whomever replacing him, Gay will stay on the boundary.
In the photo below you’ll see the Steelers in their nickel defense on first down.
At the bottom of the screen is Cockrell. At the top is Burns. In the slot is William Gay while Davis and Mitchell are your two-deep safeties. Ryan Shazier and Lawrence Timmons are in at linebacker.
In the second photo here, you’ll see the dime I was talking about above deployed by Butler on 3rd and 1.
Everything is the same as it was in the nickel two downs previous to this with the one big exception being that Rob Golden has come in to replace Timmons.
So what happens if Golson is healthy and ready to play? Who does he replace if anyone at all? What the Steelers like about Golson is his ability to cover guys and his rather exceptional ball skills as well. He’s a natural athlete who could have pursued a baseball career had he chosen to do so. The problem facing Golson getting on the field is the fact that both Tomlin and Butler like Rob Golden and William Gay being in the middle of the field.
They feel those two players do an excellent job of relaying information to the younger guys and guys on the outside. That would mean either Cockrell, Burns or Davis coming off and I don’t see that happening.
The possibility exists that when Golson returns he is nothing more than a special teams’ player for the remainder of the year and sees the field on defense sparingly. The old saying is that you don’t fix what ain’t broken and I don’t think the Steelers are in any hurry to change up their dime look which so far has done a good job.
Photo courtesy pennlive.com
