As you can probably tell, I’m a big believer to win football games….
You have to be able to run the ball, and stop the run
I am too.
With that said though, I think the previous coaching staff had some major issues with how they used the players they had. These coaches seem to be more flexible in their thinking, getting back to the old 3-4 D where a big role for the Dline is keeping the ILBs clean to make plays. Too often those ILBs had to make plays downfield, and I think it was often a schematic flaw. With the addition of S. Joseph-Day and another year of experience from Harmon and Black, plus a likely move of Benton from NT duty on running plays, I think you'll see a much better result.
In addition, I see the D-backfield as much improved this year. The Steelers D was wildly inconsistent last year, and got gouged big time almost every game on 3rd and long (i.e. 7 yards or more, often much more). So many times our pass-rush on 3rd down disasters needed an extra half a second to disrupt the play, but our D-backfield was letting folks run wide open in the middle of the field. I think with JPJ, Dean, and the other guys, we will use man & press more than ever, resulting in more sacks, more pressures, more TOs and a better 3rd down stop rate. Oh yeah, and all that means less points against, too.
I don't particularly like our ILBs, but we really didn't have a meaningful chance to address that in this draft. By the time we got to 3rd round picks, those that could make an impact this year were gone. Like the run on TEs, I don't think we anticipated the draft to fall as it did. As a short-term answer, I would dump Harrison and get Elandon Roberts back. He played for Patrick Graham and is still a physical, tone-setting run stuffer. 10-15 snaps a game on obvious run downs would be a big help.
Our D will be much better this year with the change in staff. We have plenty of talent, but our scheme got way old and way predictable.
