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Safety position

M

mdk2

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I think our safeties are by far the weakest position on the team. I'm not sure Shamarko is starter material, he can play up near the line of scrimmage but looks lost more often than not when playing in coverage. The fact that Will Allen has always seen the snaps when Troy was out, says a lot IMO. Hopefully Mike Mitchell can get healthy, he's not great but he might be the best we have now.

I am expecting to see Will Allen and Mitchell in the secondary the majority of the time through out the season if they are healthy and I think this is probably for the best.

Safety is a must in the next draft.
 
My guess is that Allen will end up starting most of the games this year.
 
Yes the safety play on this team is definitely a low point and Mitchell has been a terrible signing so far and Shamarko seems to always be out of position in coverage. Hope we scour the veteran cuts to see if we can get an upgrade for Mitchell and just cut his *** outright. Mitchell has not made a single significant play as a steelers since he was signed.
Would we be able to grab Jennings who was just cut in Chicago and convert him to a safey? If anything Jennings would be a more legit starter than Blake on the right side...
 
I think we have some potential safety's on this team already, starting with Spence and Doran Grant. I have seen both do a decent job in the middle of the field. Thomas tackles like Gay used to, all arms and locomotion..no direction or foresight.
 
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Can't count on Mitchell at all right now. He was "hurt" all of last year and has been "hurt" for most of the OTA's and camp. Your safeties need to be on the field practicing and playing so they can gel. They need to know where the other will be and how they play the game. I am not sure what his issue is this year but if his injuries have kept him out for 6 to 8 weeks already, I have no faith he will be of much benefit during the season. With that said, he is and was one of the keys coming into this year. We needed him to be the No. 1 safety with Shamarko finally getting some starting time.
 
I wonder if there will be a safety on the FA wire soon that catches the Steelers' attention...a vet similiar to Will Allen who can be plugged in there, either full-time or in spot duty. Not only are Mitchell & Thomas question marks on the field and durability-wise, but there is very little depth behind them. Adding a single, serviceable safety would do wonders for that group, a la adding Boykin to the CB's.
 
I think they should have started working with Howard jones last year. He is identical to cam chandler at the shithawks. Linebacker in college, 6-3 230, they list him bigger than he is, he had great speed and a nose for the ball. 75 percent of the receivers in this leuage are 6-0 and better. We have no one on this roaster that can cover a tight end. Thomas isn't the answer at strong, he might be a better free safety where he run in straight line to the ball, like Chris hope. I would keep the cowher system put jones in troys old spot try Thomas at free.... That would give us size and pop.
 
Heck I'd try Spence, H Jones, Garvin whoever. The result just would be another 3 safeties in the mix that are too slow and don't know the angles of the position. Allen is the best S on our roster right now, sad
 
I don't have an answer, but I hope one is found soon. I don't think the "it's just preseason" excuse is it. I think what we are seeing is near what we are getting. Lets hope a veterain "cut" becomes available.



Salute the nation
 
I still think they should have found a way to try Ike at safety. Never know he could have turned into another Woodson....
 
I wouldn't be surprised if they tried Cortez at FS. In the Cover 2 it doesn't matter which player is FS and SS but in our Base 3-4 it does. Cortez may not work out at CB thus we will have to go with Boykin/Blake on that side. Thomas can go back to the slot where he actually looked good in college and his rookie year. Mitchell is no Ryan Clark and cannot hold up to the pounding/responsibility of coming up at full speed and hitting. IMO, he should be the SS in our base D. He mostly played SS so far in his career and it would limit his weakness (at least in our base D). I just don't know if our DBs have the "brights" to play in a read-react type of defense. They are all mostly man-coverage kinda players, IMO. Square peg, meet round hole.

I don't expect us to run w the cover 2 nearly as much as we have seen it through the preseason though...and that may be good. Having it in our sub-package does give another team trying to game-plan against us a few more looks but so far I bet they secretly hope we run the cover 2 based on our inability to look good doing it.
 
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