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Talking DB's Is it scheme or talent?

C

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Over the last twelve games, the Steelers have given up 28 touchdown passes.

The Steelers are also one of five teams with no interceptions this year. Our passes defended rate near the bottom at just 6, and quite a few of them were from DL or LB players.

I think we were all pleased to see the pass rush last week, but Kapernick completed 71+% of his passes.

For the season the Steelers pass defense has given up 289.5 yards per game.

Is it scheme or talent? I say BOTH!

Bulter is calling a very conservative defense, where corners are sometimes 8-10 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Our safeties are a mess, and can’t be relied on deep coverage.

I think its time to increase Boykins and Cockrell's playing time.
 
Talent, and agreed on your last point
 
Talent: physical, and mental talent. Cortez has physical, but maybe not mental, Gay has mental, but he is low and not explosive. Boykin has both, but he is short. Cockrell has a nice skill set, but is more of a pure zone corner. Grant is physical and smart, but slow. Blake is short and smart, but not fast or explosive.

I would start Gay and Cortez and play Boykin in the slot. Cockrell or draft pick will play for Gay next year if not retained. Boykin walks, Golson takes his nickel role.
 
The DB problem is magnified because you are trying to replace a HOF safety and a true shutdown corner. Maybe you can name me the 2 replacements we passed on in the last3 or 4 drafts?
 
What a Coach thread.

The secondary got toasted week 1 by Tom Brady- which was to be expected.

Last week, Kaepernick was held in check during the first half until we started to basically go into 'Prevent'

Also- why in the world would you be looking back at last year's numbers? No more Troy, no more Ike, new Coordinator.

In short, the secondary was terrible one game and relatively average-solid the next. Not nearly enough data to draw any conclusions from.
 
I'm just excited to see Boykin's impact. I think he's our most talented corner and will be on the field a lot more moving forward
 
Bigappleyinzer said:
What a Coach thread.

The secondary got toasted week 1 by Tom Brady- which was to be expected.

Last week, Kaepernick was held in check during the first half until we started to basically go into 'Prevent'

Also- why in the world would you be looking back at last year's numbers? No more Troy, no more Ike, new Coordinator.

In short, the secondary was terrible one game and relatively average-solid the next. Not nearly enough data to draw any conclusions from.
Click to expand...

Not enough data?

It might sound blasphemous, but Troy was terrible in his final season and so was Ike. Part of the problem was letting Lewis walk, and McCain walk in free agency. That's on Colbert. Also when was the last time the Steelers spent a first round pick on a DB? I'm thinking Bermudasteel was in his prime when that happened.

S. Thomas has not panned out at safety. A career back up who's long in the tooth is starting ahead of him ( Will Allen ). Mitchell? The Steelers over paid for him. Cortez Allen? Horrible free agency move. He's a back up. Did I mention Gay is a free agent soon? He's the only one who would start on at least half the teams in the NFL.

Butler is not Lebeau. Our cover 2 is terrible.

So you see it a vortex of bad free agency moves ( Letting the wrong guys go and over paying for others ), poor drafting, and coaching.
 
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Coach said:
Not enough data?

It might sound blasphemous, but Troy was terrible in his final season and so was Ike. Part of the problem was letting Lewis walk, and McCain walk in free agency. That's on Colbert. Also when was the last time the Steelers spent a first round pick on a DB? I'm thinking Bermudasteel was in his prime when that happened.

S. Thomas has not panned out at safety. A career back up who's long in the tooth is starting ahead of him ( Will Allen ). Mitchell? The Steelers over paid for him. Cortez Allen? Horrible free agency move. He's a back up. Did I mention Gay is a free agent soon? He's the only one who would start on at least half the teams in the NFL.

Butler is not Lebeau. Our cover 2 is terrible.

So you see it a vortex of bad free agency moves ( Letting the wrong guys go and over paying for others ), poor drafting, and coaching.
Click to expand...

You answered your own questions.

Yes, Troy and Ike were shot last year. Completely washed.

Can Blake/C.Allen perform better than Ike last year? Can Shark/W.Allen perform better than Troy last year? Do you honestly believe you can answer that question after only two (and VERY different might I add) games?

Sure- Butler is not Lebeau. But what makes you believe that our cover 2 is terrible?

No one is claiming that there is a All-pro waiting in the wings in our secondary. But is that even necessary? If our front seven keeps developing as they have, and if the O can continue to drop 30+, I am more than happy with an average secondary
 
Coach said:
Not enough data?

It might sound blasphemous, but Troy was terrible in his final season and so was Ike. Part of the problem was letting Lewis walk, and McCain walk in free agency. That's on Colbert. Also when was the last time the Steelers spent a first round pick on a DB? I'm thinking Bermudasteel was in his prime when that happened.

S. Thomas has not panned out at safety. A career back up who's long in the tooth is starting ahead of him ( Will Allen ). Mitchell? The Steelers over paid for him. Cortez Allen? Horrible free agency move. He's a back up. Did I mention Gay is a free agent soon? He's the only one who would start on at least half the teams in the NFL.

Butler is not Lebeau. Our cover 2 is terrible.

So you see it a vortex of bad free agency moves ( Letting the wrong guys go and over paying for others ), poor drafting, and coaching.
Click to expand...

The true question is - What can you, the fan, do about this problem??? Answer - watch and hope that it gets better as the season progresses OR stop watching. Period.

And I like the fact that you acknowledge my skills - in my prime days...
 
Bigappleyinzer said:
You answered your own questions.

Yes, Troy and Ike were shot last year. Completely washed.

Can Blake/C.Allen perform better than Ike last year? Can Shark/W.Allen perform better than Troy last year? Do you honestly believe you can answer that question after only two (and VERY different might I add) games?

Sure- Butler is not Lebeau. But what makes you believe that our cover 2 is terrible?

No one is claiming that there is a All-pro waiting in the wings in our secondary. But is that even necessary? If our front seven keeps developing as they have, and if the O can continue to drop 30+, I am more than happy with an average secondary
Click to expand...

What makes me think our cover 2 is terrible. Oh boy.... for openers we don't contest many passes let alone pick them off. Our safeties are a very bad lot, and have looked confused and slow. This unit has been ripped for big plays down the middle in the pre-season and regular season. A cover 2 should not look like a prevent defense...but ours can at times. A good cover two has both the CB's covering the short stuff and help from the safeties to cover ground 10+ yards down the field. I see very little of that.

Troy and Ike should have been cut a year sooner. It would have saved a lot of cap space. Enough to re-sign McCain for sure. The plan to replace Troy with S. Thomas was a huge failure. The Steelers new this was coming for at least two years. I see poor GM moves, a coaching drain, a lack of a plan. This is why we traded a 4th for Boykins, and quickly scoped up Cockrell! This is a knee jerk reaction to a failed plan.

Can Blake and Allen preform better? These are CB's. I say not better than McCain did last season.

You might be happy with an average secondary. I don't think our secondary is good enough to be called average. Outside of Gay, the entire lot is full of back ups for the most part. We don't have a quality role player, do we?
 
Talent no doubt. Under Lebeau, when he had physical/mental talent to work with(Troy, Ike, Deshea, R.Clark) The defense was a lot better

Lebeau's defense struggled a lot the last few seasons because of the aging of veterans and the lack of development of the younger players
 
They let McCain walk in favor of the less talented Blake. And they had two natural, high ceiling, CBs in camp with Grant and Fogg... don't get me started...

The Patriots start 3 rookie offensive lineman, protecting their Franchise, and we can't let rooks develop, even if they have high ceilings. let them play and learn.
 
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bermudasteel said:
The true question is - What can you, the fan, do about this problem??? Answer - watch and hope that it gets better as the season progresses OR stop watching. Period.

And I like the fact that you acknowledge my skills - in my prime days...
Click to expand...

Your skills in your prime were Al Bundyesque.

What's a fan to do? Option C. Vent. With tenured coaching and a GM who work 16 hour days I expect more. The Steelers in my opinion do not put enough emphasis on the CB position nor have retained some of their best players at CB.

This burns me. Everyone knows the league is slanted toward passing and taller receivers. Yet the Steelers continue to play the penny stocks in the draft for DB's, and draft shorter players. This goes against the current and logical thinking.

I'm a huge fan but I will not let blind patriotism trump objective reasoning.
 
Last pure CB drafted in the first round was Chad Scott.

Back in 97/98 I believe
 
Coach said:
Your skills in your prime were Al Bundyesque.

What's a fan to do? Option C. Vent. With tenured coaching and a GM who work 16 hour days I expect more. The Steelers in my opinion do not put enough emphasis on the CB position nor have retained some of their best players at CB.

This burns me. Everyone knows the league is slanted toward passing and taller receivers. Yet the Steelers continue to play the penny stocks in the draft for DB's, and draft shorter players. This goes against the current and logical thinking.

I'm a huge fan but I will not let blind patriotism trump objective reasoning.
Click to expand...

I've already given you a list of players drafted since Tomlin arrived that showed they don't shy away from the taller corners. Now you'll pin it all on where they were drafted, like the first round is some guarantee that the CB is going to be great. We just spent a premium pick on a CB, he got hurt. You can't plan for that type of thing. You don't like him because he's short, but until he actually gets on the field, we don't know what he's capable of.

They took a gamble with Lewis, with Allen showing flashes of what he could be (he was the one replacing Ike when Ike went out, they also put him on AJ Green several times with GREAT success) and signed Allen instead of Lewis. McCain was solid, but nothing to fret over leaving. Again, they put their faith in Allen, who has had ONE game this year...give him a chance to redeem himself after a down year. Ike had some of the same struggles, and a lot of Allens issues last year was the emphasis on illegal contact. Allen doesn't have the name to get away with it like Sherman does, so he had to adjust and had some issues adjusting.

You jump to conclusions so fast its ridiculous, two games into the season and you're ready to cut everyone, start firing coaches, and claim our cover 2 is absolutely horrible. Forget about letting our starting safeties gel a bit, since they haven't had much time on the field together, forget giving Boykins a chance to get acclimated to the system (we didn't exactly bring him in at the beginning of camp), forget letting Allen have a few games under his belt before declaring him a career back up...because I'll bring it up again, he's shut down AJ Green before, two years ago he was getting the teams #1 more often than Ike was.

Objective reasoning has never been your strong suit.
 
A strong pass rush will cover the warts on our secondary. If we play a team that gets rid of the ball early, we have to commit to a press coverage to give our front 7 some time to disrupt the QB.

Every team has a weakness. You can't be strong everywhere. We're strong on our Front 7 on D and our entire offense. Our weakness is our secondary and kicking...

Punting is a strength. So 2 phases of our team is a weakness while 9 phases of our team is a strength. I'd say our team is built pretty well to compete.
 
insaniti said:
I've already given you a list of players drafted since Tomlin arrived that showed they don't shy away from the taller corners. Now you'll pin it all on where they were drafted, like the first round is some guarantee that the CB is going to be great. We just spent a premium pick on a CB, he got hurt. You can't plan for that type of thing. You don't like him because he's short, but until he actually gets on the field, we don't know what he's capable of.

They took a gamble with Lewis, with Allen showing flashes of what he could be (he was the one replacing Ike when Ike went out, they also put him on AJ Green several times with GREAT success) and signed Allen instead of Lewis. McCain was solid, but nothing to fret over leaving. Again, they put their faith in Allen, who has had ONE game this year...give him a chance to redeem himself after a down year. Ike had some of the same struggles, and a lot of Allens issues last year was the emphasis on illegal contact. Allen doesn't have the name to get away with it like Sherman does, so he had to adjust and had some issues adjusting.

You jump to conclusions so fast its ridiculous, two games into the season and you're ready to cut everyone, start firing coaches, and claim our cover 2 is absolutely horrible. Forget about letting our starting safeties gel a bit, since they haven't had much time on the field together, forget giving Boykins a chance to get acclimated to the system (we didn't exactly bring him in at the beginning of camp), forget letting Allen have a few games under his belt before declaring him a career back up...because I'll bring it up again, he's shut down AJ Green before, two years ago he was getting the teams #1 more often than Ike was.

Objective reasoning has never been your strong suit.
Click to expand...

Lol, Objective reasoning. Did you not read the facts I presented? You have given me the list? Sorry pal, the Steelers like short corners, and the taller ones we drafted are either CUT or backups. Let's review:

2015

Round 2 ) Golson - 5'9 178 pounds.
Round 4 Grant 5'10"

2014

Round 5 ) Richardson - Who cares he was CUT.

2013

Round 4 ( cost us our 3rd next year ). Thomas. Listed at 5-9" tall. Bench warmer
Round 5 Hawthorne - Who cares he was CUT

2012

Round 7 Frederick. 5'10 tall, he was CUT

2011

Round 3 Brown. No longer on the team
Round 4 Allen - Bench player with a huge cap number. Don't care how tall he is, he gives up too many big plays.

^^^ There you have it. This is why our DB's are such a mess. Add in losing McCain who is the best of the bunch of the names I listed, and over paying for Cortez Allen and you can call it a day. At least you admit losing Lewis was a gamble, but smart GM's don't gamble on young corners who can play. They get re-singed in free agency.
 
Cope said:
A strong pass rush will cover the warts on our secondary. If we play a team that gets rid of the ball early, we have to commit to a press coverage to give our front 7 some time to disrupt the QB.

Every team has a weakness. You can't be strong everywhere. We're strong on our Front 7 on D and our entire offense. Our weakness is our secondary and kicking...

Punting is a strength. So 2 phases of our team is a weakness while 9 phases of our team is a strength. I'd say our team is built pretty well to compete.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity what are these 9 phases of the game you speak about? Here's how I see it for 10 areas.

Pass Defense - Bad
Kicking game - Bad on FG's and extra points, good on kickoffs with these silly rules.
Kickoff returns - Below average

Punt returns - Average
Rushing defense - Average
Coaching - Average. Bad clock management, Boykin needs to play more, Butler not impressing.

Punting - Good
Defensive coverage units on special teams - Good

Passing offense - Excellent
Rushing offense - Excellent
 
I think Boykins is a superior talent than McCain. I also think they saw in Blake a cheaper option than him and with a higher ceiling, they might have guessed wrong but we can't be sure yet, he might be developing cause he definitly had some good games last year and we know CB is a lot about play time and experience to improve, he already has the speed though maybe not the quickness to play inside
 
Blake had a strong game Sunday. Nice come back from the Patriots game.
 
Coach said:
Your skills in your prime were Al Bundyesque.

What's a fan to do? Option C. Vent. With tenured coaching and a GM who work 16 hour days I expect more. The Steelers in my opinion do not put enough emphasis on the CB position nor have retained some of their best players at CB.

This burns me. Everyone knows the league is slanted toward passing and taller receivers. Yet the Steelers continue to play the penny stocks in the draft for DB's, and draft shorter players. This goes against the current and logical thinking.

I'm a huge fan but I will not let blind patriotism trump objective reasoning.
Click to expand...

Please come up with all 32 coaching staffs drafting hit/miss rate on CB's in the last 8 or so years so we can get a true gauge to argue with. You harping our failures 24/7 while demanding more from our staff as a fan is laughable. You say they suck and maybe they are the worst in the league. I don't know but I sure as hell know you don't either.
 
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