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Frame-by-Frame: Spread Offense vs Steeler Defense
By Dagger | October 4, 2007
I have been down on our defensive secondary for a few years. At no time are their weaknesses exposed more than when the Steelers face a spread offense. If every team had a veteran QB with one or two very good WRs and some average ones thrown into the mix to take up space, then we might see this every week. It completely neutralizes the Steelers blitz package and takes our LBs off their game. Against a 3WR Colt offense, the Steelers can still blitz Peyton Manning and give him problems. Against the Bengals and their 3WR and 4WR sets, we manage to get to Palmer at times, but their WRs are good enough to get open quickly (especially Houshmandzadeh and Henry…..when being covered by Deshea Townsend). Against the Patriots and Tom Brady, their 4WR and 5WR formations really give us problems. We can look forward to Wes Welker matched up against CB Townsend and GOING OFF on us for about 160 yards.
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Let’s look at Kurt Warner and the Arizona Cardinals (minus Pro Bowl WR Anquan Boldin) spread the field and pick up some easy yardage.
On this drive, Warner goes 6-for-7 on a 70 yard drive that lasts 3:43
Play 1:
Here we see a 5WR formation with Edge lined up in the slot. Notice the huge cushion that each WR is getting. Arizona has 5 OL. If 6 Steelers rush the passer here (DL and LBs), then a quick slant would pick up big yardage. If ZERO LBS rush, then Warner has all day and night to find somebody eventually work themselves free against the Steelers DBs (who are not all that great man-to-man). No doubt Kurt Warner sees Edge lined up against a LB and WR Urban (who later snags a TD pass) with the same matchup.
The ball is snapped and Farrior and Haggans are bringing pressure. Warner is looking left and finds Fitzgerald open as he clears the LB in front of him. If he had been looking right (top of your screen), then he could have thrown the ball to either inside WR for a nice 8 yard gain. Also important is to note that the Steelers blitz here, but because they HAVE TO cover the 5WRs on the field, they can only bring 5 men to pressure the QB. Arizona has 5 OL in to block, so no worries for Kurt…he hits Fitzgerald for 9 yards on 1st down.
Play 2:
Same exact formation. This time it’s 2nd and 1, and Arizona is still in a 5WR formation. This time, the Steelers bring 4 men and drop everyone else into coverage. At the line of scrimmage, the Cardinals have 5 vs 4, so no real chance for a sack or for pressuring the QB. On the last play, we saw MLB Farrior blitz. This time, he drops back into zone coverage. If you have a veteran QB and decent WRs, then you can pull these plays off with relative ease. Cardinal scrub WR settles into the zone for an easy 6 yard catch.
So that is 15 yards on 2 plays. Arizona made it look like a 7-on-7 drill. They created mismatches, they dictated to the defense, and picked up yardage. When our defense is spread like this and our DBs are in coverage and our LBs are dropping into zone, the whole BLITZBURGH STEELERS and SMASHMOUTH FOOTBALL stuff goes right out the window. This has been the absolute best way to attack our defense for about 4 years running. I’m surprised more teams don’t do this to us, but like I said, you need a good QB to pull this off. Let’s hope the rest of the league continues to try to run the ball against us and tries to have a good mix of run vs pass. We eat offenses like that for breakfast.
In case you were wondering…the last time we played Seattle, Matt Hasselbeck threw the ball 49 times. Take a look at their play chart in the Super Bowl and tell me that they didn’t spot a weakness in the Steelers secondary. Check this out:
Drive 1: 7 plays, 5 passes.
Drive 2: 7 plays, 6 passes.
Drive 3: 7 plays, 4 passes
The score was tied at this point…they weren’t playing catch up. They had 2 weeks to prepare a gameplan and they thought the best way to attack our team was through the air.
To go back a bit further, in the 2004 AFC Championship game, Tom Brady and the Patriots threw the ball 11 times on their first 16 plays while jumping out to a 24-3 lead at halftime. I know this is an old stat, but when teams have a while to prepare for us in big games, they seem to go right after our secondary.
Topics: NFL, Sports, Steelers | 3 Comments »
October 4th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Great analysis. The patriots will definately attack us via the spread, especially with their wideouts/qb/o-line. The other thing that the spread does is it allows teams to run on us in 4 wide/singleback sets since Hampton is usually off of the field in this formation. I think most teams don’t do this, b/c they don’t have the offensive line to run it. So how do the Steelers counter this?
October 4th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Great stuff. I’m spreading the word to friends and family.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Excellent work !