Play by play chart and rest of the Secondary and D-line conclusions/stats are after the jump. Aplogize for the lack of quality in the chart coloring, Dagger handled this tedious task previously for me and this is my first shot at it. I’ll get it eventually.
Say hello to our newest Corner.
Our 4th Corner Is A Safety?
In every dime formation we called with our 1st team defense this pre-season, Prioleau was on the field instead of Macklin, Jimoh or Butler (who the depth chart indicates are our 4th, 5th and 6th corners.) When Springs sat out on a Nickel (3 CB formation) package on Sunday, it was Prioleau who took the field as our 3rd corner. Before Landry got drafted, Prioleau was the projected starter at strong safety, so his placement here isn’t a complete shock. However, if Landry goes down (and our main guys have been getting hurt), that leaves an interesting void at the Strong Safety position.
If Prioleau takes over for Landry, as the depth chart currently indicates, it will be quite an adjustment to make during the season. Veterans like Rod Woodson have talked about how it takes time to get used to the change due to the new angles, field vision, etc. and with Prioleau at Strong Safety, Macklin would most likely take over at the dime spot (which worries me a little since he’s not even good enough to start during pre-season.)
The real injury to worry about though, since it always seems to happen, is if Springs goes down. Prioleau would have to get the nod for the Nickel corner position, leaving Fox as the only player with experience backing up at either Safety spot. Sean Taylor’s back-up Reed Doughty may be able to fill in nicely (track star in high school, led 1-AA with 159 tackles), but we can’t be for sure. As it stands right now, it looks like we could be shopping the free agent market for insurance at Safety.
Drive 1
| Yard Line | Down | Formation | Play Call | Coverage | Yards |
| Pitt 10 | 1st and 10 | 4-3 | Pass | Springs | 10 |
| Landry plays 8th guy in the box. Daniels a little slow off the line. | |||||
| Pitt 20 | 1st and 10 | 4-3 | Run behind LT | Null | -2 |
| Landry plays 8th guy in the box again, blows up the FB. Rogers comes in, avoids the block and hits Parker for a loss. | |||||
| Skins 18 | 2nd and 12 | 4-2-5 | Pass | Landry | 0 |
| Prioleau is the 5th DB here (still no 4th CB.) Daniels gets by the TE Heath Miller. (Pressure – Daniels) | |||||
| Skins 18 | 3rd and 12 | Dime (!) | Pass | Flat | 3 |
| Awesome…finally I see the Dime package. Prioleau is the Dime corner here. Marcus went all Dwight Freeney with a spin move. Daniels played DT and actually drew a double team. | |||||
| Drive: 4 plays, 11 yards. 1 run and 3 passes. Landry played the box and covered his man deep nicely (with the help of a Daniels-forced-under throw of course.) | |||||
Drive 2
| Yard Line | Down | Formation | Play Call | Coverage | Yards |
| Pitt 24 | 1st and 10 | 4-3 over | Run Middle | Null | 3 |
| Taylor at the line and Landry in the box, Taylor backs off. Marcus stands at the line. Good push by the Steelers here. | |||||
| Pitt 27 | 2nd and 7 | 4-3 over | Run Middle | Null | 4 |
| Landry in the box again, Marcus stands up on the line…and then so does Landry. | |||||
| Pitt 31 | 3rd and 3 | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | Rocky | -3 |
| Marcus puts a hand down. Rocky makes a great open field tackle. | |||||
| Drive: 3 plays, 4 yards. 2 runs (2 middle) and 1 pass. Landry all over the place again, LB’s flying to the ball again, Marcus plays the hybrid position again. Like what I’m seeing a lot. | |||||
Drive 3
| Yard Line | Down | Formation | Play Call | Coverage | Yards |
| Pitt 16 | 1st and 10 | 4-3 | Pass | Ben runs out of bounds | -2 |
| Guy blocking Carter just falls down on his ass for no reason. Can’t give Carter credit for a pressure there. | |||||
| Pitt 14 | 2nd and 12 | 4-3 over | Run behind LT | Null | -2 |
| Landry in the box. Carter makes a tackle behind the LOScrimage. See, just when I’m about to give Carter credit I see that he fought off a block from a rookie TE. Landry is the one who blew up the play really. | |||||
| Pitt 12 | 3rd and 14 | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | Screen | 12 |
| Ok, that was close. | |||||
| Drive: 3 plays, 8 yards. 1 run, 1 pass, and….oh whatever, Steelers got owned. | |||||
Drive 4
| Yard Line | Down | Formation | Play Call | Coverage | Yards |
| Pitt 13 | 1st and 10 | 4-3 | Pass | Taylor | 22 |
| Evans almost gets to Ben here, bracket coverage with Springs underneath and Taylor up top. | |||||
| Pitt 35 | 1st and 10 | 4-3 | Run behind LT | Null | 3 |
| McIntosh fills the gap to make the tackle. Marcus hurts his shoulder. | |||||
| Pitt 38 | 2nd and 7 | 4-3 | Run (Scramble) | Null | 8 |
| Pressure didn’t cause it. Ben had all day. Evans did a spin move inside which freed up space for Ben to run on the bottom of the screen. | |||||
| Pitt 46 | 1st and 10 | 4-3 wide | Pass | Fumbled Snap | -6 |
| McIntosh in the slot covering Parker, Khary Campbell also in the slot covering the TE. Landry in the box. Our CB’s really play off…I suppose to allow Landry to roam the field. | |||||
| Pitt 40 | 2nd and 16 | —- | Penalty | — | -5 |
| False Start. | |||||
| Pitt 35 | 2nd and 21 | Dime | Run behind RT | Null | 4 |
| I see Prioleau in there…I wonder if he was the 6th DB in the last Dime formation too. | |||||
| Pitt 39 | 3rd and 17 | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | Smoot | 30 |
| Williams blitzes 8, goodness. Smoot screws up the play by not making the tackle. But why send 8 on 3rd and 17….one of those “why not, it’s just pre-season” calls I suppose. | |||||
| Skins 31 | 1st and 10 | 4-2-5 Nickel | Run Middle | Null | 11 |
| Okay…Springs is out the game and Prioleau is our Nickel corner. And it is official I think: Macklin, Butler and Jimoh all suck. | |||||
| Skins 20 | 1st and 10 | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | McIntosh | 0 |
| Was going for Heath Miller I believe. Rocky got hurt on the play. | |||||
| Skins 20 | 2nd and 10 | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | Rogers | 7 |
| Poor shoulder tackle by Rogers but our D swarms to the ball so it doesn’t matter | |||||
| Skins 12 | 3rd and 2 | 4-2-5 Nickel | Run (Scramble) | Null | 3 |
| Wynn gets his first pressure of the pre-season. (Pressure: Wynn) | |||||
| Skins 9 | 1st and Goal | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | Springs, McIntosh | 0 |
| McIntosh is a beast in coverage, man. He makes the hit to jar the ball loose and Springs was blanketing the WR. | |||||
| Skins 9 | 2nd and Goal | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | Rogers | 6 |
| Why is Rogers on Ward? | |||||
| Skins 3 | 3rd and Goal | —- | Penalty | —- | -5 |
| False Start | |||||
| Skins 8 | 3rd and Goal | — | Penalty | — | 4 |
| Theisman thinks he’s developed “The Big Back Theory.” You have got to be kidding me. Holding on McIntosh | |||||
| Skins 4 | 1st and Goal | 4-2-5 Nickel | Run Middle | Null | -4 |
| We blitz Landry and Taylor. McIntosh gets the tackle behind the line. | |||||
| Skins 8 | 2nd and Goal | 4-2-5 Nickel | Run (Scramble) | Null | 4 |
| This is a very long red zone series. | |||||
| Skins 4 | 3rd and Goal | 4-2-5 Nickel | Pass | Rogers | 0 |
| NICE play by Carlos to break up the pass. Fletch rushed Ben’s throw. (Pressure: Fletcher) What the hell are the Steelers thinking trying to stretch out a D with Sean Taylor and LaRon Landry at Saftey. | |||||
| Drive: 15 plays, 82 yards. 7 runs (1 left, 2 middle, 1 right, 3 scrambles) and 8 passes. They were really going after Carlos on that red zone possesion. | |||||
Secondary
[Table = 60]
All this and with minimal pressure from the front 4. I guess you can build a Defense starting from the back 7. Taylor finally got targeted but it’s possible he was playing zone and just closed in on his man so fast that it looked like man coverage. Smoot’s horrible tacking is the only negative that sticks out at me. Rocky’s play is incredible right now, I’m convinced he could play safety if he wanted. Conversely Landry was in the box 7 times, I’m convinced he could play LB if he wanted. Those two are the stars of the game in my opinion.
D-Line
[Table = 61]
Run Defense
Amazing as usual. Nothing to say that you already don’t know. Our LB’s are filling the gaps and other than a draw play up the middle for 11 yards not one single run went over 4 yards. Andre Carter still needs to go….but I can deal with it for now.
Pass Defense
Better, but still needs a lot of work. Demetric Evans just looked foolish out there trying to attempt a spin move. He ended up getting swallowed by the offensive line and gave up a first down scramble instead of generating pressure. Carter is just pathetic. The only time he got close to Ben was when his guy (LT #79 Trai Essex) tripped on himself and fell on his ass. Unless Carter has Jedi Mind Tricks I’m not aware of, he didn’t earn anything on that play. DE Daniels impressed by drawing a double team at DT and by getting a QB pressure (albeit against a TE) and Wynn also gets credited with a QB pressure (kinda iffy though.) No sacks were recorded.
update: As Dagger noted in the Comments section, Ben did run on us when the coverage did it’s job downfield. However I don’t count Scrambles against our D-Line as they usually are a result of a broken play at which point I can’t hold the D-line soley responsible for yards gained.
It’s also important to note that the Skins defense forced Roethlisberger to scramble about 4 different times this weekend. He wasnt forced out of the pocked due to pressure, he was forced out because the Redskins secondary was locking down the Steeler WRs. Good news for your secondary, indeed.
Agreed, I only counted one pressure (Wynn)…and even that is questionable…the rest was all Coverage.
This is pure football heroin
Good stuff as always Dillweed. I do know that Jimoh didn’t suit up for this game although I doubt that made much of a difference in Prioleau getting all that time at corner.