Whats Wrong w/the Defense? - 490 Pass Yards to Steelers!

[cHawkPhan]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/nf ... 18830.html
All these threads about the offense, Jimmy Graham and Russell Wilson and nobody's talking about the defense giving up 490 pass yards to the Steelers. 363 yards and 3 TD's to Carson Palmer a few weeks ago and have already lost two home games this year.

I know we won the game against the Steelers, and the Steeler WR's could be the best trio in football right now, but I am very concerned with the amount of yardage, lack of pass pressure, communication issues, and flat out blown coverages we have been seeing all year long. In the super bowl and every loss since, we have had a 4th quarter lead at some time, only to see it vanish. So we are 12 -0 through 3+ quarters but 6-6 overall.

Defense wins championships, and right now we are not looking like a champion caliber defense capable of making another super bowl run. What is happening to the D? The pass rush? Is it CB depth? Old Scheme? New Coordinator? $$$?

 

[sutz]

I'm just going to say that they did enough.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

IMO it all starts with the front four.

We're not getting enough pressure with our front four, especially the DT's, who btw have ZERO sacks this year between Hill and Mebane.

That's allowing these really good QB's to pick our soft zone apart in the 10-15 yard range between the LB's and DB's.

Bennett and Avril are doing a decent enough job collapsing the pocket, but there's not enough DT pressure pushing the pocket in, leaving a nice spot for the QB's to step up and make easy throws.

So we either gotta start blitzing more, or guys like Hill, Rubin and Mebane have to play better.

 

[twisted_steel2]

I think its multiple things.

New DC, weak link opposite Sherman, what Sgt. described, maybe some SB hangover...

But I'm still pretty confident it takes a very good QB with very good receivers(and TE's), to expose our weaknesses.

 

[AROS]

I was must distressed with the lack of pressure from our DL. It's not like Big Ben is a mobile QB but I heard Pete say this morning that the Steelers also kept a TE in a lot to help protect.

Still, 456 passing yards at home is absurd.

 

[theincrediblesok]

Well the good news is, that Cary Williams wasn't active, imagine him getting torch every play, Steelers might have a career day passing for over 600 yards.

 

[Basis4day]

I was must distressed with the lack of pressure from our DL. It's not like Big Ben is a mobile QB but I heard Pete say this morning that the Steelers also kept a TE in a lot to help protect.

Still, 456 passing yards at home is absurd.

Ben isn't mobile in a Wilson Kaep or Newton sort of way. He just has great pocket awareness and movement within the pocket.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

I was must distressed with the lack of pressure from our DL. It's not like Big Ben is a mobile QB but I heard Pete say this morning that the Steelers also kept a TE in a lot to help protect.

Right, because the book on how to beat our defense is to keep in extra blockers because we refuse to blitz more than 15-20% of the time. So Bennett's getting double teamed and our DT's are doing nothing against extra blockers.

So why is Pete being so stubborn, he has to see this in the film room?

Switch it up, show more looks, more stunts, delayed blitzes, corner blitzes, whatever. I love Pete, but holy moly is he stubborn when it comes to changing his schemes.

 

[timmat]

Against the good QBs, the lack of pressure from up the middle is a real problem. It allows these guys to beat the edge rush by stepping up in the pocket and taking their time to progress through the route tree. Just way, way too long to throw the ball. I also don't like the 'cushion' that is being allowed for easy access to all the 5 yd passes. I'd rather see the guys press at the line, and if you get beat deep, so be it. At least then we don't see these long drives that sap our energy / spirit, and still result in TDs.

 

[Cartire]

They are one of the best vertical passing attacks in the game. With the fastest WR's and an extremely accurate QB.

Granted, 480 is a bit much.

 

[AROS]

Granted, 480 is a bit much.

Actually it was 456 and thank God because 480 would just be gaudy.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

IMO it all starts with the front four.

We're not getting enough pressure with our front four, especially the DT's, who btw have ZERO sacks this year between Hill and Mebane.

That's allowing these really good QB's to pick our soft zone apart in the 10-15 yard range between the LB's and DB's.

Bennett and Avril are doing a decent enough job collapsing the pocket, but there's not enough DT pressure pushing the pocket in, leaving a nice spot for the QB's to step up and make easy throws.

So we either gotta start blitzing more, or guys like Hill, Rubin and Mebane have to play better.

For me, this is the biggest issue though the others mentioned are part of it as well.

 

[kearly]

The Steelers have (IMO) the best offense in the NFL the past two years, with strengths that matchup against Seattle's biggest weaknesses. Seattle struggles against teams that are elite on the deep ball and they struggle against teams with an elite OL. They struggle against very fast deep threat WRs. Even before 2015, this is true.

Additionally, Seattle's offense willfully went into shootout mode, so game dynamics dictated high pass volume for both teams. The Steelers attempted 59 passes (!) in this game. They had 480 yards passing compared to just 58 rushing. So in addition to the Steelers offense being silly good and owning the matchups, they also had the game flow going in their favor as well.

Yet, Seattle still won, and won by 9. I consider 30 points allowed in such a game scenario to be a good day. Not a great day, but a hell of a lot better than the effort that allowed 39 at home to Arizona.

 

[ivotuk]

It's all about the points, not the yardage. Have all the yardage you want, just don't score.

Now against the best passing game in the NFL with three super speedy, elite WRs, we held them to 30. IIRC, that's 1 touchdown over our average. I'll take it. But yea, phew! what a win! :180670:



P.S. not one to applaud injuries, but our defense brutalized Rapistburger. Hopefully enough for Matt Hasselbeck to go 5-0 next week

 

[jdemps]

We're blitzing 27% of the time. They were in blocking with 7 half the time and sending Brown, Wheaton, and Bryant against 7 and SOMEHOW winning with speed. We need to send more and/or find ways to get home. Once we finally actually hit Rapeistburger (in the second half), he became less effective outside of the crazy Wheaton TD.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

It's all about the points, not the yardage. Have all the yardage you want, just don't score.

Now against the best passing game in the NFL with three super speedy, elite WRs, we held them to 30. IIRC, that's 1 touchdown over our average. I'll take it. But yea, phew! what a win! :180670:

30 points and 500 yards is WAY too much, I don't care who we're playing.

We have supposed All Pro's all over the place on this defense, they need to play better, and Pete and Richard need to scheme better. Period.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

IMO it is simple.

Last year we had 4 pro bowl caliber players in our secondary: Sherm, Maxwell, Earl and Kam.

This year Sherm is the only player in the secondary playing at a pro bowl level. The #2 corner spot has been below average. Earl and Kam have looked very average this year. I'm not sure if their poor play is attributed to them missing time in training camp or what, but they look very average. And average might be giving them too much credit.

 

[sutz]

OK, I'm gonna chime in again in defense of our defense.

We seem to be forgetting two things. For all of the yards we gave up, we held several of their drives to FGs, which made a big difference at the end. Also, the D grabbed several TOs which gave our O a short field that, thankfully, they were able to convert into TDs. I repeat my statement above: The D did enough for us to win.

I don't get all bent around the axle about basically meaningless stats. After all, if those kind of stats had any real meaning, we would have won SBXL*. Look it up, IIRC we out-statted Pissburgh in amost every O category. In that regard, our game was kind of real retribution, in that the Stealers out-statted us this day, but we scored more points.

 

[minormillikin]

It's crazy, and crazy-satisfying, that we won this game. I really didn't think we could get in a shootout and win.

I was looking through Seahawks scores and it looks like the last time the Seahawks won a game where the opponent scored 30 or more was the 2010 Beastquake playoff game.

So, I was highly annoyed for most of yesterday's game watching the Steelers make long drive after long drive, but really happy/pleasantly surprised to see the offense hang in the whole way.

 

[Pandion Haliaetus]

I think starting Shead, having Lane back in his first game, and moving Sherm around against Brown kind of threw the chemistry off. That paired with less than desired play by the Front 7 against a strong O-Line and a very physical, very smart, very experienced QB with explosive skill players... It kind of amplified mistakes and misplays.

But at the same time the D held an RB averaging 108 yards in non-Bell starts to 29 yards and we saw the return of a ball-hawking defense.

Richard still has to clean up a few things but imo if youre moving forward with Shead and Lane, its a chemistry thing in the 2ndary above anything else.

The toughest task moving forward is getting the pass rush talent to shine and to be consistent. Part of that though is playing more physical and smarter against the referees allowing the opponents to hold against our 4 man rush.

Also, remember the Steelers elite Offense just came off a bye... They were more rested up and had more time to prepare.