Steelers

Carter's Classroom: Follow Butler's blueprint

Dec 5, 2016 • 12:08 pm

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The Steelers' defense has made drastic improvements in recent weeks, allowing only 10 points per game during its three-game winning streak.

We highlighted how the defense displayed a lot of fundamentals last week in the victory against the Colts, and this week was a continuation of that style of play.

DOMINATING THE LINE

James Harrison continued his resurgence with his fourth sack in as many weeks. However, this play was not about the sack he got, but the one, which he was held by Eric Flowers in a desperate effort to keep Eli Manning clean:

https://vimeo.com/194270398

The play above is another example of the results that Harrison has gotten from his rigorous training, allowing him to remain effective despite being 38 years old. Watch how he fires off the ball and forces Flowers to take a deeper drop back. His thinking was that Harrison was going to rush to the outside, but Harrison cuts back to the inside so quickly that the only way he could be stopped was from a hold.

That hold in the end zone generated a safety, but the officials missed another hold committed against Harrison by Flowers in the end zone just two plays earlier. Harrison had his way most of the game, as did the Steelers' defensive front.

They allowed only 56 yards rushing, forcing Manning into predictable passing situations, which gave the Steelers' secondary more opportunities to create turnovers. Part of that was also because the pass rush seemed as if it was a factor on most passing downs against the Giants, like on the fourth-down stop below:

https://vimeo.com/194292921

Watch how Harrison's outside pass rush is too strong for Flowers to handle and forces Manning to step up in the pocket. That pocket shrinks almost immediately because Ricardo Matthews has crossed from what looks like C-Gap all the way into the A-Gap, effectively crossing the face of the right guard, and forcing his way right into Manning's space to get the sack.

This was one of the factors coming into this game which the Steelers knew they could exploit. The Giants' offensive line had given up the second fewest amount of sacks, but much of that was due to Manning's effectiveness at getting rid of the ball quickly and his pocket presence.

The Steelers' pass rush seems to have made significant strides since the bye week, recording multiple sacks in each of their past five games. Three of those games have been played without leading sack man from 2015, Cam Heyward.

Even when those sacks don't happen, just getting into the backfield and forcing the quarterback from his launch point or disrupting his timing can lead to opportunities in coverage.

TIGHT WINDOWS

Our preview for Sunday's game focused on Eli Manning and how the Steelers' needed to create tight passing windows in order to force him to be consistent, and for their players in coverage to make plays from reading his eyes out of their zone assignments.

Lawrence Timmons certainly read where Manning was going to on this play and took advantage of it for a key red zone turnover. Watch for the direction which Manning is looking on this play and then look for how Timmons breaks on the ball:

https://vimeo.com/194270994

The above play is great zone coverage by Timmons. Manning starts the play looking to his left and then quickly switching his focus to tight end Larry Donnell running down the seam. Timmons knows that whatever Manning is looking at on the other side of the field doesn't involve him, so sticks to his assignment on the play.

Once Manning turns, he fires it into a tough space for the ball to get to Donnell even if Timmons wasn't able to catch the ball. From the way Manning turned and threw, it looked like he was locked into Donnell being his sure-fire second read on the play no matter what he saw. This is what we saw in the preview that the Steelers could take advantage of, as Manning commits to throws and players in zone coverage can jump all over it.

The last interception the Steelers' recorded was a combination of the pressure and the coverage working together. Watch how Bud Dupree comes around the edge to force Manning out of the pocket. Since it's fourth down, he cannot afford to throw the ball away and has to try something desperate:

https://vimeo.com/194280916

Odell Beckham Jr., is blanketed in coverage, which leaves Manning's best bet being a a deep ball to Sterling Shephard down the middle. However, Manning is throwing across his body deep down the field, a normal recipe for disaster. Sean Davis capitalizes on that for his first career interception.

While Davis should have batted the ball down for field position, you can't really be too frustrated with him as he saw a big play opportunity and took it. Without a sketchy block in the back call on Artie Burns, this probably would have worked out in the Steelers' favor. Nonetheless, this is still a great display of team defense.

The pressure came again to help out the coverage earlier in the game. This time, it was Timmons applying the pressure up the middle and forcing Manning into a quick decision before any routes could develop:

https://vimeo.com/194292853

If you notice toward the top of the screen, Beckham Jr. did create an open space for a solid target on this play that could have resulted in a touchdown. But the timely blitz from Butler confuses the Giants' protection and forces Manning's hand.

Ryan Shazier applies the coverage, which might have been a hair too early, but gets the job done. The Steelers forced the Giants to go for it on fourth down three times in this game and stopped them on each attempt. Once with Davis' interception, another with this incomplete pass, and the Matthews' sack.

While the Steelers did allow Beckham Jr. to reach 100 yards in receiving, 47 of those yards came on the last two drives. To me, that means this secondary won their battle with one of the top five receivers in the NFL.

What's great about that was that it wasn't just one player, everybody played a role in taking one of the most dangerous players in the NFL out of the game. Burns applied tight coverage on multiple occasions, Ross Cockrell blanketed him more times than not, William Gay seemed to always be in the right spot, and Mike Mitchell made several great pass defenses with Beckham Jr. being the target.

This kind of play reminds me of how the Seahawks' defense emerged back around 2011, the rookie years of Richard Sherman, K.J. Wright and Malcolm Smith. Their defense worked from being ranked in the bottom of the league in 2010 to being in the top 10 in both yards and points allowed.

That defense got younger and faster and learned to play into a solid defensive scheme that fit the mold which their roster shaped. Two years later, they were Super Bowl champions and everyone knew their stars.

I'm not saying that's what the Steelers are headed, and I am definitely acknowledging they still have a lot of work to do, but I've seen similarities between the two and that's exciting for the Steelers' future.

Carter’s Classroom appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday on DKPittsburghSports.com.