If you've been reluctant to give the Steelers' pass defense any credit due to their competition, you might want to hop off that wagon after how they dismantled the NFL's leading offense going into the weekend.
The Chiefs' quarterback, Alex Smith, had 11 touchdown passes and zero interceptions coming into Sunday's game and is still in consideration for the NFL MVP award. The Steelers used their mix of blitzes and disguised cover schemes to keep Smith from being at his best.
We take a look at what the Steelers have done to take their passing defense's rank from No. 21 in 2015, to No. 12 in 2016 and now No. 1 in 2017 with less than 154 yards per game allowed through the air:
IMPROVED SECONDARY
The Steelers are finally seeing the benefits of their investments in the secondary. For years criticisms were thrown at the coaching staff for the gaffes and inadequacies in pass defense that had plagued this defense. Namely Carnell Lake, who received little help with high draft investments as Kevin Colbert made improving the defensive front a priority.
Now with first- and second-round picks in Artie Burns and Sean Davis combining with veterans Mike Mitchell and newly-signed free agent Joe Haden, the secondary has developed a chemistry in Keith Butler's system. They all are the kind of athletes who can cover in space and are playing with the kind of sophisticated coordination that Butler has been trying to incorporate since he took over as defensive coordinator in 2015.
Here's a perfect example of the kind of athlete Burns has been for this secondary when he forced an incomplete pass on third down after the Chiefs started their drive in Steelers' territory.
The Steelers lined up in a Cover 1 man defense and matched up Burns with the Chiefs' tight end, Demetrius Harris, who had a good six inches on Burns. Harris runs an out route beyond the first down marker and expects the 10-yard cushion Burns gives him at the start of the play to be enough to catch the ball.
Burns sits in his position and plays the sticks by breaking on Harris as soon as he breaks outside:
Burns swats the pass and completely takes away a play the Chiefs typically rely on in that situation. Smith made a solid read as his tight end had space to work, but his pass would have had to be fired with extreme velocity and pinpoint perfect timing to get it past Burns.
Burns is still a second-year player who is learning, but he's playing like a veteran and a great teammate. But that's been the story of the defense this season in how coordinated they have been in passing off assignments to each other in order to close down on receivers and take away what opponents like to do.
CHEMISTRY
If you ever find yourself asking how the Steelers plan for games, take a look at how they consistently were prepared for the wide variety of methods the Chiefs' offense uses to move the ball. That means the coaching staff is getting these players ready and in position to take so many things into consideration.
A perfect example of how the Steelers were able to counter the Chiefs' offense was their fourth-down stop in the fourth quarter on Sunday. The Chiefs called a passing play to maximize Smith's dual-threat possibility of being both a runner and a passer, but the Steelers were ready for it.
Watch how Smith's head goes from right to left at the onset of the play. That's the key to showing that the Steelers took away all of his initial reads. Shazier, highlighted in yellow at the start of the play, starts off by backing off into a zone.
Shazier's zone takes away Harris, the tight end in the middle of the end zone. As soon as Smith rolls to the right, Shazier bumps down to the edge to take away any possibility of Smith being able to break outside the pocket and run for a score.
As soon as Shazier does this, it vacates the middle of the field and Smith recognizes it. This is where top-flight quarterbacks are able to pick up on how defenses adjust to what they're doing, so he throws a nice high pass for his tight end to grab.
But Davis is playing safety and immediately rolls back to occupy the very space Shazier vacated, and plays the ball well enough to rip it from Harris' hands and force the incomplete pass:
That kind of chemistry can be extremely frustrating to an offense. Smith has made his career by making good decisions against defenses and taking what they're willing to give.
Normally when a linebacker drops from coverage like Shazier did in the above play, that part of the field will be open. But the communication between Davis and Shazier makes sure to take away exactly what a good quarterback would reasonably deem the solid option.
That's what I see this defense doing a lot of: determining what an offense would like to do with their various formations and taking that away.
Another perfect example was when Davis made a solid tackle for no gain on De'Anthony Thomas on a quick pass to the flat. The Steelers brought the house with an overload blitz on the right edge of the Chiefs. Highlighted are Mike Hilton and Shazier who join T.J. Watt on a blitz that overruns the Chiefs' blocking assignments.
An overload blitz is one which is designed to outnumber an offensive line at one particular point, forcing them to communicate and shift help to that part of their front. Because Kareem Hunt is lined up on the other side of the ball and is on a passing route, he can't help, so this forces Smith's hand.
Smith does the very educated quarterback thing and throws the ball right behind where the blitz comes from, to Thomas in the flat. But look at Davis, highlighted in red in this play, and how as soon as the ball is snapped, he flies to the line and makes a great tackle on the speedy and shifty Thomas:
That's coordination and beautiful X's and O's on a football field. Vacate a space to make your opponent think that's the weak point, but have your trust in another player to attack that part of the field and win the battle.
That's great execution, set up by great coaching on the part of this team. To have the wherewithal to show that many layers of defensive strategy and coordinate at all three levels of the defense is the stuff that builds elite units.
And I'm not exaggerating. This unit is elite when it comes to defending the pass. I see them as an elite run-stopping unit in the future, but as of now that's only the case if they're not playing from behind.
Even when the Steelers don't rush the quarterback with extra players, they're covering every part of the field, in position to thwart whatever the offense wants to do. Take a look at each highlighted player in the below play:
Look at how each and every route is accounted for as the Chiefs used all five passing options to try and find a soft spot in the Steelers' defense. There were none, and Smith still had nowhere to go with a four-man pass rush.
The biggest breakdown for the defense was the lone touchdown they surrendered to Thomas on a broken play. And it wasn't because they were out of place or ill-prepared, it was, once again, because a young player was worried about someone else's responsibility on the field and missed his assignment.
We've talked about this in previous segments. Young players like Shazier, Dupree and Watt have all shown examples where they left their spot in the defense to help elsewhere. This time it was Burns, as he was trying to point at Hilton and tell him where to be in the scheme, and in doing so never noticed Thomas turn his short out route into an improvised wheel route down the sideline:
But even this play was an example of solid coverage all over the field. The Steelers were in position and Smith rotated between three different reads, even ran out of the pocket, but eventually used his eyes to find Thomas on an improvised play.
That one individual mental lapse was the only touchdown this defense surrendered to an offense that was averaging more than 32 points per game.
Think about that and look at the plays I posted above again, then consider how much coordination goes into that kind of work. That's elite, and should be regarded as such.
WINNING ONE-ON-ONE UP FRONT
But every great pass defense needs an aggressive front that can create pressure and help the secondary by forcing the quarterback to either make a risky throw or take the sack.
Blitzes don't just need to be overloads when more defenders rush the quarterback than blockers. They can also be players winning their solo battles against the offensive line.
The Steelers had three sacks, but also forced several early passes from Smith and were disruptive consistently throughout the day without giving him in any running lanes to escape.
The key sack of the game was Harrison against the No. 1 overall pick of the 2013 NFL draft, Eric Fisher. Harrison baits Fisher by sliding to the inside on Fisher, setting up that he might collapse to Fisher's inside shoulder, but then jumps back outside to use his patented rip move.
That half-second of confusion was enough to beat Fisher around the edge, collapse the pocket and sack Smith:
If you're the Chiefs, you're normally thinking that if the Steelers rush four, you're going to have your five offensive linemen work in concert and use the one extra blocker to help somewhere. That usual place wouldn't be behind their highest investment in Fisher.
Another place that came from was Vince Williams winning in one-on-one battles with Hunt in the backfield. You want to see when a drill used in practice has a direct impact on the playing field? Look no further.
Williams comes on the pass rush and completely plows over Hunt, a decently sized running back, and gets the sack on Smith. That's the back on backers drill that has been a fun part of Steelers' training camp for years under Mike Tomlin and Williams won a bunch of those in camp, just like he did here:
It wasn't a fluke either as Williams would do it again, almost the same play just with him lining up outside of Dupree instead of inside:
That's where this pass rush is frustrating offenses. When a defense rushes four and you have five or six players in protection, you expect to have one or maybe two double-teams on the blitzing players, but you also expect the one or two other linemen to win their one-on-one matchups.
The Steelers' defensive front is full of athletic players who win a solid chunk of those situations, just like Harrison and Williams did in the above plays.
But Cam Heyward and Stephon Tuitt do that pretty regularly, too, as you see Tuitt cross the face of the Chiefs' right guard and flood the A-gap of the offense, forcing Smith to throw early to Travis Kelce, where Shazier is lurking to break up the pass:
Mind you, the narrative that the Steelers couldn't stop tight ends was a very real problem that has pretty much been erased by how well this group is performing.
Kelce, a premier tight end in the NFL, grabbed four catches on seven targets for 37 yards, most of which came late in the game.
The pass rush, combined with the coordination of the defense's three levels is what has made them brilliant through the first six games of the season. And that's with seven of their eleven starters being 25 years old or younger.
If anything, the Steelers are still figuring out a lot of things on defense. That should be every bit of a serious alarm ringing across the league after they shut down an NFL offense that was shredding every defense it faced.