The Steelers went into Sunday's game against the Colts with the objective of exploiting what had been the NFL's worst line with a defense that had recorded 26 sacks.
The defense found a way to turn around the game and keep the Colts at 17 points while also forcing a crucial turnover on the Steelers' path to a 20-17 victory.
We take a look at how the Steelers pressured Jacoby Brissett:
What allowed the Colts to build their 17-3 lead in the second half was two big plays. Brissett connected on a 60-yard touchdown pass to Donte Moncrief in the second quarter and a 61-yard touchdown pass to Chester Rogers in the third quarter.
Outside of those two plays, Brissett's stats were 12 completions on 22 attempts for 101 yards, zero touchdowns and an interception while being sacked three times. After the second touchdown, Brissett only completed three passes on nine attempts for 20 yards. He was sacked twice.
We covered Shazier's interception in depth with a pivotal play article, but what deserves equal attention is what the Steelers' pass rush created in the second half to change the direction of the game.
And I mean change direction literally, because the defense forced the Colts to move backwards in the fourth quarter with a net total of -2 yards.
Early on in the game, you could see the Steelers only rushing three or four defenders, which is a theme defensive coordinator Keith Butler has been trying to drive home for a while now.
Being a team capable of pressuring the quarterback with only three or four players allows for seven or eight players dropping into coverage. That also allows for more complicated zone and man defensive schemes that make it more difficult to decipher.
That wasn't working early on against the Colts, as you can see on Brissett's touchdown pass to Donte Moncrief in the second quarter:
While the fault of this touchdown does not sit with the defensive front as much as it does Artie Burns biting on play action, you can see how Brissett was not phased by the Steelers' plan to try and win with a minimal amount of rushers early on in the game.
But after his second touchdown pass, you saw all of that change.
You started to see more blitzes from defensive backs Sean Davis and Mike Hilton. That's a threat which forces not only quarterbacks, but offensive lines to communicate and get into guessing games about from where the pressure is coming.
Look how it confused Brissett late in the third quarter on a key third down stop. Davis and Hilton rush from the outside, forcing the offensive tackles out extremely wide, giving opportunities the rest of the pass rush to work against the three interior linemen and rookie Marlon Mack in protection at running back. Brissett flees the pocket and is brought down by Shazier:
The entire point of these types of blitzes is to keep it unclear from where the pressure is coming. While it is nice to have a pass rush from four players that can consistently get pressure, doing so repetitively allows linemen to get comfortable as they get the same looks.
That comfort can disappear quickly when seven or eight players are roaming around as potential threats instead of just four.
It also makes it more difficult for quarterbacks to understand what coverage schemes they need to throw against. Watch how Davis and Hilton (highlighted in yellow) again come from the edge while Shazier and T.J. Watt (highlighted in red) drop back into the middle of the field and take away the easy target options for Brissett.
Brissett has no chance to go through his reads, as both Davis and Hilton go unaccounted for by the offensive linemen, who presumably are looking to help the inside against potential rushes from Shazier and Watt. This forces Brissett to throw the ball early for an incomplete pass:
Those moments won't go on the stat sheet, but they become wasted downs and help limit opportunities to move the ball.
What I've thoroughly enjoyed from Butler's defense is how many different ways he has drawn up to create pressure. Each additional play he can call that can quickly be executed adds to the complexity of the unit and makes planning to face it that much more difficult.
It was only a matter of time before that pressure got home and put Brissett down for a sack. Shazier likened it to a dam about to break in the Steelers' locker room after the game:
And break, the dam did.
Here's yet another blitz from the Steelers where they use Shazier, Watt and Hilton to overload the left side of the offensive line. The overload gives Hilton a free shot at Brissett, but the quarterback makes a very nice shuffle to step up in the pocket and escape the rush.
Brissett thinks he can accelerate up the field or extend the play, but lurking behind the blitz was Williams who was waiting for Brissett as a quarterback spy the entire time:
When you add Stephon Tuitt and Cam Heyward to the mix, it makes for six players the Steelers dedicated to attacking and containing Brissett. That means they only had five drop back into coverage, which limits how much of the field they can effectively cover.
But in these situations those five men would only need to take away the initial reads and make sure there aren't any glaringly open targets at the onset of the play. Gambles like this put faith in the rush to get home against the quarterback -- or at least throw the pass away.
This is where football turns into a chess match about where so many moving pieces present various strategical threats in order to conceal the true plan of attack. That's exactly what Heyward described to me in the locker room after the game.
"We mix it up, that's what we do in a game," Heyward said. "We play the chess game. You don't want an offense to feel comfortable in what they're doing. So we show them different looks. Then, once we did that we can revert to whatever we want."
The beauty of being able to rush that many players successfully is eventually you can dial back the amount of rushers and still get pressure while offensive linemen are guessing where the rush is coming from.
When pass rushers such as Bud Dupree or Watt aren't having to absorb the best shots an offensive lineman, it gives the pass rush an extra boost to fire off the ball with increasing aggression as the game continues.
Take a look at how the Steelers completely obliterated the Colts' attempt at a simple screen pass as they were trying to find anything that would work. Watt, Dupree, Javon Hargrave and Tyson Alualu all fire off the ball so quickly that it clogs up Mack's path to find open space for the screen pass.
By the time Mack can get to his spot, Shazier is lying in wait and can make a solid play on the ball for a pass defensed that forces a third-and-long:
It is when this defense can mix up what they're doing that they are at their best. It takes a lot of coordination to pull off complex schemes and execute blitz after blitz to create the kind of unpredictable plays that confuse offenses.
Butler has shown he certainly has the calls in his playbook to win the chess battles, and the Steelers' roster has followed through with great execution of his schemes.