Carter: Believe it or not, it's not all on Steelers' D vs. Brady

By Chris Carter

Dec 16, 2017 • 12:01 am

4.5K

With a great deal of the focus for Sunday's momentous matchup at Heinz Field being on how the Steelers' defense hopes to contain Tom Brady, I thought I'd look instead at several other aspects:

• The Steelers have 41 sacks, which ranks only behind the Jaguars' 47. While the sack leaders of the team are Cam Heyward with nine and Vince Williams with seven, right behind them is rookie T.J. Watt with six.

There could be more for the kid.

Watt's biggest sack of the season came on the final play last Sunday when he forced the Ravens' Joe Flacco to fumble out of bounds, effectively ending the game. But he can get even bigger sacks if he brings down Brady in some key situations. He might have a better chance at doing just that, due to the Patriots missing starting right tackle Marcus Cannon, now on injured reserve. Replacing Cannon are Cameron Fleming and LaAdrian Waddle, who have been splitting time. Waddle is in his fifth NFL season with only four starts to his name, while Fleming is in his fourth season with only three starts.

Cannon's injury puts the Patriots' broader offensive line in a bind, too, as they only have Waddle and Fleming as official offensive tackles in addition to their normal starter at left tackle, Nate Solder.

Watch for Watt to use his improving pass rush skills to get around the edge and force Brady up in the pocket.

• Maurkice Pouncey, David DeCastro and Ramon Foster will face defensive tackles Malcom Brown and Deatrich Wise and must work to get to the second level of the Patriots' defense to block Kyle Van Noy and Elandon Roberts.

Van Noy has the second-most tackles on the team with 58 and Roberts is fifth with 39. The Patriots rank 23rd against the run and give up 120.7 rushing yards per game. Their best defenses of old used to be able to rely on Vince Wilfork to plug the middle of the offensive line, but Brown hasn't fulfilled that role.

Without Donta' Hightower, the defense has been looking for answers at linebacker. If the Steelers want to establish the ground game, it will start with Pouncey and company being able to handle Brown and Wise while chipping off them to get either Van Noy or Roberts.

Le'Veon Bell being able to get isolated opportunities with either Roberts or Van Noy, or even someone in the secondary, would dovetail with those plans. Bell is at his best when he has space to bounce around the backfield and pick his gaps to attack. If he is kept clean of Brown and Wise, it could be a big day for the NFL's leading rusher.

• How Bill Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia utilize their safeties will dictate how Ben Roethlisberger has to target most of his passes.

The Patriots are confident using Patrick Chung and Devin McCourty to move all about the secondary and set up various looks. The issue they will encounter this time around is that in order to provide the same kind of double-coverage to Antonio Brown as they did in the AFC Championship Game, both safeties must be active. The Steelers will move Brown around the field to make it difficult for the Patriots to lock in on his position in their various formations.

Last year the Patriots were able to be extremely aggressive with their use of McCourty and Chung to take away the Steelers' key weapons. McCourty is the better cover safety and often would hover in the area of Brown. Chung is the better safety against the run. Chung will be looking to help against the run more often than not, but he also drops back into different zone coverage positions. However, if the safeties are used that way this time, they expose the rest of their defense to one-on-one matchups with athletic players like Bell, Martavis Bryant and JuJu Smith-Schuster.

If the Patriots use two-high safety looks to neutralize Brown and another deep option, Roethlisberger will have to find the underneath options and those matchups that favor his playmakers.

If they employ one-high safety looks, expect McCourty to be the middle safety who chooses which side of the field to help.

• The Steelers have L.J. Fort taking over the pass defense at inside linebacker, replacing Ryan Shazier. He's going to have his hands full running with the Patriots' backs who Brady enjoys targeting: James White has the fourth-most targets on the team with 69, and Rex Burkhead has 29 catches on 35 targets for 249 yards with only three starts on the season.

While the Steelers will prioritize stopping Rob Gronkowski, Brandin Cooks, Danny Amendola and Chris Hogan, they'll also need the help of Fort and a combination of Bud Dupree and Watt to limit Brady's reliance on his running backs.

• The ultimate dictator of the game might be how well the Steelers' defense communicates its pre-snap adjustments so they can be ready for last-second audibles by Brady.

Keep an eye out for late substitutions by the Patriots in an effort to confuse the Steelers and complicate the communication. Shazier was essentially the defense's quarterback. In his absence, we've seen the Steelers often flashing frantic hand signals to each other right at the snap. Whenever that happens, you can expect some players to be out of place, and that's where Brady looks to strike.

Look for Brady to not only use late substitutions but also to employ quick huddles that don't give the Steelers much time.

But again, it's not all about him.

WHAT'S BREWING

• Our Christmas gift subscriptions are here!

• It's Saturday, so it's Site Stuff day. This isn't the one to skip, as it introduces our new promo videos for our staffers, beginning with Matt Sunday.

• We're ramping up our Steelers coverage this week, as we hope you've noticed, treating Patriots week almost like a playoff. In addition to the column above, Dale Lolley offers a look at the Steelers' Cam Sutton and his starting debut, I've got a new Video Classroom you can find just below, and we've got DK and Greg Bedard of Boston Sports Journal trading places with Live Qs today, with Greg stopping by here at noon.

VIDEO

My Video Classroom gets physical with the Patriots: