The Steelers may have lost to the Patriots on Sunday, and the defense did give up a game-winning touchdown drive, but there were many positives to take away from what their defense was able to do against New England.
Defensive coordinator Keith Butler had to craft a plan for the defense after giving up 38 points to the Ravens. Tom Brady has had his way with the Steelers on many occasions, but Butler's plan kept Brady in check for most of the game and showed glimpses of success even while experimenting with several schemes for the first time.
We take a look into where those strategies worked, and where they needed improvement, in the classroom:
STOPPING THE RUN
Although the Patriots did average 4.1 yards per carry, the Steelers limited them to just 77 total yards and made it difficult for Brady to rely on the run consistently throughout the game.
There were instances where the Steelers needed to polish to close down the Patriots' rushing lanes and some of them were things we covered in our classroom preview video last week.
For one, we knew Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels would employ some counter-trap runs to try and offset the Steelers' defensive front and open up holes by attacking the weak side of the defense.
Let's look at an 8-yard gain by Dion Lewis during the game when they used one of those counter trap plays. Notice Rob Gronkowski, highlighted in red, motioning down the line and blocking Javon Hargrave (highlighted in yellow) in the backfield.
Hargrave has solid awareness when he crosses the line of scrimmage by realizing that he hasn't been touched by any lineman and that was not because of a mistake. This is normally a tell for defensive linemen that they are being trapped and a big player from the offense is sprinting across the formation to crush them.
Normally in this situation, a defensive player is taught to locate the player coming to block him and then engage that player by closing the distance between the two. This is what Hargrave does, but in doing so he goes a little too far to engage Gronkowski and gives up his gap. The trap is designed for Gronkowski to catch Hargrave unaware and have him drive the tackle out of the way, but the opposite happens and it works out for the Patriots anyway:
Notice the second yellow circle in the middle of the play, that's the space Hargrave gave up in this situation. While Hargrave has the right idea to close the distance between him and Gronkowski, he needed to find a way to do that while maintaining his spot in the defense and not giving up that space.
The other thing that could have helped in that situation was for a linebacker to follow Gronkowski when he went in motion and jump to the gap where Hargrave vacated. But neither happened and the Steelers gave up an 8-yard gain.
Still, this play shows that Hargrave was definitely prepared to look for trap schemes. The Steelers looked prepared in several situations, especially for when the Patriots would use motion to switch the strong side of their offense from one side to the other.
Here, the Patriots do just that by motioning Gronkowski to the complete other side of the line. Look how quickly Mike Hilton, Vince Williams and Sean Spence all shift gaps and how quickly Sean Davis comes up to the line and plays the edge.
The result is that Davis is in position to force the run back to the inside, and has the technically perfect response to the low cut block by fullback James Develin. But the real hero on this play is Bud Dupree as he takes on a double team from two of the Patriots' best run blockers, Nate Solder and Gronkowski, and pushes right through it to tackle Lewis in the backfield for a loss:
Not only did the Steelers make all the proper adjustments in their alignment to respond to the motion, but their players won the battles at the point of attack to dominate the play. These are strategies that the Patriots have used in the past to test the Steelers' discipline on defense and for the most part, they were ready.
The defense kept the Patriots' ground game from breaking them open and making it possible for Brady to be comfortable throughout the game. When a running game develops against a defense, it becomes more difficult for the defensive front to key in on the quarterback as pass rushers.
That success at limiting the Patriots on the ground allowed for the Steelers pass rush to get after Brady. While they didn't always get home, they did sack Brady twice and force him off his launch point several times.
BLITZING BRADY
We have heard for more than a year now about how Butler wants to get pressure from the Steelers' front using only four pass rushers. The Steelers' defense did just that on several occasions using a front that we had not seen all season that included Cam Heyward, Stephon Tuitt, T.J. Watt and Hargrave.
The mix of players is an interesting combination of rushers with four players of whom three are potential edge rushers and three are also interior rushers. Tuitt, Watt and Heyward have all proven to be effective on the edge, while Hargrave, Tuitt and Heyward have all proven to be solid rushers from the interior.
Watch how Heyward works as an interior rusher and completely demolishes Joe Thuney to get to Brady in the backfield:
Heyward gets a great jump off the ball and uses his hands to get inside the frame of Thuney. This gives him leverage as he drives the guard into the backfield and makes it easy for him to disengage and sack Brady once he's gained enough ground.
That's the problem when the Steelers get four good rushers up against a five-man protection unit that doesn't have elite linemen at multiple positions. It forces the offensive line to choose which player they want to double-team and guarantees at least three of the rushers a one-on-one matchup to get to the quarterback.
Sometimes they get those matchups even without a double team and they can crumble the pocket together. That's what happened on Dupree's fourth quarter sack on third down. Watch how Tuitt starts his attack on David Andrews with a bull rush, then switches to a swim move to pressure Brady through the A-gap and force him to tuck the ball.
That allows for Dupree to finish the play with a sack after he breezed by Cameron Fleming. Also keep an eye on what Dupree does at the onset of the play, as he bumped Gronkowski at the line to knock him off his route:
The Steelers had success in some big moments with this front and they employed several schemes and personnel combinations that had not worked together much before this game.
As they continue their 2017-2018 campaign, look for the efficiency of these groups to improve. If they continue to get pressure while just rushing four players it will create problems that force offensive protection units to focus on the various looks Butler likes to employ, and deal with the potential confusion.
BETTER MAN COVERAGE
Contrary to popular opinion, the Steelers did employ plenty of man coverage schemes against the Patriots in the AFC championship game last year. The problem was that they did not have the personnel to run many of those man schemes and keep up with the Patriots' receiving corps.
On Sunday, they proved there was significant improvement on that front. That was thanks to the play of Artie Burns, Mike Hilton, Cam Sutton and the rest of the secondary.
Hilton was an unsung hero of the game and had two passes defensed, both in crucial situations. One came when he saved a touchdown after biting on a play action pass and allowing tight end Jacob Hollister to get behind him with Brady throwing the ball to the back of the end zone.
Hilton uses his quickness to recover on the play and never panics while keeping his eyes on Hollister the entire time. When he sees Hollister start to look for the ball he puts his hands up in the exact right spot to deflect the ball and erase a scoring opportunity for Brady:
Hilton ran with his man all throughout the game and the Patriots never found a solution to beat him.
Even when the Patriots did manage to beat the Steelers' man schemes, it often took a pinpoint pass from Brady into the tightest of windows to make it happen. Watch how Brandin Cooks has to fight his slant to the inside of Sutton and how it takes some great improvisation from Brady to make the play work.
Sutton does a great job engaging with his hands and then following Cooks' back shoulder on the slant to challenge the ball, but Brady fires a perfect pass that Sutton cannot stop:
Sutton talked to me about this play after the game and described the different things he was looking for from the start of the play based on the situation.
"In that set, we know they like to run digs out of that," Sutton said of what he knew the Patriots were trying to set up. A dig is a short route that breaks across the middle of the field, which is what Cooks might have been going for. But he ended up running a slant because of how physical Sutton was.
"Obviously they were in the red zone so we wanted to break that off a little bit. Tom gave several pump fakes and acted as he would run, then just threw it in there. It was good defense, but a better throw and a better catch. Just have to move on and make the next play."
Sutton said he felt like he had a good game, and after looking at the tape I would agree. He never looked lost in coverage, he was physical with receivers in man coverage and was not giving Brady easy passing windows. Especially for a rookie getting his first start in the NFL, that is a solid day.
Now we rotate to another example of solid man coverage even when the Patriots were moving the ball. Davis had a rough day at safety as he was often assigned to run in single coverage on Gronkwoski, a tight end who had a six inch height advantage.
Watch how he runs with Gronkowski down the field. While he uses his hands to check Gronkowski a little later than you would want, he does manage to turn, run and put his hand up in as good of a spot as you can ask of him on this play.
Brady just fits the absolute perfect pass to Gronkowski over the shoulder to get over Davis' hand just in time so that Burns and Mike Mitchell can't get there to break it up. Throws like this are why Brady has the pedigree that he does, and having a player with Gronkowski's size makes it all that much easier:
There were several instances on Sunday where the Steelers used man coverage across the field and provided Brady with very tight passing windows. Coverage like that forces a quarterback to be great to win, and it can make him hold onto the ball longer than he would typically want against a defense that has the third-most sacks in the NFL with 43 on the year.
COMMUNICATE AND COORDINATE
What the Patriots have done to the Steelers so well over the years is to use various offensive formations that get matchups they like and pick at the mismatches when the Steelers are unable to adjust. They will pick at your weaknesses in coverage if you don't adjust with them and show continuity across the board.
Take this completion to Danny Amendola for example, when he matched up with Spence and Brady knew he had an easy target:
The Patriots are notorious for finding formations and route combinations that maximize space and work to the advantages of their players' skill sets. That's why it's vital for the Steelers' defense to be attentive and on each of their responsibilities, even when the Patriots are trying to fake them out of those responsibilities.
For example, Brady loves to use play action to complement his team's ground game and the Steelers reacted really well to one of those later in the game. Watch how Brady fakes the handoff to Lewis and how that draws up both Spence and Williams as the inside linebackers.
But Williams, highlighted in yellow, knows better than just to rush up and abandon his man coverage of Lewis just because of the fake. He stops, chops his feet and immediately starts trailing Lewis to the flat. Brady floats a pass over Williams for Lewis to make a remarkable catch over the shoulder, but it was too far and Williams' coverage had done the trick:
Of course, that wasn't Williams' biggest play of the game. That would be when he intercepted Brady in the third quarter and put the Steelers' offense in solid scoring position. It would be the first time the Steelers had intercepted Brady since Chris Hope did it in 2005 and the first interception of Williams' career.
What makes this play happen is how the Steelers work together to take away a key matchup the Patriots thought would work. The Patriots recognize the Steelers in Cover 1, a man coverage scheme. To capitalize on this, the Patriots line their best receiving back, James White, out in the flat and force Williams to run with him in space.
White uses a shallow crossing pattern to get his separation from Williams and has Amendola's route as a screen to help with that separation. That's Brady's primary read on the play and he sits on it for a solid four seconds, waiting for it to develop. But just as White starts to cross the center of the formation, the spot where you want to target a receiver on a shallow cross, he meets the Steelers' other inside linebacker, Spence.
Spence, highlighted in red at the start of the play, is playing an intermediate zone in the middle of the defense. This is where he sits, waits, then turns to White as if he was waiting for his route the entire time, and cuts off the route. This takes away the read Brady thought he had the entire play:
Thanks to great pressure up the middle from Hargrave, Brady has to throw this pass earlier than he wanted and does so while getting knocked backwards. That pass ends up being behind his intended target, White, and gets intercepted by Williams. Williams had worked his way through the screen by Amendola and stuck with the play, getting rewarded with his first career interception.
This was the play that signified to me how well the Steelers were working together. You take Williams, an inside linebacker who has proven to be a better pass rusher and run stopper than a cover linebacker, and Spence, a player who's only been back with the team for less than two weeks, and even these two guys are coordinated in how they want to handle how the Patriots think they can exploit the Steelers' defense with simple mismatches.
Now, of course, there is still plenty to work on as the Steelers gave up 168 receiving yards to Gronkowski, the most they had given up to a tight end all season, and did surrender the game-winning touchdown drive and two-point conversion.
Considering that the Steelers were missing Ryan Shazier and Joe Haden, two Pro Bowl-caliber players, the defense was extremely coordinated in how they wanted to stay focused in their attack.
The Patriots did score three touchdowns and two field goals, but when you consider that the Steelers' defense got to Brady with two sacks and forced a key turnover without two of its best players, there is a lot of good to take from this game. Especially when you also consider the fact that they used several defensive packages that they had not employed before this game.
Butler's scheme for Brady will need some more tweaks if these two teams meet again in the playoffs as the Patriots are not a team that will fail to make adjustments. But he's a coordinator who has seen his schemes work with the personnel he has available right now and can get back to crafting some more looks that may take advantage of his defense's best players even more the next time around.