The Steelers' defense has the components to be an elite unit, but it hasn't been that just yet in 2021. There have been elite plays and moments, but the group still hasn't been dominant consistently enough to earn that title.
The simple stat numbers show that with 20.3 points per game being sixth-best in the NFL, 106 rushing yards being 12th, 239.7 passing yards being 13th, and 345.7 total yards being 11th. Those are good numbers, but not elite. The changes that need to be made may look minor on film, but they could have major implications in games and drastically boost the defense's numbers and performance in the biggest moments.
Make no mistake, the Steelers' defense has the talent to be elite. They have the NFL's best edge rusher in T.J. Watt, an elite free safety in Minkah Fitzpatrick, the second-best defensive tackle in Cam Heyward, and several young emerging playmakers like Alex Highsmith and Devin Bush to go along with key role players like Joe Schobert, Joe Haden and company.
Injuries do play a role in the Steelers' defense not being at its best, but there are chemistry and positioning issues that go into those struggles as well. Mike Tomlin addressed those issues in his opening remarks of of his Tuesday press conference at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.
"On the defensive side of the ball, the thing that we've stressed a lot during team development is leverage and winning to our side of leverage whether your leverage is inside or outside," Tomlin said Tuesday. "When you're talking coverage, every coverage has a leverage, and whatever the coverage prescribes inside or outside, that's the place that you can't get beat. And too often, we're losing coverage to the side of leverage, and so we’ve got to get better in that area."
Leverage in coverage refers to certain details in how defensive backs and linebackers work in pre-snap alignment, coverage at the snap of the ball, what side of the man they're covering they want to work to take away, and how that plays to the rest of the defensive scheme.
For example, most man coverage schemes will assign cornerbacks to shade their starting positioning to the inside shoulder of their man that's closes to the center of the field. The point of this is that the defender doesn't want the receiver having a route over the middle that gives the quarterback an open target who's easy to lead. If the defender maintains inside leverage, the quarterback has to throw it behind a receiver who might be running to the inside of a play.
In most zone coverages, cornerbacks will often shade to maintain outside leverage and tightly press their man to the inside part of the field because they know help is coming from other middle defenders playing zone. This forces more bracketed coverage over the middle and relies more on teamwork and trust that your teammate will be in the right spot to execute.
Knowing when and where to apply those different leverages is a weekly grind of a challenge against countless offensive formations used in today's pass-happy NFL with coaches being more inventive each week.
"We're not making a big enough point of that," Tomlin continued. "Guys are not leverage-aware enough. And the reason why that's big is because that's where the yards are after catch. You lose coverage away from your leverage, oftentimes as minimal yards after the catch in those moments. But when you get beat across your face, there’s usually not another defender nearby. You're usually protecting some space or somebody that has their back to you, and so there's big opportunities for run after. We’ve got to minimize that component of our game. It's been a known issue. It's been an agenda of ours. But we're not getting it done well enough."
The Steelers' defense got the job done Sunday against the Browns because it stopped Nick Chubb, rushed Baker Mayfield, and was good enough in coverage to take away enough open receivers to not get beat for big plays. Tomlin's point isn't that the Steelers never apply the proper leverage, just that it's not done consistently enough.
Here's an example when proper leverage was applied on an early third down stop. The highlight of the play was Highsmith collapsing the pocket before Watt and Heyward sacked Mayfield, look at the back-end of the play.
But watch Terrell Edmunds playing the role of deep safety and properly maintaining inside leverage on Jarvis Landry's deep in route. Haden had outside leverage on Landry in case he broke to the sideline, but Haden knew he could trust passing off Landry to Edmunds for the coverage to be maintained:
Judging by where Mayfield's head was pointed, that's where the Browns' play was designed to go.
It's moments like that where the Steelers' coverage can truly be special in 2021 if it consistently executes properly in its leverage to force quarterbacks to throw into extremely tight passing windows.
The coverage group benefits from a truly special pass rush unit in front of them with Heyward, Highsmith and Watt, even with Melvin Ingram in Kansas City.
Sure, the Steelers don't lead the NFL in sacks right now with just 19 (tenth-most in NFL), but the unit is winning at a ridiculous rate with just four men getting after the quarterback, allowing Keith Butler's defenses to deploy seven men in coverage for more complicated schemes and more players to help win those leverage battles.
But take into account that the Steelers only blitz on 20.1 percent of passing plays, sixth-lowest in the NFL, and they still have the third-highest percentage in pass plays where they hurry (15.2 percent) and pressure (28.6 percent) quarterbacks, and you can see just how disruptive that front group has been.
That's why you don't see the need for a blitzing Mike Hilton-type cornerback in this defense. They'll get pressure with just the guys who line up right in front of the line. That allows for the slot cornerback to team up with other defenders to create tougher passing windows for quarterbacks to throw the ball into and potentially miss.
Here's an example of that when Mayfield thought he had Landry on a deep route over the middle against Arthur Maulet, the Steelers' new slot cornerback who's doing a sold job just seven games into his new role.
Landry tries to deepen his route up the field and put on a stutter step to get Maulet to bite, but Maulet maintains his inside leverage so that if Mayfield wanted to throw to Landry, he has to go through, or over, Maulet. But if he tried the latter, he would be testing Fitzpatrick, who was closing in to bracket Landry:
Maybe some elite quarterbacks hit that throw, but against Mayfield, the Steelers can be confident the worst quarterback in the AFC North will either throw it far away or give either defensive back a shot at an interception.
But where Tomlin was addressing the leverage issues were on plays where there was no bracket and easy opportunities were given to Mayfield to throw the ball without much risk. He still missed more than a few of those chances, but some of the best examples of what Tomlin discussed Tuesday were actually on some of the Steelers' biggest plays.
Here's the play where Schobert forced a fumble on Landry that flipped the game in the Steelers' favor. Tomlin made it clear before and after the game how much the Steelers respected Chubb and wanted to take the Browns' ability to run the ball away.
So on 2nd and 8, the defense packed the box and left Cameron Sutton all by himself to cover Landry out on the sideline. Notice how far Landry is split out from the offense. That's a clear tell the Browns want any route he might run to maximize that space, working to the inside. But on this play, Sutton plays zone coverage and applies outside leverage. The result was Landry getting an easy catch and run, until Schobert turned the tables on him:
This might not be as simple as Sutton being the sole man who was wrong, but more so of an on-field adjustment not being called in the moment.
If you watch the play again, you'll see that Taco Charlton was backing up into a zone to try and occupy the space where Landry was attacking, but there was no way he could there. In theory, Sutton should be passing off to him, but that wouldn't be an ideal situation, and instead should be a spot where the defense needs to be in man coverage and Sutton play man coverage to maintain inside leverage.
These are the situations that Kevin Stefanski is good at picking at with his offensive schemes. Because it forces a defense to communicate and be on-point with their details on how and when to apply different leverages in coverage.
Sometimes those leverage situations also just apply in the execution of a cornerback in man coverage. Not to pick on Sutton, but on the fourth down breakup by Fitzpatrick, he was the guy that someone else had to come and save. You can see him apply inside leverage on Landry at the start of the route, but he gets shook off by Landry who got wide open. Fortunately, Fitzpatrick was lying in wait and broke it up for the turnover on downs:
Again, Sutton isn't the lone culprit in these issues and actually does a good job generally at applying the proper leverage. These were just the situations that I saw as better plays to illuminate what Tomlin harped on Tuesday.
Also, it's important to remember plays like that breakup and the bracketed coverage with Maulet where it was Fitzpatrick being the helping force over the middle on the Steelers' inside coverage. He's had to do a lot of that to help other Steelers defenders this year as the team adjusts to not having Steven Nelson and Hilton.
That role has limited Fitzpatrick from being the centerfielder free safety who's been a turnover machine the past two seasons, but it's also saved the Steelers several times this season as they've worked with their new starters in the secondary.
Tomlin knows that winning these leverage situations is vital to being a more consistent defense against the pass and letting Fitzpatrick get back to being a roaming presence all over the middle of the field. That's why he stressed it so publicly Tuesday, much like he stressed gap assignment football in the Steelers' run fits on defense.
You saw the Steelers go from giving up 144 rushing yards to the Seahawks with two running backs missing in an offense that averages 102.9 yards per game (21st) to limiting the NFL's top rushing offense in the Browns to just 96 yards instead of their average 161.1 per game (1st). When he focuses on a single element to improve, the Steelers seem to listen.
Let's see if that same impact is applied in the team's leverage in coverage in the coming weeks.
