Steelers’ tackling a problem
The eyes and not the stats had it because it was easily evident to anyone who watched that some players such as Artie Burns, Sean Davis and Robert Golden and more did not wrap up runners when they had the chance.
Missedtackles also helped contribute to big plays, including a 75-yard touchdown pass by Marcus Mariota to Rishard Matthews on the first play of the second half that cut the Steelers’ lead to 16-14. Golden missed the tackle at the 15. This came after Colts touchdown passes of 60 and 61 yards in a 20-17 victory at Indianapolis.
“We’re not going to be a dominant group until we minimize big plays and we tackle better,” Tomlin said. “We gave up a big play the first play of the second half. We gave up a couple big plays in Indy.
“You are going to give up big plays from time to time but we also missed some tackles on those big plays, to be quite honest with you. We have to get those plays on the ground. We get those plays on the ground, we got an opportunity to hold those groups to field goals and that’s oftentimes the difference of not only being dominant and playing dominant football, but winning games.
“We’re missing tackles on big plays and allowing people to score. We have to give our red-zone defense a chance to operate by making some of those tackles.”
The thing is, NFL teams do not tackle in practice after training camp. They’re only allowed to basically put on pads once a week. They can practice getting into position, but not the act itself.
“I think there are certain skills that you have to continuously hone and tackling is one of them,” Tomlin said. “It’s not necessarily the tackling itself. Obviously, at this point in the journey there’s not a lot of tackling, if any tackling going on in the practice setting, but the approach, the angles at which you approach the ballcarrier, the speed in which you approach the ballcarrier, the way that you come to balance and gather yourself, are all things that you can work on and things that we’re focused on with our guys. Their positioning relative to the position of others in pursuit and the knowledge of that is an element of tackling as well.”
Tomlin should dig out some film of Jack Ham and show it to his defenders. He was the consummate perfect tackler. He never looked to make the “kill” shot, and there were no ESPN highlights shows in his day to show off with big hits. He just brought the runner down.
It’s a basic part of the game and should not be that difficult to do.