Steelers plan to stay out of zone
Pittsburgh found man defense is best vs. Patriots
By the time he completed his film review of the AFC Championship Game whipping Tom Brady and the New England Patriots doled out, Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Keith Butler arrived at one conclusion.
It happened to be the same one many frustrated fans shared on Twitter that late-January night.
“I learned that we’ve got to play something else besides zone,” Butler told USA TODAY Sports on Monday after the team’s practice at training camp at Saint Vincent College.
“With Tom Brady, you can’t let him see the same defense too much during the game. Because if he does, then he’s not pulling the ball down, and he’s letting the ball go, the timing is all perfect, and he’ll eat you up. You’ve got to make him pull the ball down a little bit — make him freeze where he’s not real decisive of where he’s going to go with the ball.”
In New England’s 36-17 victory, Brady completed 32 of 42 passes — to nine receivers — for 384 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.
“That’s hard to do with a guy like that because he’s been playing for a lot of years and he studies the game,” Butler continued. “We can’t be vanilla playing him. Not that we were real vanilla when we played him. We tried some stuff, some false blitzes. But they caught us a couple of times. We made some mistakes, and it ended up hurting us. We’ve beat them before, but it has been a long time.” Long time, indeed. The Steelers have lost their last four contests against the Patriots, three of which came on the road. In those games, Pittsburgh scored an average of 21.25 points.
The Patriots during that same span: 36.5 points.
The last Pittsburgh victory came on Oct. 30, 2011. Only nine players on the Steelers were on the roster that year.
“I think it humbled guys,” defensive end Cameron Heyward told USA TODAY Sports. “But I also think it’s pushing us.”
Pittsburgh will get its first chance to erase the memory of the AFC Championship Game pounding late this season, when the Patriots will travel to Heinz Field in Week 15 for a game that could have significant playoff implications.
Butler said “probably the best thing for us last year was to play a lot of zone” given the youth of the secondary and strengths of the individual players. “We’re trying to develop a little more variety of coverages than we had last year,” he added.
So when that matchup happens, expect the Steelers to play the Patriots differently.
“I think this year, we’ll play a little bit more man-to-man with them,” Butler said. “I think if you watch the Super Bowl, Atlanta tried to play more man-to-man with them, and their usual answer is, ‘ We’re going to hurry up and get you at the line and spread everybody out and pick the mismatch.’ They’ve got quick receivers, and we’ve got to be able to match them.”
One of the players the team is counting on to do that is cornerback Artie Burns, who enters his second season in the NFL. Throughout the first week of training camp, Burns has shadowed Antonio Brown and played him in man-to-man coverage for a significant amount of the practice reps.
The reason is twofold. The Steelers want to challenge Burns to compete against Brown, considered by many to be the best receiver in the NFL. But it also is a trial period to see if Burns is capable of following an opposing team’s No. 1 receiver during the regular season.
Above all else, the Steelers have identified a need to be more flexible and varied in order to slow the defending champions.
“It was tough,” defensive end Stephon Tuitt told USA TODAY Sports. “It was tough. We want to put that behind us, but we got our ass kicked. We did. We got our ass kicked, and I hate that taste.
“But we needed that. Now we know the road is not going to be easy.”