Bills could be exposed in beat-up secondary
Pickett catches a break in his first NFL start
Maybe you’ve heard Kenny Pickett is making his first professional start this week for the Steelers, and maybe you’ve heard the predicament at hand – severely callow quarterback vs. severely accomplished Buffalo defense – is a wee bit daunting.
What you haven’t heard this week from either camp are analyses that make much sense, including from Pickett himself, who, in assessing his chances of remaining upright on Sunday, said this:
“The line will protect; they’ve been doing an unbelievable job all year.” This line? This year? I’m reluctant to question the young man’s powers of observation, but the Steelers’ line has already allowed eight sacks for an offense that is only now up to two touchdowns per week, thanks in part to a running game that remains mostly hypothetical.
But Pickett’s wasn’t the only flagrant misinterpretation. None other than legendary wordslinger Mike Tomlin, who every week during every season identifies every possible disruptor among the opposing defensive forces, said this entirely about the Buffalo
Bills secondary:
“They’ve got a veteran secondary from a safety tandem and nickel perspective. There’s some changeover at corner, but they’re doing things very similar to how they’ve done it in the past. [Taron] Johnson is significant at the nickelback position. They play nickel versus almost all personnel groups and that speaks to the versatility and the confidence that they have in Johnson. The Ravens were playing Ravens in some big personnel groups last week in the ways that the Ravens do, and boy, they sat in nickel, you saw Johnson playing in the box and doing so well. He can cover wide receivers, he can cover tight ends, he can fit in the run game. Damar [Hamlin] has played really good for them back there at the safety spot.”
That’s a lot of specificity and praise wrapped in one of Tomlin’s patented verbal chunk plays, but the safety the head coach failed to mention happens to be the guy who leads the league in interceptions, the AFC Defensive Player of the Week, a former AFC Defensive Player of the Month, and an All Pro, one Jordan Poyer.
All Poyer did last week against Baltimore was shut down consecutive fourthquarter drives with interceptions, the second coming in the corner of the end zone on 4th-and-goal from the 2, which got the Bills the ball back for the game-winning field goal.
But in a flash of NFL-required protocol that became official just after 3 o’clock Friday, Tomlin’s oversight became moot and Pickett got a major boost to his weekend prospects when the Bills declared Poyer out for Sunday, his rib injury not having improved enough to play.
Thus in his NFL debut as a starting quarterback, Pickett draws a Buffalo secondary without standout corner Tre’Davious White (torn ACL), without the redoubtable safety Micah Hyde (gone for the season with neck injury), and suddenly without the hottest ball-hawking safety in the league, Mr. Poyer, which is probably the worst loss of the lot for the Bills.
“He’s extremely valuable to our success as a defense,“Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said last week. ”The fact that we’re missing Micah now has raised (Poyer’s) value from a leadership standpoint, as well as a playmaking standpoint. Just the things that that rub off on the young players.”
Frazier was referring specifically to a couple of erstwhile Pitt Panthers, cornerback Dane Jackson and Hamlin, a safety.
“You never see one of those guys without the other,” Poyer said at midweek. “DHam and I, we really take the time to study together. He’s taking ownership into understanding what needs to get done. We’re watching film together and I’m extremely proud of him and extremely excited to see how he grows throughout the season.”
For this Steelers encounter, Hamlin grows into the strong safety spot Poyer just vacated, while Jaquan Johnson will start where Hamlin had been, at free safety.
But Pickett’s worries are not contained within Buffalo’s secondary. If the Bills don’t blitz all that much, it’s only because they don’t have to. As former NFL scout Matt Williamson pointed out last week, Buffalo gets a sack on 10.2 percent of its opponents’ dropbacks, the second-best figure in the league (San Francisco). And, oh yeah, after halftime, things really get interesting, as the Bills have outscored opponents 44-0 in the third quarter and 19-7 in the fourth.
“We could be here all day talking about how many great things they do and all the great players that they have,” said Pickett.
Too Chicago true; the Bears Steelers aren’t a historically bad twotouchdown underdog for nothin’. Fortunately for Pickett, that battered Buffalo secondary has for the moment turned his personal Mission Impossible into Mission Improbable.