Week 2 Pittsburg Steelers coaches film analysis

Here's the first big chunk play of the game. 28 yd pass to A. Brown. 3rd and 7


here, we're going to run this odd version of cover-2 that we ran against Minn. You might remember this defense. We're going to play man-coverage underneath with 3 deep zone defenders. Pitt is expecting a blitz, so they keep both a TE and RB to help protect. We will drop 7 into coverage against 3 receivers, no way should they get anything on us. One key here is, Reid is playing very up close to the LOS to try and help sell this all out-blitz look.


At the snap you see Tartt fire out deep, same with Reid. Bowman is just clued in on the RB, he's not coming on a blitz. It's a 4 man rush, including: Lynch, Wilhoite, Carradine, and Brooks. And Wilhoite is only coming because the TE stayed in to block. So, Mangini was trying to call a 3 man rush with 8 in coverage.


You see Reid is trying to make it back for over-the-top help. Acker is in really good position, however, he tries to guess the route from the WR and thinks Brown is going to do a comeback route and stutters for just a half second.


he quickly realizes Brown is just running a "go" route and tries to recover, but you see the separation he already allowed.


It creates just enough of a hole to drop the ball right in, that's a really, really good throw by a QB. However, that's what the elite guys do.


Reid gets there just .1 seconds too late. Also a good job by Brown to hang on to the ball.


Here you see how we tried to show heavy pressure.


You see the 4 man rush and how Pitt kept the TE and RB in to block. 7-4 blocking.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Well that game sucked....bad.....

I think, like a lot of people, I came away from the game with the impression that Mangini's blitz packages came back to bite us on this game and our defense couldn't stop a peewee team. Also, that our offense was completely stalled because we tried to implore the same gameplan we did against the Vikings.

However, what I saw on film was quite the opposite.

There were a lot of things in this game that we'll have to highlight from the film. Some of it is encouraging, some of it - not so much. As usual, we'll start with offense good->bad and same for defense.

Offense:
Neutral -
One thing I thought, as I believe many of you did as well, that we tried to implore a very similar gameplan from the previous weeks, considering the short week and long travel. However, what I saw was, in the run game we used a much different strategy to attack the Steelers. What the Steelers do very well, is that they stay at home and don't over-pursue. I lot of what gave Hyde so much success against the Vikings was the over-pursuit of the ILB's. We didn't use the stretch off-tackle play as our staple in the run game. Instead, we used the stretch-counter play as our staple in this game. We would give a stretch look to the strong-side of the formation but bring a TE back across the formation on a kick-out block in an attempt to create a counter-action in the run game. One of the problems was, however, McD, Celek and Bell all struggled, for the most part, with these blocking assignments. Especially in the 2nd half.

We also used more deep horizontal stretches this week than we did against Minn.

Good -

Overall, we moved the ball well, had a couple long, sustained drives with key first down pickups. Just didn't finish early.

CK - his shorter throwing motion really showed up in the 2nd half on some of his shorter throws. It really helped him get the ball out quicker. He also did a good job of moving some players with his eyes on a few occasions.

Bad -
There was quite a bit of bad...When we tried to go play-side on our stretch runs, Martin usually got eaten up. He had none-negative movement on playside running plays. This game put him on the spot more than the Minn game because Pitt plays with a "0 technique(NT) more than Minn did. There were a number of plays Martin got driven back on those running plays, forcing Hyde to cut back early for negative plays or short gains.

There were also a couple instances where CK got sacked because Martin and Devey's communication and togetherness was not good. On one play, Martin shifted to help Boone, Devey moved to help Pears and a DE came through unblocked on a stunt. I put it on Martin because both Boone and Staley were rather forceful in their reaction to Martin(they both looked and gestured strongly at him). Devey also got driven back a couple times in the run game and got owned in pass pro a few times. Boone gave up 2 quick pressures that led to at least 1 sack as well. Staley was pretty solid, his only, "pressures" that he gave up were more a result of the interior line not giving CK anywhere to step up into.

The blocking from our TE's not named Davis was pretty bad too. They missed a lot of their counter-blocks and there was one redzone play that we might score a TD on if Bell doesn't get driving 3 yards back into the running back.

Our RZ offense really struggled - I mentioned it in a couple other threads, but, one thing that can really, really help this is the threat of the jump ball in the endzone - not sure what horses we have to run that play, but finding one would be a huge priority for me if I was Chryst.

Defense -
Good-
Bow looked good for most of the game and our D-line played pretty well against the run, save for a couple bigger chunk runs they gave up. However, those 2 of those chunk runs had major holding penalties that weren't called which sprung the runner. But, those plays didn't cost us the game.

Ward wasn't in for a ton of plays, but he had really good coverage on one attempted TD pass.

Bad - where to begin???

Mangini - First, what I noticed was a LOT less blitzing than I thought we would have. On all but one of the big chunk plays we gave up, we weren't bringing more than 4 rushers. We also thought that Haley had completely seen through Mangini's schemes on his screen-passes that seemed to be perfectly called. That wasn't Haley, it was Big Ben, he saw it on the field. They were package plays that were designed runs with a possible WR screen option. What happened was, our D showed the blitz early(as a result of Pitt's high tempo, no huddle offense) and Big Ben saw it early and took the screen pass to the side of the blitz. So, It relieved me a little bit to see that Todd Haley hadn't been able to perfectly know when Mangini was going to blitz. The biggest problem on the day was that we couldn't get to the QB with 4 rushers. In fact, Mangini blitzed more in the 2nd half than the first(they scored 4 TD's in the first half and 2 in the 2nd) and the stetup chunk plays for the TD's in the 2nd half came when we only rushed 4). What did really hurt us a few times as well, were our extreme efforts to try and disguise our coverages.

One thing I was really not happy with from Mangini, was how he played a cover 2 zone too much. One of the throws to beat a cover 2 zone is a 'rail' shot deep down the sideline. There will be a small hole between the corner and the safety about 15-20 yards down the field, Ben took those a couple times.

CB's - What worries me with our corners, and it's what I meant with the things that aren't encouraging, are that our corners got straight up run by a couple times. I see now, why Fangio had our CB's playing deeper off the LOS so much the last few years. Brock got straight up run by by Antonio Brown on a play where he tried to play a press-man coverage on a cover 3 zone(think of a lot of Seattle's style of play). Playing father back, as we did under Fangio, almost immediately took away the deep routes, because we gave enough cushion, no WR's could go vertical. Acker got run by as well, same with Johnson. It makes me worry that we may simply not have the horses to run with some of the big dogs at receiver. Also, our corners are not very physical or able to press. When they tried, they usually failed, letting their man run free too easily. They did little nor nothing to disrupt the route when they tried to press.

Pass rush - non-existent. Best way to put it...I think we all already knew that though....

As usual, breakdowns to follow.

Thanks, as always, for the analysis. You mentioned Antonio Brown running past our CBs and expressed some concern about being able to stop top-tier receivers. I'm curious what happened on the long touchdown to Heyward-Bey (someone I don't consider a top-tier receiver by any means...just a guy with speed). Did he flat-out beat his man? Or did we shift our coverage to try to account for Brown, leaving a weakness elsewhere on the field?

Hmmm... Interesting. Ready to stop working and read!

Looking forward to reading through this thread, like every other of course, but the losses always shed light on our deficiencies.

Nice breakdown. Want to piggy back off a few of your points as I have only watched the first half in detail.

About the 49er run game and how it didn't work as well. MIN is a penetrating 4-3 front. PIT is s 3-4 front that I am sure two gaps (will take a closer look). That's why when you said that PIT was good at, "stay at home and don't over-pursue" it makes sense. That's the trademark of a two gapping front. They don't look to penetrate to blow up plays in the backfield when it comes to the down linemen.

Fully agree on too much cover 2 zone, and generally speaking, too much 'spot dropping' zone. I am not seeing much pattern matching, if any, and it is very disappointing. The foundation was there from Fangio and Mangini seems to be "throwing it all away". With a poor 4 man rush, the coverage schemes need to be cranked up in complexity and it's actually being dumbed down. Spot dropping zones get roasted by good QBs. The pattern match schemes is what enabled the previous 49er defense to have general success versus the good QBs. The fancy disguises just put the safeties in a bad position at the snap of the ball. Many posters have mentioned this.

I have a nice cut up of how ABrown defeats press bump and run, and it is textbook. It's on the first big play for PIT as he beats Acker off the LoS. Mangini likes to align in press and the CBs are getting beat, like you said. That said, Ben throws a beauty of a deep ball so perhaps this isn't as large an issue, but Ben sure revealed it as an issue.

Kap played very well and one of my critiques of him is how he will often take his eyes off downfield to watch the oncoming rush. In this game, he took hits to make a throw. I see this as a major step of growth. However, I don't want him taking repeated hits and that interior OLine needs to get it together. Devey was bad. Martin was bad.

Torrey had a good game and displays how a true 'X" wide receiver should command respect. It's been a long time since the opposing defense has played the lone backside WR with a cushion and that's what Torrey gets. I'll show a couple of his catches and how CBs are aligning with him.

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
Thanks, as always, for the analysis. You mentioned Antonio Brown running past our CBs and expressed some concern about being able to stop top-tier receivers. I'm curious what happened on the long touchdown to Heyward-Bey (someone I don't consider a top-tier receiver by any means...just a guy with speed). Did he flat-out beat his man? Or did we shift our coverage to try to account for Brown, leaving a weakness elsewhere on the field?

Going off memory, I put this on Brock as well as Bethea. Brock did a poor job with his re-direct as he passes off coverage to Bethea. As the CB, Brock needs to impede the path of the WR. Instead, Brock gave a half ass pat to DHB's shoulder which does nothing to slow down DHB's momentum. With a WR coming full speed at Bethea, Bethea was behind the 8ball and lost.

So basically everything Pittsburgh prepared for; is exactly what we ran? After is was obvious the game plan wasn't working why didn't they change up the defense?

2nd big chunk play of the game.



We're going to play a very similar coverage to the last chunk play. We're play a cover 2-man. Man coverage with 2 deep safety help, 4 man rush. One thing that really hurt us in this game was the pace of Pitt's offense. This was a "no huddle" play.


Pitt runs a little PA that freazes Bethea. If he drops into coverage sooner, he probably doesn't get beat. Johnson doesn't even try and press his man, he just opens his hips into coverage.


After the PA Ben rolls out to his left, Bethea reacts to this and moves more towards the middle of the field. Johnson has a couple steps on Heyward-Bey, but just gets run by.



Bethea doesn't take much of a vertical drop in coverage until Ben throws the ball. Mistake. Note how much further back Reid is in the same coverage. That's on Bethea.



If Ben puts this ball just a foot farther out, it might've been a TD, but the receiver slowed up just enough for Johnson to tackle him when he made the catch. 41 yard gain. Again, 4 man rush.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
Thanks, as always, for the analysis. You mentioned Antonio Brown running past our CBs and expressed some concern about being able to stop top-tier receivers. I'm curious what happened on the long touchdown to Heyward-Bey (someone I don't consider a top-tier receiver by any means...just a guy with speed). Did he flat-out beat his man? Or did we shift our coverage to try to account for Brown, leaving a weakness elsewhere on the field?

Going off memory, I put this on Brock as well as Bethea. Brock did a poor job with his re-direct as he passes off coverage to Bethea. As the CB, Brock needs to impede the path of the WR. Instead, Brock gave a half ass pat to DHB's shoulder which does nothing to slow down DHB's momentum. With a WR coming full speed at Bethea, Bethea was behind the 8ball and lost.

I'll breakdown that play in a hour or so, Pitt caught us napping on a no-huddle play and both Brock and Bethea got flat out-ran. It was frustrating to watch. Plus, Ben led his receiver away from the defenders on his deep throw, so it made them look even further out of position.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Offense:
Neutral -
1) We would give a stretch look to the strong-side of the formation but bring a TE back across the formation on a kick-out block in an attempt to create a counter-action in the run game. One of the problems was, however, McD, Celek and Bell all struggled, for the most part, with these blocking assignments.

Bad -
2) Martin...this game put him on the spot more than the Minn game because Pitt plays with a "0 technique(NT) more than Minn did. There were a number of plays Martin got driven back on those running plays, forcing Hyde to cut back early for negative plays or short gains.There were also a couple instances where CK got sacked because Martin and Devey's communication and togetherness was not good. Devey also got driven back a couple times in the run game and got owned in pass pro a few times. Boone gave up 2 quick pressures that led to at least 1 sack as well. Staley was pretty solid, his only, "pressures" that he gave up were more a result of the interior line not giving CK anywhere to step up into. The blocking from our TE's not named Davis was pretty bad too. They missed a lot of their counter-blocks and there was one redzone play that we might score a TD on if Bell doesn't get driving 3 yards back into the running back.

3) Our RZ offense really struggled - I mentioned it in a couple other threads, but, one thing that can really, really help this is the threat of the jump ball in the endzone - not sure what horses we have to run that play, but finding one would be a huge priority for me if I was Chryst.

Defense:
Bad -

1) That wasn't Haley, it was Big Ben, he saw it on the field. They were package plays that were designed runs with a possible WR screen option. What did really hurt us a few times as well, were our extreme efforts to try and disguise our coverages. One thing I was really not happy with from Mangini, was how he played a cover 2 zone too much. One of the throws to beat a cover 2 zone is a 'rail' shot deep down the sideline. There will be a small hole between the corner and the safety about 15-20 yards down the field, Ben took those a couple times.

2) CB's - They did little nor nothing to disrupt the route when they tried to press.

3) Pass rush - non-existent. Best way to put it...I think we all already knew that though.

Terrific preview of coming attractions.

I wanted to highlight these b/c they are so critical:

Offense:
Neutral -
1) We would give a stretch look to the strong-side of the formation but bring a TE back across the formation on a kick-out block in an attempt to create a counter-action in the run game. One of the problems was, however, McD, Celek and Bell all struggled, for the most part, with these blocking assignments. - jd, do we know when McDonald was hurt? I can imagine that would be a huge issue for us in the run offense as neither Celek or Bell (off the bench for McDonald) are stellar blockers. It sucks to go from terrific run blocking with 3 TE's against the Vikings to this.

Bad -
2) Martin...this game put him on the spot more than the Minn game because Pitt plays with a "0" technique (NT) more than Minn did. There were a number of plays Martin got driven back on those running plays, forcing Hyde to cut back early for negative plays or short gains. There were also a couple instances where CK got sacked because Martin and Devey's communication and togetherness was not good. Devey also got driven back a couple times in the run game and got owned in pass pro a few times. Boone gave up 2 quick pressures that led to at least 1 sack as well. Staley was pretty solid, his only, "pressures" that he gave up were more a result of the interior line not giving CK anywhere to step up into. The blocking from our TE's not named Davis was pretty bad too. They missed a lot of their counter-blocks and there was one redzone play that we might score a TD on if Bell doesn't get driving 3 yards back into the running back. - Very nice assessments. Just a poor day all across the board from communication, physically being over powered, quickness at the snap, etc. Not good!

3) Our RZ offense really struggled - I mentioned it in a couple other threads, but, one thing that can really, really help this is the threat of the jump ball in the endzone - not sure what horses we have to run that play, but finding one would be a huge priority for me if I was Chryst. - Rinse and repeat for how many years now? This one is very frustrating esp. when you consider 3-4 long quality drives end in nothing or just FG's. Not good at all. This had to be cleaned up. Period.

Defense:
Bad -

1) That wasn't Haley, it was Big Ben, he saw it on the field. They were package plays that were designed runs with a possible WR screen option. What did really hurt us a few times as well, were our extreme efforts to try and disguise our coverages. One thing I was really not happy with from Mangini, was how he played a cover 2 zone too much. One of the throws to beat a cover 2 zone is a 'rail' shot deep down the sideline. There will be a small hole between the corner and the safety about 15-20 yards down the field, Ben took those a couple times. - Thank God! I swear, I was starting to think someone filmed our walk-throughs. I also hope GEEP takes note of this. I would love some simple but very effective pressure-beaters like this as well for CK esp. now that he has command of the huddle. As to the rest, sounds like JT is all over this issue. It's on tape now. Gotta learn from it.

2) CB's - They did little nor nothing to disrupt the route when they tried to press. - So annoying. I love press b/c you can run blitzes off them, it forces the QB into thinking twice about a quick throw, disguise coverages, etc. but with speed demons outside, if you don't square up and prison-rape the WR's immediately off the LOS and all the way down the field like Dick and Carry did against the Packers (1 holding call all game), you might as well not even be on the field (or like you noted, play off coverage). Otherwise, they are going to spring clean off the LOS and blow by you every single time. And we saw just that. Our CB's are not slow but they have 3 WR's who have world class speed and Mangini put them at an immediate disadvantage. It's the equivalent of schematically putting a rookie Ward on you-know-who from the slot and never changing it.

3) Pass rush - non-existent. Best way to put it...I think we all already knew that though. - I know the Steelers ran max-protect while we gave them the immediate advantage in press outside with only 2 and 3 WR's for the most part, but their OL also did a stellar job of picking up our blitzers even when we did bring them. Hats off to them. But this is concerning nonetheless.

You know it's a rough day when Heyward-Bey is burning our DB's.

Originally posted by mayo49:
You know it's a rough day when Heyward-Bey is burning our DB's.

Yep, terrible defensive scheme coupled with bad CB play made for a long morning for sure.

Originally posted by thl408:
Going off memory, I put this on Brock as well as Bethea. Brock did a poor job with his re-direct as he passes off coverage to Bethea. As the CB, Brock needs to impede the path of the WR. Instead, Brock gave a half ass pat to DHB's shoulder which does nothing to slow down DHB's momentum. With a WR coming full speed at Bethea, Bethea was behind the 8ball and lost.

This is it right here. We failed not only in press alignment but also in technique from it. You can't do that against quality shifty and very fast WR's. You either have to dominate them physically at the LOS with great technique from press, in route (redirect them off their routes) or play off like how their DB's had to do against T.Smith. Defeat their speed or respect it. There is no in between.

Originally posted by itlynstalyn:

Originally posted by mayo49:
You know it's a rough day when Heyward-Bey is burning our DB's.

Yep, terrible defensive scheme coupled with bad *DB* play made for a long morning for sure.

Fixed. The S's were just as poor.