Tass said:
I watched the Steelers Thursday and their pass rush was a thing of beauty. Harassing Daunte all night, busting thru and wreaking havoc. If they are in the same system as we and our defense is supposed to be such a monster why aren't we looking as scary as Pitt does? On a position by position comparison, I think our defensive players are actually a little more talented than the Steelers. I'm not a Steelers fan but I can by God appreciate good play and their defense was great on Thursday. The same can't be said of the 'Boys. So what's the trick? And why won't our coaches do what needs to be done to make our team a beast?
We didn't blitz nearly as much as the Steelers did. Troy Polamalu was blitzing or near the line of scrimmage a ton, whereas I only saw Roy up close to the line of scrimmage a few times. Not sure why, perhaps Parcells was worried about Watkins being a rookie.
That's why I can't wait to chart the game because I want to see whether or not my eyes are fooling me, but it didn't see like we were blitzing outside of 3rd and long situations.
The other problem is that they've got to correct the issues they have with defending the checkdown receiver. There were plenty of times where Leftwich dropped back and couldn't find anybody open, then just hit the wide open checkdown receiver (usually a RB) and they got nice yardage out of it. Then again, if we had some pressure on Leftwich, he probably has a tougher time going to the checkdown guy.
YAKUZA
