2017 Offseason

ATL96Steeler said:

@FaCe-LeE-uS....great work.

I think we're in that deadzone between minicamp and camp...good to see guys are not sitting around getting soft!

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FaCe-LeE-uS said:

Pretty interesting stats... Both Hargrave & Cockrell are making a great impact!

@ATL96Steeler

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ATL96Steeler said:

Cockrell takes a fair amount of grief from Steeler Nation. I get it, he's not a glamour type CB, but I like his game. I'm not sure if zone is his best suit, but he's a fighter...you beat him once he's not going to back off.

Still early but coach Mitch was right about Hargrave being a perpetrator...low center of gravity, quick feet for a big man.

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FaCe-LeE-uS said:

Cockrell... Zone is definitely not his best suit. Case in point is when he shadowed AJ Green in week 2 last season. He held him to just 38 yards receiving. That was impressive.

I'd love to see a stat comparison for both Cockrell & Burns in man vs zone coverage. My guess is the stats would overwhelmingly support the move to man coverage.

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ATL96Steeler said:

Cockrell...yep. He not that guy running a 4.3 or is really flashy on the field. He's more of a hard hat type of player. Yes, I remember that game well vs CIN. I think if he's allowed to be physical at the LOS with the longer WRs he can be effective in man or even in zone. He's not the typical fast twitch guy that can play off coverage, read the WR's route and react on the break in zone and be effective breaking up a high % of passes.

I have to say...I felt good about LY except for the game plan in the AFCCG. It has been true, but we like to give Tomlin grief about not being able to develop a championship team. Well, even with the failure of Jarvis Jones, he's turned over the DEF, they're not great, but younger, faster, and more effective. He also has one of the top OFC in the league.

There's one team that clearly was better LY. On paper it might not look like the Steelers have closed the gap on NE, but we don't play the games on paper...I'm looking forward to this season...I'm pretty sure Butler would like to be more aggressive this season, we'll see if Tomlin has more confidence in his young DBs.

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FaCe-LeE-uS said:

Cockrell... hit the nail on the head. Perfect summation of the guy as a DB. Would love to see both him & Burns on the LOS more often where they are clearly more effective. Let the kids play Butler/Lake/Tomlin!

Overall I would agree that the unit is vastly improved. Save for the schemes, of course. We saw our first dose of failure early on against Philly when they tried to get cute with the zone & no pass rush (dropping more in coverage). It was ugly. You would think they would have learned from that lesson lol. Not sure whether it was coaching scared or trying to get too cute with the packages, but Butler needs to stick with the aggression. I thought it would have came natural to him after his years under Lebeau, but we knew Tomlin was trying to put his mark on the defense so it had to change somehow.

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ATL96Steeler said:

Scheme...Tomlin might be stubborn to some degree, I think many coaches are. But he knows that he doesn't have firebreathers coming off the edge. Having a rookie on the back end and another rookie starting at CB opposite a 4th rd pick with 1 season under his belt...I get the scheme early on, but at some point I just felt he needed to unleash them boys and he did for a while, but for some reason he didn't feel like the could man up vs NE.

What he has to know now...playing passive will not beat NE.

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FaCe-LeE-uS said:

We always revert back to this convo lol. I think we've beat this dead horse a few times now.

Definitely boils down to their packages/schemes can work most of the time, but against top tier QBs they need to focus on more man coverage. Or at least have the ability to adapt their gameplans on the fly quicker than making halftime adjustments or hiding in a shell and praying for mistakes.

That stubborness shows up more in that scenario.

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ATL96Steeler said:

We can't help ourselves...glutton for punishment...

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