You don't really need arm strength to beat zone defense is the thing. You just have to read the defense competently. I see it all the time with Alex Smith; this goes double if there's any kind of pocket to step into. That Steelers secondary still had some cringey moments when Cousins got around to throwing a half decent ball.
Heh, Breeland was definitely bad all around last night, no doubt about it.
Norman very nearly had an interception when covering AB too. As a zone corner he is still excellent.
Always tough to tell in a defense such as Washington's because it's so much so a help defense and we don't see the whole view watching the game on TV. Was a snap where Norman bumped Brown (I think it was) so quickly Gruden thought there wasn't a reroute at all at the LOS. Not sure if Norman thought there was a screen or what but that probably was a bit too antsy on his part unless I missed something.
Sure, he's good. And they paid handsomely for someone who can competently lock down a short or intermediate zone.
Right - that was a weird looking play. It looked like Breeland was caught in some type of time warp
Always a pet peeve of mine and why I am against primarily zone defense. Have yet to see a defense really even be good trying to copy Seattle. Jags, Washington, Falcons, and Saints all have major, major issues on defense. Oakland comes close, but that's really a hybridization which probably helps them more than the other teams simply importing Seattle's scheme. Carolina might be an exception-ish. Seem vulnerable in the secondary now but we'll see.
It looked to me like the Steelers are worried about their secondary right now so they gave up the short underneath stuff, converged on the ball and made sure to stop the run. They gave up plenty of passing yards until things tightened up inside the 20. It was a good plan and it worked very well.
