What's wrong with our defense ?

[Anointed One]

I agree. Let him have a series or two to get into a groove and work his man. That sack he had on Ben, where he lined up wide and flat out beat the LT with his speed was impressive.

Seems like when Clark has gotten his opportunities, he's made the best of them so far... I don't understand why he doesn't get more PT...

 

[Podunkparte]

Seems like when Clark has gotten his opportunities, he's made the best of them so far... I don't understand why he doesn't get more PT...

To be fair to the coaches, it's gotta be hard to take Bennet or Avril off the field. Maybe move Bennett inside a little more and have Clark, Bennett, Rubin, Avril as the front 4?

 

[Anointed One]

To be fair to the coaches, it's gotta be hard to take Bennet or Avril off the field. Maybe move Bennett inside a little more and have Clark, Bennett, Rubin, Avril as the front 4?

Yes... That's what I would like to see... Mainly in passing situations... Bennett is solid in the inside of that interior...

 

[JMR]

It's not just this game.. This is not just because of the Steelers... How many times have we seen guy's out of position this year giving up easy touchdowns ? Something is wrong ... We can be #1 defensively in the league and it does't mean much when your a charity when the game is on the line... Way too many zone coverages that are getting chewed apart... That's why Pitt threw the ball so much, they saw something, they knew

Yeah, Pittsburgh uncharacteristically went to the air because "they saw something". Yeah, ok. They throw the ball a ton because they have the right personnel for it, and that's their strength without question when Bell is injured.

 

[boogiewithstu2007]

Yeah, Pittsburgh uncharacteristically went to the air because "they saw something". Yeah, ok. They throw the ball a ton because they have the right personnel for it, and that's their strength without question when Bell is injured.

Yeah they did see something ... Our putrid secondary ... And I never said Pitt wasn't a passing team or that they never throw the dam ball... But in this game, THEY threw every down, with great effectiveness.. Encase you didn't notice...

 

[HaroldSeattle]

Wheaton/ Bryant were targeted 26 times, the Steelers had a weak link in mind.

 

[blstoker]

I was more concerned that we gave up those 2 3rd & >10 plays. If we just stop those, Ben doesn't get the chance at those other 9 passes from those drives (he was 7-9 101 and they kicked 2 field goals).

 

[Uhsplit]

They had their plan, we had ours. We won.

 

[Itsmytime]

They gave up a lot of yards, that is very true. But how many teams run 3 deep like that at WR? Sherman shut down Brown. (Which doesn't shock me at all.) Shead did a very good job on Bryant. That left Lane/Burley on Wheaton and they exploited that. That being said I'm not overly concerned. Plus if Wilson and the offense can perform like they did the past two weeks, the defense doesn't need to be lights out.

 

[HaroldSeattle]

On most to those passes to Steelers WRs, the defender was just like a half a step behind, Ben R. Throw perfect strikes to them.

 

[Uhsplit]

On most to those passes to Steelers WRs, the defender was just like a half a step behind, Ben R. Throw perfect strikes to them.

We also saw that with Palmer and Newton earlier this year.

 

[dude82]

A number of things have me optimistic about the LOB and the pass defense as a whole as we enter the last five weeks of the season.

I think they'll be embarrassed and angry about the way they played yesterday and take it out on the rest of the offenses we have to play this year.

I think that, despite otherwise getting lit up like a Christmas tree, they still managed to pick off Roethlisberger twice and his backup twice in addition to the unofficial pick by Sherman on that failed 2-point attempt. Getting interceptions is not something they've been able to do much of this year, so for them to be able to do it a few times in this game was big regardless of anything else.

One of those interceptions was by Jeremy Lane in his first game since the Super Bowl. I believe that having him back will make a difference down the stretch, especially as he continues to get into game shape after such a long layoff. I think Pete Carroll alluded to the fact that Lane was used more in the game than they had planned to use him and Lane himself acknowledged that he was feeling it after only about 15 minutes of playing time. His legs also noticeably gave out on him on his INT return, which, as he gets his stamina back, shouldn't be as big an issue. He had to be exhausted by the end of the game.

I read that DeShawn Shead was on the field for 80 defensive snaps and nearly half of our special teams plays. Just like Lane, he also had to be exhausted by the end of the game having to chase down those receivers all day. My guess is that he won't have to be on the field nearly as much in any other game the rest of the season and when he is on the field, he won't be chasing down the NFL equivalent of olympic sprinters all the time. It'd help both him and Lane if Burley is able to play next week.

Finally, Roethlisberger is notoriously difficult to take down already and when you combine that with the Steelers deciding to throw the ball a ridiculous amount, there's a reason why the pass rush didn't seem very effective and, in turn, why their wide receivers were having an easier time getting open than we're used to seeing. I don't think our remaining opponents have immovable object QBs nor the full set of speedy receivers capable of taking advantage of fatigued defenses that the Steelers have.

These guys are pros and they'll shake off the Pittsburgh game pretty quickly I think. Having the offense play keep-away and score a bunch of points while they're at it would help too, of course. The challenge this week is stopping Adrian Peterson. Hopefully they can do a better job of tackling him than they did of tackling Williams.

 

[JMR]

Wheaton/ Bryant were targeted 26 times, the Steelers had a weak link in mind.

Antonio Brown was also targeted 12 times, but Sherm just held him to 54 yards. Our issue in this game was more the pass rush than the secondary. We just didn't get much heat on the QB, and their line protected him well. He had time on most drops, and they smartly used the depth of their WRs to exploit the lack of CB depth, which is why Wheaton had a career high day. There really are not many teams at all who have the personnel to pull off what the Steelers did against us, and even they turned it over enough to make the strategy costly in the end.

 

[JMR]

Yeah they did see something ... Our putrid secondary ... And I never said Pitt wasn't a passing team or that they never throw the dam ball... But in this game, THEY threw every down, with great effectiveness.. Encase you didn't notice...

Putrid?? Now you're just being argumentative and dull. Roethlisberger's yards per attempt, completion %, and passer rating in this game were all below his season averages. Season high in # of attemps, so clearly it was a volume approach in hopes of hitting enough big ones to win. It ultimately didn't work, 'encase' you didn't notice.

 

[dkmightyhammer]

I think it's worth noting that if Pittsburgh would have thrown the amount of passes they usually do they would not have racked up that huge amount of passing yards. Using Ben's stats you can see he averages 38 passes per game at 8.81 yards per attempt. That is 334 yards per game. I don't care what defense he's playing, if he throws an extra 17 passes he's going to rack up big passing stats. Our defense was statistically no worse per attempt than any other defense Ben has thrown against, its just that Pitts opted to throw a ton more than usual. He completed lots of passes but we only allowed one TD pass. Ben usually gets one TD per 21 attempts. He was 1 for 55 against our secondary.

I'm just saying the sky isn't falling because our secondary was forced to defend an unusually high number of pass attempts. They were still statistically ok.

 

[SonnyCID]

21 points off of turnovers. The Seahawks defensive turnovers were the difference in the game.

 

[dkmightyhammer]

21 points off of turnovers. The Seahawks defensive turnovers were the difference in the game.

That is a great point too. I think at the halfway point of the season we still minus in the give away/take away column. The past couple games we've won that battle and it makes a huge difference. Look at unbeaten Carolina, it's no coincidence that they are #1 in GA/TA at +16 or something and they keep racking up wins. That was us the past two years but the ball hasn't been bouncing our way as much this year and teams have stopped throwing at Sherman too.

 

[Podunkparte]

21 points off of turnovers. The Seahawks defensive turnovers were the difference in the game.

Turnovers were important, yes, but to me it was what they did with the opportunities. Red Zone efficiency was great Sunday. How many times recently have we talked about their inability to get TDs instead of FGs? It's encouraging that we're scoring TDs as often as we are right now, and not having to rely on Graham scoring them as well.

 

[boogiewithstu2007]

We played our zones out of cover 3 in prior years. This year we have been playing a lot of cover 2 and cover 2 (even with Tampa) is not stellar at pass defense. It's designed to keep you from being burned deep. When this defense was good at playing man or zone out of cover 3 they were very tough to move the ball on. Kam isn't going low to help against the run and shallow passing in cover 2 and the zones are wider across the middle which is where QB's are shredding it.

The problem with the defense this year is:
Depth at corner. This is the glaring problem that is flat out killing them. They are getting beat up hard by receivers that Sherman isn't covering.
Depth on the line. The pass rush hasn't been nearly as solid and Bennett/Avril are once again playing too many snaps. They aren't utilizing and/or getting production out of their backups and it shows.
Kam looks lost. Not every down, but he's either been out of position or at least not exploding to the runner the way he has in the past.

It's really hard to blame all of it on KR. He didn't have Maxwell/Browner/Lane to work with on the back end. Still, he plays some part in it.

Yep, cover 3 was our main defense ...

 

[boogiewithstu2007]

Yes Avril and Bennent are playing lots of snaps, the tackles are being rotated much more.

View attachment 58344

Clark isn't being being used as often as they could use them, I suspect it's because Avril and Bennett are doing such a good job.

View attachment 58345

I really like to see Clark get more snaps.

It seems obvious that teams are going after the cornerback opposite Sherman and/ or the third slot defender.
As stated by others, there is less quality at CB after Richard Sherman. I'm still not sure Thomas is 100% back , seems just a tad slower this season and less decisive, but that just my observation, could be wrong.

Hell yeah Clark should get more snaps... He's got young legs... Part of our strength before was a deep defensive line rotation and keeping guy's fresher... Richards I imagine makes the personnel changes as the DC ...