DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Greg Williams Gutsy defense vs the Steelers

You have to give GW a whole lot of credit for holding Pitt's offense to 14 points.

His plan seemed to be to live with the little gains but he absolutely wouldn't let Pittsburgh beat us with the big play.

The two deep safeties had to stay deeper than the deepest WR until they saw the ball leave the QB's hand.

CB's and LB's were in mostly man coverage the whole game including Taylor 1 on 1 with Brown without help and Josh Schobert deep downfield in coverage at times.

The only pass rushers we had were on the d-line the whole game.

The LB's deserve a ton of credit to have played run/pass so well despite have such big coverage responsibilities. The D-line deserves a ton of credit for being disciplined enough to play the run first every time. The safeties deserve a lot of credit for being disciplined enough to stay deep and not get fooled into creeping up.

Big Ben was flustered most of the game and Bell was held to probably the lowest rushing total he is going to have all season.

The fact that nobody knew it was coming made it all that much better.

Well thought out and Well executed.

I will say this:

If Myles Garret was healthy yesterday we beat the Steelers.

No way Rothlisberger gets off those deep passes to AB with Garret on the field...Garret would have been unblockable by the Steelers OL and he would ate them for luch and he would have been wrecking wrecking havoc in the Steelers backfield all day...Garret has 4-5 sacks easily yesterday had he played.

We will get them later in the year barring were still healthy by then.

there's no doubt it took Pitt by surprise. The one deep safety (very deep) and then loaded up coverage was a good change up ... I will say that Peppers must have Williams' trust already to do that

I think when he's moved 5-10 yards closer he'll have that trust.

thoroughly surprised, in a good way, with the way our safeties played.

and man oh man, we stopped the run? I don't care what excuses people give with regards to Bell, that's an all pro- pro bowl RB, and we held him to 10 carries for 32 yards, and as a team they only rushed 17 carries for 35 yards.

AB is gonna be AB, but my worry was that Bryant was gonna go off on us, especially since we have inexperienced corners and secondary overall.

I know we're supposed to take it one week at a time, but man, someone will have a hard time convincing me that Flacco, Maclin, and West will be a tougher challenge than Ben, Bell, Brown, and Bryant.

From where I was sitting it looked like Peppers was back to receive a punt on every play.

Would have enjoyed more pressure at the game. Garrett helps everyone if his game is added when healthy. More 3 & out's yesterday for Towelettes. No fluke and we win; Kizer sees the receiver open in the end zone, we win. About 8 less sacks and hurries while Kizer spectates, who knows. It was exciting to watch and GW had them getting after it and they looked much better IMO.

Well, Bryant did have 11 catches on 11 targets while racking up 182 yards with an average of 16.5 yards per catch. So yeah, I would call that him "getting his".

What we did manage to do is cover deep and stop him from racking up scores.

It was a smart way to play it and I give Williams credit for a good game plan.

it also showed me that he thinks our LBs are trustworthy in coverage (something that we know has been AWFUL since we can remember). I remember a few times when Schobert was literally covering the slot

Brown, not Bryant.

and to me that's fine. I mean Ben went 24/36 for 263 yards, 11 catches for 182 yards going to AB.

that means he went 13/25 for 81 yards to all other targets. We was able to shut down Bryant , i just wished we could've held up Jesse James better, as he got both TD catches from Ben.

I sat too far up to see well, but watched Schobert some. Overall did you think he did well?
Our LB's did well as a whole? I was very impressed how well they kept Bell bottled up. Rusty, yes, given. But still dangerous. Didn't shred us. Hats off.

The D in 3rd quarter gave up chunks quickly. The passes to right flat and far left just happened repeatedly, like they kept the money play until needed. Still, we got some props.

Pitt there were times durning the game i went damn where's our safties. They were out of the picture. lol

Considering that they asked him to cover so much. I am shocked. I knew Collins and Kirksey could cover like that, but I did not expect our MLB to be able to, nor is it usually in the job description.

The TE Screen for the touchdown - just a good play call with great execution

There were a couple of times I would have liked to see Kirksey or Collins versus Schobert in coverage but Big Ben is smart and I think he wanted to exploit that matchup

j/c:

I wonder how much of the deep safety stuff was scheme and how much can be attributed to Williams not trusting the reads of our safeties?

I'd say both were factors. Just not sure how much.

I think we were more worried about Bryant and Brown than anything. I don't think Mike Wallace, Breshad Perriman, and Jeremy Maclin will cause us to have the same fears (I am not saying they are bad, just not the same level as the two Steelers).

That's a good question, but Kindred certainly had a great game and normally he would be the one I would suspect.

It takes a guy with special speed to play that deep safety spot. I tried to find an article that I read about this type of defense before that used a single deep safety and I couldn't find it. I do remember that the coach that used it wanted the fastest guy on the team and someone that was willing to lay the wood. I have never seen 2 safeties that deep like they did at times.