Did PIT unleash the beast of Copy Cat D?

[pdangle]

First off, don't sweat it Rob and others - Ain't no thang but a chicken wing. To a degree every sentence we write here is debatable, and the topic is touchy, AND we're all pissed this week.

I guess venom we see from calling it a "blueprint" is because it implies there is a systematic set of instructions that any team can call up any weekend and beat our beloved Patriots as needed. Obviously, I doubt anyone here at PF thinks this is true. So maybe the better way to write it up is as a reoccurring "troublesome scheme".

What upsets me is that TB, BB seemingly spend to much time trying to figure it out, or let themselves become confused by it, instead of just saying, we don't really care what you're doing, but "Try to stop this you dirty mutha ***...", well you get the point.

 

[TomPatriot]

I'm a bit worried. Not from the loss mind you. You can't win them all, or look good all the time, so that's no biggie. It's from the resounding success of the tight man-2-man and press coverage PIT sprung on us.

Hey, it's a good strategy when you break it down. Our outside guys are small, shifty, and use their smarts for route adjustments to pick apart ANY zone or soft man. Now, if the opposition has decent CB/S athletes, semi-decent rush, they can really cause us problems with this scheme. You press our guys early, use your altheticsm to jam and then cover us to every direction. You take away our advantage (including Bradys pre-snap reads) and play into your strengths.

My fear.. It works, and the other team's DCs smell blood. We know it's a copy cap league. We will see this again, and again, and again until we solve it. I'm afraid with our semi-aging WR's and Oline (too much age or youth), it won't even take an elite D to implement this scheme anymore like in the past.

So the big questions is.. HOW do we stop it? Deep threat. None. Run it. Maybe. But their safties are playing up without that deep threat, and I assume man D is better against the run anyway. I'm not really sure about all the X's ad O's. I would imagine Gronk and maybe Hernandez are part of the solution if we can afford to take them off pass protection or run blocking. Maybe fight fire with fire and jam the ball down their throats, and go for home run pass hot routes.

Still I'm kind of amazed this hasn't been tried against us before actually. It had to, and must have been unsuccessful most times. Look at our W-L over last 5 yrs, ha! Just by the law of averages we had to have crushed this or similar D more than once or twice. So what did PIT or NE do differently?

Anwyay that's the thought I keep coming back to. I'd be curious to hear what my fellow PFs think on the matter. Especially solutions from and X and O and/or strategic personnel perspective. --NO OLD RANTS PLZ. However threads #999.#975, #1055 and #1033 among several others, are still open and available for such dialog--

I don't think the Steelers were doing anything new - they were just executing well and NE wasn't prepared to play. The Steelers were playing what used to be called a jam cover 2 most of the game, so the safeties weren't up - their first responsibility in a cover 2 is 10-15 yards off the ball at least 5 yards behind the CB. You beat it he way BOB and Brady usually beat it - run a man in motion, throw to the TEs, 3-4 WRs, screens and passes in the flat.

 

[mb6592]

I don't think the Steelers were doing anything new - they were just executing well and NE wasn't prepared to play.

Some of you can keep saying it, but it doesn't make it so. The Steelers did do something new - for them:

"First, the Steelers were in man coverage exclusively throughout the game, which is a stark contrast from their typical zone scheme. When Brady has beaten them in the past, it's because he's exploited the soft spots in Pittsburgh's zone -- up the seams, in front of the cornerbacks and behind the linebackers -- but that wasn't an option Sunday because everyone had trouble beating man coverage"

Film Breakdown Shows Tom Brady Was Thrown Off By Steelers' Man Coverage, Disguised Blitz Schemes - New England Patriots - NESN.com

"After two weeks of talk about the inability of the **** LeBeau’s Steeler defense to adjust their scheme to the Patriots’ spread offense, LeBeau did just that. The trademarked Steeler blitz packages were ever present as usual, but in the secondary the Steelers played tight, bump-and-run man coverage in an extreme departure from their historical norm."

BST&N Week 8 Recap: Patriots @ Steelers. | Boston Sports Then and Now
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At least the "Steelerers surprised the Pats that's why the Pat' offense looked stalled " people have a debatable, albeit absurd, point.

"To Belichick and Brady, the problem lied more in New England's inability to execute. 'They played us some man coverage, that wasn't anything that I would say that we haven't really seen before, but probably a little higher percentage of it than they've shown in other games,' said Belichick. 'We did work on it. Again, we just have to do a better job in those situations -- protecting, getting open, having plays that maybe everything could have happened a little quicker, a little cleaner." Echoed Brady, "They do [play man coverage], that’s part of their scheme. They probably did it a little more yesterday than they’ve done in the past. But there weren’t many looks out there that we didn’t prepare for, or that we didn’t think they could do. It just really came down to our execution.'"

Man, oh man: Coverage wasn't unexpected - New England Patriots Blog - ESPN Boston
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The Steelers changed to a type of coverage that has bothered this offense before. If you want to argue that because the Pats weren't expecting the Steelers to run it, that that was why they were successful - have at it. It's undeniable this type of coverage slows this offense down a bit. You could call it blueprint, scheme, or spend coutnless pages arguing semantics. In the end, slowing down the Pats' offense a little bit only becomes a problem when the defense fails to get off the field and/or fails to play at a respectable level.

 

[alvinnf]

Some of you can keep saying it, but it doesn't make it so. The Steelers did do something new - for them:

"First, the Steelers were in man coverage exclusively throughout the game, which is a stark contrast from their typical zone scheme. When Brady has beaten them in the past, it's because he's exploited the soft spots in Pittsburgh's zone -- up the seams, in front of the cornerbacks and behind the linebackers -- but that wasn't an option Sunday because everyone had trouble beating man coverage"

Film Breakdown Shows Tom Brady Was Thrown Off By Steelers' Man Coverage, Disguised Blitz Schemes - New England Patriots - NESN.com

"After two weeks of talk about the inability of the **** LeBeau’s Steeler defense to adjust their scheme to the Patriots’ spread offense, LeBeau did just that. The trademarked Steeler blitz packages were ever present as usual, but in the secondary the Steelers played tight, bump-and-run man coverage in an extreme departure from their historical norm."

BST&N Week 8 Recap: Patriots @ Steelers. | Boston Sports Then and Now

At least the "Steelerers surprised the Pats that's why the Pat' offense looked stalled " people have a debatable, albeit absurd, point.

"To Belichick and Brady, the problem lied more in New England's inability to execute.

"They played us some man coverage, that wasn't anything that I would say that we haven't really seen before, but probably a little higher percentage of it than they've shown in other games," said Belichick. "We did work on it. Again, we just have to do a better job in those situations -- protecting, getting open, having plays that maybe everything could have happened a little quicker, a little cleaner."

Man, oh man: Coverage wasn't unexpected - New England Patriots Blog - ESPN Boston

Zone, Man, Combo or whatever. When you run the ball 11 times you deserve to lose!