Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — Through two weeks, the Pittsburgh Steelers have given up three passing touchdowns. Two of them came on the same play.
Not the same actual snap — that’d be impossible to do. But on the same (or at least similar) schematic play from two different offenses.
In Week 1, the New York Jets ran a play out of 12 personnel with condensed splits, and sent outside receivers Garrett Wilson and Josh Reynolds on paired post routes, with one crossing in front of the other right in front of deep safety Jalen Ramsey.
The following week, it was more of the same, as the Seattle Seahawks ran the same concept, again out of 12 personnel, this time making it a play action and keeping the back and both tight ends in to max protect Sam Darnold.
Both times, the Steelers’ center-field safety (Ramsey in Week 1, Juan Thornhill in Week 2), went with the receiver crossing from the right to the left of the offensive formation, giving the other crosser a 1-on-1 downfield opportunity while the trailing cornerback had to fight through traffic to stay in phase.
Neither cornerback (Darius Slay in Week 1, Ramsey in Week 2) was able to do that, allowing a pair of long touchdown passes.
That’s frustrating enough for any defense, but it was even more so, because the Steelers specifically developed a plan to combat the way the Jets attacked them in Week 1, but they didn’t properly execute it in Week 2.
“I thought we had it fixed,” Thornhill said. “Me communicating with one guy, I guess he didn’t see the communication. It was frustrating.”
With the quarterback expecting to be able to read the safety and throw the opposite direction of his momentum, the Steelers were trying to have Thornhill go one way and send both cornerbacks the other way — baiting Darnold into throwing into double coverage.
But Slay didn’t peel off his man, leaving Ramsey in solo coverage. You can see in the second clip that as Thornhill turns around, before the ball was even caught by Tory Horton, he jumped in the air and put his hand on his head, because he knew they’d screwed up their own adjustment.
“We didn’t get the job done,” he said. “You know, that’s why I was a little frustrated with it. But, you know, I take full blame on that.”
On Thursday, Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin was asked about what can be done about the weakness on film. The bluntness (and profaneness) of his response showed his clear frustration.
“Not do that shit,” he said. “It’s just fucking bad, and that can’t happen, because it wasn’t something that was un-addressed during the course of the week. Those are things that I think sometimes as a coach, get you a little bit off-kilter, knowing things that happened that you work on that still occur in the game.
“We all know in this league, if you show a weakness in something, it’s going...
