Why is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense struggling? That’s the multi-million-dollar question on everyone’s mind in Pittsburgh right now. Is it the players or the coaches/scheme at fault?
On paper, the Steelers have a talented defense. But some of their big-name players aren’t producing at the level people expected. Miscommunication had been a major problem, not just this year but in recent memory. How much of that is a player problem and how much of it is a coaching problem? Former Steelers DL Chris Hoke wonders if it’s the latter.
“You gotta coach the details,” Hoke said Thursday on the Pomp And Joe Show on 93.7 The Fan. “You could say it’s the players, you could say it’s the coaches. Coach [John] Mitchell always used to say to us defensive linemen, ‘Listen, I know the game plan. I know what the team is trying to do to us. My job is to articulate that to you and get you to understand the game plan.’ Is that happening in the coaching rooms and meeting rooms, and are the coaches able to articulate and get the players to understand what teams are trying to do to them?
“There’s too many miscommunications, there’s too many times you’re seeing on the back end DBs looking at each other like what is going on?”
The reality is that football is 60 minutes of chaos that each team spends all week preparing for. Things can and will go wrong all the time. But how well you prepare helps you when things go wrong. Coaches, like Hoke’s defensive line coach John Mitchell, need to prepare their players for what the other team is attempting to do. If the coaches can get their points across well, that helps players in the moment on the field.
Players also need to trust what their coaches are telling them. The NFL is full of offenses that are throwing a lot of window dressing in the form of motion, and trickery at defenders on every play. Those defensive players need to trust what they’ve been coached so they can be where they need to be instead of chasing ghosts.
The reality is that the Steelers’ defense is so bad right now, everybody shoulders the blame. Just look at our own Josh Carney’s latest missed tackles report after last Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers. The Steelers missed 14 tackles in a 35-25 loss, bringing their season total to 69 and game average to nearly 10. And the Steelers have missed at least 10 tackles in three straight games. As Carney wrote, “Unacceptable.” That’s not a coaching issue; that’s a player issue.
But when players are consistently out of position and leaving gaping holes in the defense or just flat-out failing to cover players, that’s a coaching issue. Mistakes happen, even once or twice a game. But when those mistakes keep repeating themselves, that’s on coaching. Either fix the problem or find someone to put on the field who won’t make those same mistakes.
So, where do the Steelers go from here? Head coach Mike Tomlin says that the root of the team’s defensive woes is its lack of forced turnovers. And turnovers can certainly mask plenty of issues on the defensive side of the ball. Who cares how many yards you give up if you force multiple turnovers to keep your opponent out of the end zone?
But a recent lack of takeaways doesn’t address the root of the Steelers’ defensive issues. And until they get to the bottom of the problem, which Hoke thinks is coaching the details of the game plan, things aren’t going to change.
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