The Pittsburgh Steelers like to play a lot of Cover 3. That’s nothing new, and it’s been a staple of their defense for years. But it isn’t the most foolproof scheme, and the Steelers have had more than a few issues running it this year, including in last Sunday’s loss to the Chicago Bears. Speaking Thursday, DC Teryl Austin talked about some adjustments the Steelers need to make in that regard.
“Every defense you call, every coverage you call has some weak points, some places that can be exploited. And I just thought they [Bears] did a good job of catching us and getting some things on us,” Austin said via team-provided audio. “We’ll go back and look at the tape and then decide what kind of adjustments we need to make, if any, to the coverages and how we play them. We’ll look at that and move forward. The plan is to play any of that stuff better this week.”
The exact number has varied as the weeks go on, but the Steelers have run Cover 3 on around 30 percent of their total defensive snaps throughout the year. Playing it that often, and allowing the NFL’s third-most passing yards, means some of the issues have been clear.
A lot of them revolve around miscommunication. Playing Cover 3 means the safety has to recognize where his linebackers are passing off deeper routes. And linebackers themselves also need to recognize when to pass off a crossing route to another linebacker, or spot one coming into their zone.
However, one of the easier ways to beat the Steelers’ Cover 3 scheme is just four verticals. That’s a concept the Bears ran often last Sunday, and it worked well. This Caleb Williams touchdown pass to DJ Moore is a good example.
Teryl Austin was asked about the difficulty the safeties and corners have here, trying to defend four deep routes with just three deep defenders.
“There’s some things we’ll have to do a little bit better,” he said. “We gotta coach ’em better, and get ’em in better positions. That’s some stuff that we’ll work on this week. Those are always the things. Four verticals versus three deeps are always going to come into play.”
Four verticals is a typical Cover 3 beater, especially in trips. It puts the safety in a complicated spot, like Jalen Ramsey is on the play above, having to decide whether to cover the crossing route or the seam route. Because he takes the crosser, it then puts James Pierre in a bad spot, as he now has to defend both the sideline route and the seam. Meanwhile, Brandin Echols passes his assignment off to nobody, thinking Ramsey will cover the seam. It’s a mess. And all the while, the Steelers have four defenders within seven yards of the line of scrimmage with nobody to cover.
Because it’s so beatable, some defenses now have somebody trail the extra deep route when offenses are in trips. In this case, that would be Echols following Moore up the field. That way, the Steelers have one deep defender for each deep route, and things are much simpler.
But the Steelers don’t do that. And they got burned in Chicago. Going forward, that has to change. Only two teams have allowed more passing yards this season than the Steelers, which just can’t happen for a team in a playoff race. The execution has been bad, but in instances like this, Teryl Austin and Mike Tomlin aren’t even giving their defense a chance.
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