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Film Breakdown: A Schematic and Personnel Preview of the Steelers' Secondary

Pittsburgh's secondary is led by star safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.

Mike Santagata

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While the Pittsburgh Steelers' defensive front has star power, young talent, and great role players, the back end of their defense carries a few more question marks. Not enough that they’re truly a liability, as evident by the top 10 pass defense in 2021, but enough question marks that I would not be confident in saying they will repeat that feat. 

Let’s look into the Steelers' secondary on film to get a better idea of where they stand ahead of Sunday's season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals. 

Schematically

The Steelers play a variety of coverages at around a league average rate. The only coverage they play well over league average is Cover 3.

PIT Coverage Shells

This remained true in the two games against the Bengals this past season, the Steelers primarily played single high coverages. These coverages close the middle of the field by using a post safety. The philosophy behind middle of the field closed coverage is to be plus one in the run game while keeping a safety over the top against the pass. The issue for the Steelers was that it also allowed for one on one matchups on the outside like this one:

And also on this play:

In either scenario, the Steelers would have been better off giving more help to the talented playmakers of the Bengals' offense, but the team was the 32nd run defense by yards per carry, so they had to give help up front as well.

Although Mike Tomlin appears to be a strong believer in playing single high, with a healthier and more talented front than last year, the Steelers should be able to employ more 2-high coverage shells against the Bengals to help slow down the weaponry on the outside. This would make sense for the Steelers, because last season the Bengals were much more effective against single high coverages.

Related: Steelers' Front Seven Offers Many Challenges For Bengals

Burrow completed 13-of-16 passes for 90 yards and one touchdown last season while face the Steelers; split field coverage looks. While that is efficient and methodical, that puts him at about 5.6 yards per attempt. He also threw one of his interceptions against two high coverage. 

For comparison, Burrow was 23-for-27 for 287 yards and three touchdowns against the Steelers' single high coverages. This gives him almost double the yards per attempt with 10.6 while achieving an even higher completion percentage. Essentially, the Steelers were blasted by Burrow with a flamethrower when they attempted to play single high coverage. They should try to play less of that this Sunday if they want to come out of Paycor Stadium with a win.

The Highest Paid Safety In The League (for about 2 weeks)

The only star in the Pittsburgh secondary is two time All-Pro Minkah Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick has been absolutely critical in the success of the Steelers' defense over the past 3 seasons. It’s tough to build statistical cases for safeties because so much of what they do is not measured by traditional statistics. A great safety is a force multiplier in the secondary. They will essentially take the existing players and lift them to a higher level.

In the only game he missed last season, the Steelers gave up a season high in total (533) and passing yards (374) yardage and that’s not by coincidence. Fitzpatrick is one of the best safeties in the league at coming downhill to play the run and in coverage. He has twice been named a first team All-Pro and overall is one of the shining stars of the Steelers' defense.

Everything starts with his ability to process information quickly.

This is a great job from Fitzpatrick in a single high situation. He starts to melt with Burrow’s first read and then when Burrow “pulls the pin on the grenade” Fitzpatrick breaks hard to get over the top of the go route from Higgins. Due to the pressure, the throw ends up being a bit overthrown which allows Fitzpatrick to make an uncontested interception, but even if the pass was accurate, he is in great position to break it up.

While he does not break this up, this is another example of his ability to process quickly. This looks like man match quarters to his side of the field and instead of running with the slot fade, Fitzpatrick has his eyes on Tyler Boyd. This is because the Bengals are running HOSS Y Juke which is a play designed to get Boyd open against split field coverage. Boyd gets open, but Fitzpatrick is screaming down to meet him short of the sticks. Just overall a great display of processing, pattern recognition, and closing speed from the all-pro safety.

Speaking of closing speed, Fitzpatrick's closing speed is a trait that shows up and makes him a talented run defender as well. His quick trigger, acceleration, and tackling ability forces a third down on this play which looked like it could go big after Watt swims to the inside.

As a former slot corner, Fitzpatrick also has some really nice man coverage chops. On this play, he does a great job playing catch man behind an all out blitz. He’s physical and plays to his leverage which results in him shutting down the opposing tight end. While this is not overly common for him, a safety with great man coverage ability allows for the secondary to become much more creative and versatile.

Overall, Fitzpatrick is a versatile, talented, and well decorated safety in this league. He does a fantastic job in every facet of the game and can create issues for opposing offenses.

The Other Safety

At nearly 220 pounds, Terrell Edmunds is built like a traditional strong safety in the box although he tested very athletic for his size with a 9.89 RAS score at the combine. The Steelers try to use him in a variety of roles on their defense, but he is at his best when he’s playing big and in the box. Despite his size and athleticism, he can be taken advantage of in coverage.

This is an example of the limitations of Edmunds in coverage. The Steelers are playing man match quarters on this play and Edmunds' role is to take Randall Cobb inside and vertical. Cobb is able to open him up by pressing vertically before breaking to the inside. Edmunds does not have the fluidity to keep up with him and hopped backward rather than staying balanced with a backpedal. Then he tries to undercut Cobb, but doesn’t have the recovery speed to get there in time.

Even though he can be a liability in coverage at times, he still is a solid player overall that does a good job filling the run and rushing the passer as a safety. He ended up with a sack and three pressures on just 10 blitzes last season, while also leading the defensive backs room with eight tackles for a loss.

The Corner Room

This is the only area that will be different in the Bengals matchup against the Steelers this season. In the first game last year, Cam Sutton and Joe Haden were the primary starters with James Pierre coming on the field when they went to sub personnel. Then in the second game, Haden was hurt so it became Sutton and Pierre in base and Arthur Maulett in nickel.

In this game, it’s projected to be Cam Sutton and Levi Wallace in base with Ahkello Witherspoon coming onto the field for nickel personnel. I think that’s a better group than the Bengals faced in either game last season by virtue of not having Pierre come onto the field. Even though they're better, the Bengals should still be able to attack these cornerbacks.

Sutton might be the best player of the group, but he’s under 6 feet tall and really more of a slot corner than an outside guy. He typically puts himself into good position, but he lacks some of the ball skills that would make him more of a corner to fear.

Wallace came to the Steelers after starting his career in Buffalo. He will start outside with Sutton and Wallace is a very solid corner in his own right. He plays his coverage about as well as Sutton does, but he comes with better ball skills. A case could easily be made for Wallace as the best in the cornerback room because of this, but I think Sutton’s speed and versatility make the difference.

Witherspoon might have the best ball skills and size of the group, but he’s not as sound in coverage. Still, he’s an improvement on what the Steelers trotted out there last season and overall a fine player.

The common theme with all of these corners and the safety Edmunds is that they are all solid players. I would not categorize any of these players as liabilities overall and together they create a cohesive unit without a true weak link.

The issue for them is that the Bengals receivers are exceptional. Cincinnati should have the upper hand when it comes to their receivers against the defensive backs of the Steelers. None of these players can truly be trusted to guard the Bengals’ talented trio one on one for more than a handful of snaps. Despite the improvements to the corner room, if the Steelers try to play single high against the Bengals, we could see fireworks on Sunday.

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Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

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