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Steelers Get Dragged Into Wild NFL Rant

A certain defensive coverage is in vogue, and it all started with the Steelers.

Conor Hutchison

Jan 1, 2023; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick (39) celebrators a fourth quarter interception against the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images
Jan 1, 2023; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick (39) celebrators a fourth quarter interception against the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images / Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images
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PITTSBURGH -- For a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers, one that thrives and focuses on the defensive side of the ball, the 2024 NFL season could not have started better. Defenses across the NFL have caught up to the offensive explosion that dominated the league for the last four years.

There are lots of factors that affect offensive and defensive performance. Referees have made illegal motions and formations a 'point of emphasis', the NFL's new kickoff rules result in offenses needing less production to get into field goal range, and kickers (other than Justin Tucker) can hardly miss from 50+ yards. But NFL defenses are making their opponents work for it if they want more than three points with a suddenly controversial coverage.

In Super Bowl 54, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes connected with wide receiver Tyreek Hill for a 44-yard bomb. The pass remains one of the most famous from the 2020 season, a season that broke almost every NFL offensive record. Offenses averaged 359 yards and 24.8 points per game, both NFL records.

In the early 2010s, 'single-high safety' looks were all the rage. The extra man closer to the line of scrimmage, or 'in the box', meant defenses had an easier time stopping an offense's run game. The trickle-up effect was quarterbacks at every level got more opportunities. Fast forward to 2020 and Mahomes has mastered the explosive play.

Defensive coordinators likely had enough. Rather than the middle of the field closed with a single high safety, coordinators started opting for 'two high safeties' much more often — 46% of defensive snaps have two high safeties, and 545 blitzes through week two of the season are an NFL record high and low respectively. Today, defenses such as Kansas City, Buffalo, and Minnesota (all great defenses) are trotting out there with two high safeties over 65% of snaps.

However, only two weeks into the NFL season, the legality of 'two-high safeties' coverages including but not limited to 'cover-2', 'cover-4, and 'cover 6' are under attack. ESPN's draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. believes two high safeties "should be banned."

"Hit the receiver in stride. 65-yard touchdown. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. That’s what I want to see brought back," Kiper said. "Check down kings, bubble screen sensations, boring football. Uh-uh. I want to see those deep shots.

"Don’t tell me you can’t have those safeties closer to the line of scrimmage than they are,” an animated Kiper continued. “I was at games thinkin’ ‘hey, two high? They’re out in outer space!’ I couldn’t even find ’em. They’re playing with nine guys! The other two, they’re so far back you don’t even know they’re part of the damn play! I’m telling you, we gotta change this thing."

While that could or would never happen, two high safeties are not a new practice in the NFL nor are NFL offenses attacking the coverage correctly.

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Tony Dungy is often credited with the 'invention', or at least the popularization, of Tampa-2, a 'two-high safety' concept that involves dropping the middle linebacker into coverage to close the middle of the field post-snap, making almost a 'cover-3' look. The coverage was extremely successful in the early 2000s. In the 2007 Super Bowl, the Colts under Dungy and the Bears made the big game with a high dose of Tampa 2. Dungy was fired following the 2002 season, but in 2003, still heavily using Tampa 2, the Buccaneers won the franchise's first Super Bowl.

After Kiper Jr.'s complaints on two high safeties, Dungy took to X to remind the football world that he does not deserve credit for the system. It is the Pittsburgh Steelers that do.

Dungy had his best season as a player as a safety for the Steelers during their 1978 Super Bowl run. Dungy even admitted after his Super Bowl win as a coach for the Colts that he doesn't know why the coverage is called Tampa 2. Dungy credits his former head coach Chuck Noll and former defensive coordinator Bud Carson.

"My philosophy is really out of the 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers playbook," said Dungy during interviews at Super Bowl XLI. "That is why I have to laugh when I hear 'Tampa2'. Chuck Noll and Bud Carson - that is where it came from, I changed very little."

In 1976, the Defensive Player of the Year was the man the Steelers sent to drop into the middle of the field: to-be hall-of-fame middle linebacker Jack Lambert.

While today Dungy claims it was the 1973 Steelers' playbook and 18 years ago said it was the 1975 Steelers' playbook, the point stands — the concept of two high safeties is not new. But more importantly, it is not going anywhere, so offenses better start to figure it out. Right now, offenses are playing exactly into the defense's plan.

The average depth of target (how far a receiver was down the field when they were targeted) against two high safeties was 7.8 yards in 2020 but only 6.6 yards in 2024. In 2020, 11.6% of passes against two high safeties traveled at least 20 yards in the air but only 9% of passes this season. While

A two-high-safety coverage is far from unbeatable. Two high safeties encourage offenses to try difficult, layered passes over linebackers while still under the safeties, and high-risk, high-reward throws down the sidelines. While passes deep down the field are difficult against two high safeties in theory, this season, 'go balls' are the most effective way to deal with the coverage.


In today's game where pass-rushers are as bountiful as ever, quarterbacks are thrown in to start right out of college, and almost no team is happy with their offensive line play, it is no wonder that teams go with the much easier option B: just run the football.

NFL offenses face a 'light box' on 57.7% of their snaps. While that rate is barely up from 53.2% in 2019, those same offenses choose to run the ball 40.3% of the time compared to 33.8% in 2019.

With new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and quarterback Justin Fields, two men known for conducting a stellar ground game, the Pittsburgh Steelers understand how their offense will win football games. The Steelers have the most rushing attempts in the league this season. No need to risk making those tricky, layered, or sideline throws or wowing the fans with too many deep passes.

What goes around comes around. 50 years ago the Steelers shook the Earth when they pioneered two-high. A large wave crashed onto the NFL shoreline in the early 2000s with Dungy and his disciples finding success. But in 2024, long after Noll and Carson have stood on a sideline, the two-high safety wave is larger than thought possible. And the Steelers, the team that caused the first rumble, are perfectly poised to cut right through it.

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Conor Hutchison
CONOR HUTCHISON

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