The Pittsburgh Steelers are going through a period of change, former head coach Mike Tomlin departed the Steel City after 19 years at the helm. With new head coach Mike McCarthy comes a new defensive scheme as well, McCarthy brought in veteran coach Patrick Graham to run the Steelers defense.
New Look Defense
In Brooke Pryor’s article for ESPN, she discussed the recent changes, and star defensive tackle Cam Heyward said,
“You embrace the change,” Heyward said. “There are things that you want to say the same, but you have to be willing to put your ego aside and do what’s best for the group. It’s not just young players, some coaches too, that still have to learn, and we just want to be an olive branch to that.”
While Graham is hoping to get creative with his schemes the defense will still be similar to what the Steel City is known for,
“That’s where the imagination goes wild,” he said of second-and-long or third-down situations. “… But really, I’m not going to try to venture too far off from what this city has been known for. Earning our place in that tradition, we’ve got to play hard-nosed, physical football. We have to have an intimidating play style,” said Graham
T.J. Watt To Be Moved Around
T.J. Watt is a superstar but is coming off of a bit of a down year according to his standards. Graham is no stranger to helping free up a superstar,
“My job when I was there was to free [Crosby up,” Graham said. “… There are definitely guys here; there are some really good football players here. It’s our job collectively to find ways to let them be themselves and make plays.”
Pryor believes that one way to get more production from Watt is by moving him around,
“One way to do that in Pittsburgh is by moving pass rusher T.J. Watt around — seriously, this time. A year ago, Watt and former defensive coordinator Teryl Austin preached the need for Watt to vary his pre-snap location to be more effective,” Pryor wrote.
“That never really materialized during the season. Watt played 94% of his defensive snaps at left outside linebacker, and each of his 19 quarterback hits, two interceptions and seven sacks came from that spot. He lined up at other spots — left slot, wide left, left defensive tackle, left inside linebacker, right outside linebacker — where he combined for 45 snaps and recorded one tackle for loss, a fumble recovery and four total tackles.”
Watt admitted that in the past he was more reluctant to moving around,
“In the past it was a little bit more of me being stubborn, and I think this new system allows — a lot of it’s built in, so I really can’t say no,” Watt said of moving around. “I have to move with it. A lot of us are interchangeable parts. You’re not just learning your position. You kind of have to learn the whole defensive front structure, because we all are basically interchangeable. We can do different things. I think you’re going to see a lot more movement out of not just me, but the whole front.”
The Steelers will hope that no matter where Watt is playing he still dominates like he has in the past.
Moving T.J. Watt Around Could Be Part Of A New Look Defense