Steelers vs Browns (Round 2): Coordinators Comments

Since the Steelers didn’t win last week against the Ravens, they no longer control their own destiny. Both the offense and defense played awful in Baltimore. I’m sure all of us are dying to hear what the Steelers coordinators have to say.

I have yet to voice much of my opinion on that God-awful loss to the Ravens. I’ll leave that to another article for a soonish time. Until then, I’ll let Todd Haley and Keith Butler talk about it.

Offensive Coordinator Todd Haley 

On Ben’s TD to INT ratio since Haley’s arrival: 
“I’m not going to make excuses for him or for us, but I know it’s something he takes great pride in [protecting the football], our whole group does. We gotta do our best job of it this week. One thing that’s a fact is when we turn the football over it’s a lot harder to win.” 

On fixing mistakes from the Baltimore loss: 
“They played us a certain way, basically forcing us to show some patience, whether it’s running the football or throwing the football, taking what’s given. We’ve played other teams that try to play the same way and had success. The score effected things a bit, playing down a few scores fairly early. We just didn’t get the job done. Number 1: we turned the football over. Number 2: we didn’t make enough plays in situational football. We’re moving forward and this is the biggest game of the year for us. We need to go out and play our best game.” 

On Martavis Bryant needing to make tougher catches: 
“Yeah, in that situation a lot of times officials stay out of it (the officials not calling PI on deep balls not caught). We work awfully hard on techniques to defeat some of that, and he didn’t have great technique when the contact occurred. We needed better technique and that was the game in a capsule.”      

On how much the loss to the Ravens was a learning experience for Martavis and Markus:
“I think every game is a learning experience for them. As we’ve seen throughout the year when teams work hard to take AB out of the game by doubling him. We’ve said from the start that the other guys have to make plays, most of the year they have, last week we didn’t do that.” 

Defensive Coordinator Keith Butler

On the Browns offense:
“We’ve gotta prepare for those guys, and what they’re doing offensively. Manziel isn’t playing, Davis, going back and looking at him, they run the same offense with him as they did with Manziel.” 

Dec 27, 2015; Baltimore, MD, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back Brandon Boykin (25) sacks Baltimore Ravens quarterback Ryan Mallett (7) during the third quarter at M&T Bank Stadium. Baltimore Ravens defeated Pittsburgh Steelers 20-17. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

On Boykin’s increased playing time/impact on defense: 
“He’s helped us in a lot of ways, especially when someone gets hurt like Blake did. He’s got experience over the length of the year in terms of what we’re doing defensively. So, that took a little while. He’s getting a good handle on it now.”    

“Do you feel like you’ve guys made progress defensively?”  
“I’d rather talk about that at the end of the season. I’m hoping this won’t be the end of the season for us. We’ve got to keep improving, and take a hard look at what we did well when we get to that position, and what we didn’t do well.” 

On sack numbers being down for the linebackers, if has to do with the scheme change:  
“A little bit of it, in terms of our base defenses. The defensive linemen are a little bit more active in some of our base defenses, and we blitzed a little bit, too. We’ve changed up the defenses quite a bit. I wouldn’t say it’s more than we’ve done before. Some of it is different, some of it isn’t.” 

“You seem to be dropping the outside linebackers, especially on the right a little more.”
“Well, we do both. We don’t look to balance them out in one way or another. We have different defenses for right outside guys to come a little more, we have defenses for left outside guys to come to a little more. We try not to keep up with that, what we try to do is determine what’s best for us and try to win the game. It’s more game planning then it was being set on a particular outside linebacker.”   

On outside linebackers: 
“I think we’ve blitzed a lot in previous years. The versatility of a 34 defense and the way we’ve done it in the years that I’ve been here, we’ve used those guys in pass coverage, too. Not just rushing all the time. Sometimes you get in fourth down, you rush four guys, and sometimes you try to rush five. You try to do what’s good for that week to win the football game. In terms of how many times these guys rush and don’t rush, I don’t worry about that. I’m more concerned with putting pressure on the quarterback , and I’m not concerned on who we do it with.”   

MY TWO-CENTS: 

-This game should be a win, but I also thought the same thing last week. The Steelers no longer control their own destiny. They need to win this game and have the Bills beat the Jets in order to clinch a playoff spot. These types of things are always frustrating for fans.

-I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: I want to see our defense put their cleats on the Browns throat and not let up till the final whistle. Play press coverage and send the numbers at Austin Davis.

-I’m expecting Ben to bounce back this week. We as fans were REALLY unhappy with his performance against the Ravens, but I know Ben was just as unhappy with how he played. He needs to lead this team to Cleveland and make a statement. Defense and special teams view Ben as the leader just as much as the offense does.

PREDICTION:

Browns 10
Steelers 31 

Lets hope that we don’t go into “Steelers off-season mode” after this game.

Here we go, Steelers! Here we go!

Oh, and GO BILLS!