Pittsburgh Steelers: James Harrison indicates where problem lays on defense
Former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, James Harrison, has spoken a lot about his former team this week, and didn’t hold back when talking about the defensive issues.
Everyone is aware the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense is one of the best in the NFL. For the last half decade, the team has relied heavily on the offense to lead them, but that has stopped them from reaching the Super Bowl more than once.
Whether it’s becoming more of an offensive game or not, defense still wins championships in the NFL. For the Steelers, they’ve been searching for that winning defense, again, but there may be an underlying issue that’s holding them back from becoming elite.
On FS1’s The Herd on Thursday, Harrison spoke about the problems within the defense most fans wouldn’t know about.
"“I feel like it needs to be more disciplined, some of the things that they do coaching wise. I feel like some of the situations we were in…as far as time management, calling of defenses. We had a situation where we had double-called defenses because, you know, one thing was said and then someone said something else. You’ve got half the defense playing one defense, the other half playing something else. So, you get situations out there where it looks bad, like this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. Well, he’s just playing a different defense possibly on that play than what the other half of the defense was playing.”"
Harrison doesn’t blame the coaches for the issues. While many have believed Keith Butler isn’t meeting the standards of Pittsburgh defensive coordinators, Harrison says it’s more the players who aren’t playing up to par then the coaches gameplan.
"“The coaching is better,” he said. “The plans they put together are better and they don’t ask their players to do anything that’s outside the realm of what they feel their capabilities are,” Harrison said. “When you do that, and you switch a lot players in and out for certain things that you want accomplished, then you get things done, and that’s what they have over there.”"
If it isn’t the coaches, and it isn’t the talent, Pittsburgh should be very close to becoming an elite group of players, again. With veterans like Morgan Burnett and Joe Haden this defense should have a stronger head on their shoulders in 2018.
They’ll need to rely more on guys like Stephon Tuitt and Cameron Heyward to comand the front seven. Without Ryan Shazier, their linebacking core could be the weak link in communication, but T.J. Watt, Vince Williams and Jon Bostic could show promise in that department.
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The team is right on the verge of completing their roster. With a stronger defense in 2018, they’ll be a top runner for the Super Bowl come January. A lot of which depends on how well they can fix their communication skills this season.