Pittsburgh Steelers: Getting a new defense, schemes and players

Defensive Line

The pass rush was a little anemic at times but for the most part forced Tyrod Taylor to get on his horse all afternoon. Keith Butler ran a lot of stunts and twist that caught Cleveland’s offensive line off guard.

The “A” gap blitz packages while rotating the safeties closer to the box was good scheming. The slot corner blitzes combined with the linebacker twist brought both corner or the linebacker on a clear path to the QB.

Tuitt and Heyward were dominating at times with Tyson Alualu spelling relief; P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E!

Javon Hargraves gave his usual strong performance while there was a sighting of the shade tree, with Dan McCullers smothering ball carriers and linemen at the same time. The defensive line will be the deciding factor going forward to the overall success for the defense because if they can get QB out of the comfort of a pocket, then the other two levels will have better games.

Tuitt is going to have a breakout year and him with Heyward will push each other to Pro Bowl status. The depth of the line will also have to stay up to their levels in order to spell them without too much of a drop-off. Seeing Javon down field making tackles is not surprising, dude is really athletic for his size and will chase you down like a lion on an antelope.