Reasons for Steelers Super Bowl drought: Part two

New D-Coordinator, still no Super Bowl wins

In 2015, Dick LeBeau was replaced as D-coordinator by his long-time assistant, Keith Butler.  As with LeBeau, I love Butler.  He learned from one of the best, in my opinion.  What I do not love; however, are the breakdowns on the defensive side of the ball that have plagued our defense since Butler has assumed command.  Can all the blame be assigned to Butler?  I am not so sure, but let’s save that for later.

Here are the defensive rankings in Points Against (points surrendered):  11th, 10th, 7th, and 16th.  Not horrible, by any stretch, but not good enough to get us to the promised land. Although the Steelers base defense is still the 3-4, we utilize “sub-package” defensive alignments under Butler vastly more than we did under Coach LeBeau.  It is not uncommon to see the Steelers open a series in “Nickel”.  Obviously, this is predicated on what package the offense shows.  The problem with the “Nickel” or the “Dime” defense is that they are both susceptible to the run, but are supposedly better against the pass.  Maybe in the games talked about below, we just didn’t have to the right personnel for the situation?

While we are not going to detail each defensive breakdown alluded to earlier, here are some of the more egregious:

In 2016, the Steelers gave up (301) passing yards to the Philadelphia Eagles and lost 3-34.  We gave up (222) yards rushing to the Miami Dolphins and lost 15-30.  Although we would beat the Dolphins in the playoffs, did the Steelers miss an opportunity to host the AFC Championship game because of the regular season loss to the Dolphins? Maybe. So instead of hosting the Patriots, the Steelers gave up (374) passing yards and were, quite frankly, embarrassed, losing 17-36 on the road.

In 2017, after an embarrassing regular-season loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars at home 9-30, a game in which we gave up (231) rushing yards, the Steelers were again embarrassed in the playoffs at home against the “Jags”, losing 42-45, a game in which we gave up a total of (378) yards.  Having been down 7-28 at one point, the Steelers got it to 35-42.  There were some really questionable coaching decisions in that game which we will explore later, but, suffice to say, the offense clawed back to get the Steelers within striking distance and the defense just could neither get a stop when we needed one nor make the big play when we needed one.  This was a low point for me as a fan, to be sure.

Last season was particularly trying to be a fan.  After week 11, the Steelers were 7-2-1.  We were sitting pretty until weeks 12, 13 and 14 when we, inexplicably, lost three in a row to the then 4-6 Denver Broncos, the 8-3 San Deigo Chargers, a game in which we blew a 23-7 halftime lead and to the then 2-10 Oakland Raiders.  Absolutely disgraceful.  Another low point without a doubt.

What was really mind-boggling to me during that three-game losing streak was the loss to the Chargers.  The Steelers were up 23-7 at halftime.  Without doing a whole bunch of research, I can’t remember the last time a Steelers team lost a (16) point lead.  Although the offense played too conservatively in the second half, in my opinion, the defense just simply broke down and allowed the Chargers to mount a comeback.

One thing that I will never forget about that game is this: The Steelers D chose to or at least it appeared that we chose to have a linebacker cover Keenan Allen, WR for the Chargers.  After getting beaten multiple times with an LB covering a receiver, the Steelers D seemingly made no adjustments. Was this Butler not adjusting to what was transpiring or was it something else that we, as fans, were not privy to?  We will explore that later as well.

Let’s wrap up this part of our three-part series.  At the outset of this article, I indicated that we would take a look at how our draft picks fit into our schemes.  I think the simple answer is this: While the Steelers have had successful regular seasons and have made the playoffs, we have not won a Super Bowl since 2008.  Are or were the draft picks to blame?  Are or were the schemes to blame?  The only aspect left to look at is coaching. Stay tuned for part three.