Seattle Seahawks Pass Defense vs. Pittsburgh Steelers: 37/59, 480 Yards, 1 TD, 4 INTs

1st Quarter

Pass #1

Situation: 1st and 10 PIT 20
Description: Q1-(15:00) B. Roethlisberger Pass Short Right to H. Miller Pushed out of Bounds at PIT 27 for 7 Yards (M. Morgan; D. Shead)

Something that I have noticed watching film of Seattle and teams that run similar systems (Falcons and Jaguars) is that they try to hide what the coverage is at times but will give away what they are running once it gets close to the snap. QB Ben Roethlisberger (#7) fakes the snap and sees that both CB Richard Sherman (#25) and SS DeShawn Snead (#35) to drop back in their alignment. Roethlisberger sees this and knows that the Seahawks in a Cover 3 and that TE Heath Miller (#83) is going to be open on the quick hitch as Snead is playing deep and OLB Michael Morgan (#57) has a long way to go to get to his flat zone coverage. Roethlisberger catches the snap and throws it immediately to beat the coverage. Snead and Sherman have to hold the disguise for longer to prevent Roethlisberger from making this easy pre-snap read and throw. (1/1, 7 Yards)

Pass #2

Situation: 2nd and 3 PIT 27
Description: Q1-(14:31) B. Roethlisber Pass Incomplete Short Middle to H. Miller (B. Wagner)

MLB Bobby Wagner (#54) makes a great play knocking the pass out of Miller’s (#83) hands but the ball is out so fast that it’s impossible to judge how good the Seattle defense was going to be. Roethlisberger (#7) is trying to dump it off to Miller quickly to pick up the first down in front of Wagner. Wagner delivers a big hit on Miller and dislodges the pass to bring up third down. (1/2, 7 Yards)

Pass #3

Situation: 3rd and 3 PIT 27
Description: Q1-(14:28) B. Roethlisberger Pass Incomplete Deep Right to M. Bryant (D. Shead)

Shead (#35) makes a good play breaking up the pass, but he should not make a living trying to play like this. Shead has the man to man coverage on Bryant (#10) in the Seattle Cover 2 and he gets beat to the inside quickly. He does a good job staying close to Bryant, but Roethlisberger (#7) does not throw the right pass on this play. Roethlisberger should have tried to drive it into Bryant’s down field and inside shoulder to take advantage of the inside leverage of Bryant. Instead, he floats a beautiful pass into Bryant’s breadbasket. This allows Shead to rake Bryant’s arm and knock the pass out of his hands. If Roesthlisber throws the right pass, Shead has no chance to make a play on the ball and the Steelers get a big gain

Shead is not the only one to have some issues on this play. FS Earl Thomas (#29) doesn’t survey the field from his deep middle position and instead bites on Roethlisberger eye placement by floating to his right. This opens up a window for Roethlisberger to even throw the pass to Bryant in the first place. Also OLB KJ Wright (#50) is poor in his underneath hook coverage. Miller (#83) is slow in the release into his route due to the jam by rookie DE Frank Clark (#55) coming off the line fo scrimmage but he doesn’t eventually get into his crossing route. Wright doesn’t see this though and lets Miller go right by him into the gap between him and DE Cliff Avril (#56) in coverage. If Roethlisberger dumps it off to Miller, the Steelers would pick up an easy first down. (1/3. 7 Yards)

Pass #4

Situation: 1st and 10 PIT 16
Description: Q1-(11:12) B. Roethlisberger Pass Incomplete Short Right to A. Brown

WR Antonio Brown (#84) is open on the flare route, but there wasn’t anything the Seahawks could do in this coverage to stop the route. SS Kam Chancellor (#31) is responsible for flat coverage, but he is playing off in his coverage and is not nearly as quick as Brown is. This route was going to be open and the best the Seahawks can do on this play is for Chancellor and Sherman (#25) to rally down and stop the play short. Lucky for the Seahawks, Roethlisberger misses the pass and the ball ends up being overthrown. (1/4, 7 Yards)

Pass #5

Situation: 2nd and 10 PIT 16
Description:: Q1-(11:10) B. Roethlisberger Pass Short Middle to De. Williams to PIT 20 for 4 Yards (K. Wright)

The coverage is overall solid, but I think Wagner (#54) should have expanded a little more in his hook zone drop. Brown (#84) is running the curl route and Snead (#35) is playing deep third coverage, therefore he cannot be aggressive in taking away this route. Brown is open underneath for a quick gain on second down, but Roethlisberger (#7) doesn’t like the throw because Wagner is in the area. I personally would have tried to throw this to the outside shoulder of Brown to prevent Wagner from making a play on the ball. If Wagner expands a little more outside, he would have taken away this route completely.

The pass rush, on the other hand, does not do its job. DT Ahtyba Rubin (#77) gets washed so far down to his right by RG David DeCastro (#66) that he ends up being the rightmost pass rusher. This plus Avril (#56) getting pushed downfield of Roethlisberger by RT Marcus Gilbert (#77) opens up an alley for Roethlisberger to escape the pocket that is crumbling from the pressure of DT Brandon Mebane (#92). Wright (#50) is stuck between a rock and a hard space as he has to prevent Roethlisberger from scrambling while keeping tabs of TE Matt Spaeth (#89) behind him. This leaves Willaims (#34) open as a release valve for Roethlisberger to dump it off to. Wright does a great job rallying to Willaims from preventing any further gain. (2/5, 11 Yards)

Pass #6

Situation: 3rd and 6 PIT 20
Description: Q1-(10:34) B. Roethlisberger Pass Short Middle to H. Miller to PIT 29 for 9 Yards (B. Wagner)

This is all on Wright (#50) as he is overaggressive trying to take away the route of Miller (#83). Wright has the hook zone coverage in this Tampa 2 and he is working with Shead (#35) on the slant-flare combination of Miller and rookie WR Sammie Coates (#14). Shead does his job on sitting in the flat zone and taking away Coates so Wright has to take away the slant route. Wright is overzealous in his pursuit of Miller and lets him beat him to the inside. Roethlisberger (#7) sees this and makes the easy completion for the first down. I do want to give some praise to DE Michael Bennett (#72). Bennett does a great job of seeing the double slant route combination of Spaeth (#89) and FB Roosevelt Nix (#45) and getting underneath both the routes. Bennett shows great awareness on this play and its kind of surprising since he is a DE. (3/6, 20 Yards)

Play #7

Situation: 1st and 10 PIT 29
Description: Q1-(9:57) B. Roethlisberger Pass Short Right to R. Nix Pushed Out of Bounds at PIT 35 for 6 Yards (K. Chancellor)

Chancellor (#31) needs to be more aware of what is around him. Chancellor does a good job not completely biting on the play action fake, but when he drops into his flat zone coverage, he turns his back to the offense completely. I was never taught in football to turn your back to the QB when dropping into coverage and this is poor technique by Chancellor. If Chancellor would have been facing the right way and using proper technique, he would have seen Nix (#45) leaking into the flat after his chip block. His lack of awareness opens up the route and Roethlisberger dumps the ball to Nix for a good gain.

Sherman (#25) also has to be mentioned as well as his technique in coverage is really poor. Sherman has man coverage on Brown (#84) and is in press coverage. He doesn’t get a good press on Brown though and he lets Brown beat him to the outside easily. Sherman is in decent trail position but is so out of control that once Brown breaks on his curl route, Sherman runs right by him. Sherman has to see that Brown is slowing down and put on the breaks with him instead of after he flies right past him. Chancellor’s poor drop is the only thing that bails him out as Chancellor end up sitting in the window of the curl route. (4/7, 26 Yards)

Pass #8

Situation: 1st and 10 PIT 40
Description: Q1-(9:09) B. Roethlisberger Pass Short Middle to H. Miller to SEA 43 for 17 Yards (D. Shead)

Shead (#35) gets most of the blame for this completion, but Wagner (#54) does him no favors. Shead is in man coverage against Miller (#83) and lined up with outside leverage from his CB position. Miller run the post route and this is a difficult route for Shead to cover with his leverage. But Shead is too passive in coverage and is giving ground to Miller while trying to maintain outside leverage. Shead needs to be more aggressive in his coverage because Miller is not going to beat him deep and get on his hip. Instead, he has no chance to keep up with Miller’s inside move and Miller is open in the middle of the field. This is partly due to Wagner (#54) as he bit on the play action fake. If Wagner doesn’t bite as hard on the fake and doesn’t creep forward pre-snap, he is sitting in the window and Roethlisberger (#7) has no chance to make this throw. The combination of Shead and Wagner open Miller up and he gets a big reception. (5/8, 43 Yards)