Week 2 Pittsburg Steelers coaches film analysis

Originally posted by the_dynasty:
amen to this. a big part of a reason why our D has been able to do this was sure tackling and elite talent at linebacker, as well as dline+olbs could put pressure with 3/4 man rush

like you've said, that defense challenged the qbs to put together sustainable drives by doing short passes. a qb with high iq could pick this d apart, like peyton did last year. however with non-elite or average qbs, that D was really hard to play against because we'd drop 7-8 in coverage and also generate pass pressure. the inability of teams to run on us made most of them one-dimensional, and then ability to drop 7 or 8 in coverage made them one-dimensional by taking away big plays.

it was the definition of bend not break. sometimes teams would put together big drives only to waste a down on running the ball and another short pass on third down would be short, or a short pass would be sniffed out by good tackling cbs like rogers or our stud lbs and brought down before the sticks.

the thing is, I liked it, but I actually think it doesnt work without elite talent. a huge chunk of that D goes out of the window if run-stopping is mediocre. no longer can we drop a ton of players in coverage without paying for it. I like wilhoite, but hes no match for 2011 or even 2012 sideline to sideline willis.

fangio is a good D coordinator, but he kinda worked off having elite talent in the front 7 and focusing on fundamentals. I think this year mangini is a better fit simply because there will be more variety and our defense, while still talented, is nowhere near as talented than under fangio

this gameplan for sunday stunk though. playing soft zone with cbs who are supposed to press, without actually pressing...and disguising ourselves out of the game

hopefully we learn from our mistakes

We shall see if Mangini is better than Fangio come Sunday. Arizona always found a way to attack 49ers D under Fangio.

Greg Cosell had this to say about the large gain to VD:

"Kaepernick, who I thought relatively speaking played well in this game -- his two big pass plays were to Davis for 43 yards, which was a busted Cover-3,..."

Here is that play.
3Q 1st & 15
This is Y-Cross, a three level High-Low read. Black pushes downfield for the intermediate (yellow) and short (red) routes to vertically stretch the underneath sideline zone defender.
The coverage is actually Tampa2 (in yo face, Cosell). The deep zones are blue. The underneath zones are orange. The MLB that gains depth to get to his deep 1/3 is purple.


The MLB (purple) runs with the black route (Torrey) downfield.


The underneath sideline zone defender comes up to cover Miller in the flat. This opens up space for VD in the intermediate.


+43 yards

Originally posted by Niners816:

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by SofaKing:

For what it's worth, Cosell on KNBR saying conceptually our defense was fine. Tape was not as bad as the score. Only play we really got beat conceptually was TD to DHB, when he got a clean release running right past Bethea in coverage. Doesn't think our defense is bad, just got beat by a great offense.

That's what I was trying to get across in my breakdowns as well. In theory, the coverage was right for the plays, we just didn't execute it well. Whether that be on the players themselves or on the coaches putting them in positions, or the players putting themselves in those positions - a lot of those plays came off no-huddle, so it's also hard to say that Mangini was calling in the disguises from the sideline when it's a no-huddle situation.

Bruce Arians on his conference call said stuff similar. Said it was more Ben being Ben than a scheme breakdown.

Credit to Ben for making some really great throws. As for the defense, this is a new scheme that seems to be very different than what they ran in the past. Couple that with the advantages Pitt had out of circumstances, and we had a bad looking result. I think the D will get better with more time to gameplan, practice, gain experience, etc.

I am encouraged by how Kaepernick seems to be getting better in the pocket. Hopefully we have good coaches on the defensive side and can coach up technique.

Our red zone offense went backwards out of the red zone more often than it scored. Or at least it seemed that way.

Originally posted by thl408:
Greg Cosell had this to say about the large gain to VD:

"Kaepernick, who I thought relatively speaking played well in this game -- his two big pass plays were to Davis for 43 yards, which was a busted Cover-3,..."

Here is that play.
3Q 1st & 15
This is Y-Cross, a three level High-Low read. Black pushes downfield for the intermediate (yellow) and short (red) routes to vertically stretch the underneath sideline zone defender.
The coverage is actually Tampa2 (in yo face, Cosell). The deep zones are blue. The underneath zones are orange. The MLB that gains depth to get to his deep 1/3 is purple.


The MLB (purple) runs with the black route (Torrey) downfield.


The underneath sideline zone defender comes up to cover Miller in the flat. This opens up space for VD in the intermediate.


+43 yards

Pittsburgh basically had two guys standing around holding their dicks watching VD catch it across the field. Blown coverage definitely but that is what good QB's take advantage of.

Cossell said I still don't think Kap was seeing the field well, but I'm not sure how accurate that statement was. thl or Jonny, what do you guys think of that comment? To me it seemed like he made the right read majority of the time.

Originally posted by thl408:

Here's the other dropped pass by Boldin. I wanted to highlight this play for the coverage read that Kap makes.

2Q 2nd & 10
This play will look familiar if you saw the MIN film thread. All game long versus MIN the 49ers hit this play on the intermediate route (red).

High-low three lever flood. Yellow would push the deep zone sideline defender downfield for orange and red to vertically stretch the underneath zone defender.
Versus cover 2 zone (2 deep, 4 underneath).


PIT snuffs this play out and will take away the intermediate route as well as the short route. The CB jamming Boldin will take defeat the orange (intermediate) route. The defender engaged with Celek will defeat the red (short) route. Kap's progression is high to low. Also, Kap is reading how the CB jamming Boldin is positioned. That CB is facing the play, about to let BOldin go by. This suggests that he is an underneath zone defender and will not follow Boldin up the sideline. Kap reads this and will target Boldin in the 'honey hole' - the area behind the CB and in front of the cover2 safety.


Notice how PIT takes away the intermediate and short route. Something MIN never did the 7(?) times the 49ers ran this same concept. Good read and throw. Dropped ball.

The lolb runs right past pears for a free run at Kap. Hyde does a decent job of chipping him a little and slowing him up just enough for Kap to get a pass off. Was this a mistake on the OL to not pick up a basic 4 man rush? Why would we leave a our RB to pick up a lb if it's a 4 man rush? Thl or Johnny is this a mistake or did the OL slide to the left to sell the play action? Just curious?

Also I think Kap would of put less air under the ball if he didn't have to get rid of it so quick and lob it over the free rushing defender. It also looks like he couldn't step into the throw which is why Boldin kind of had to wait for the ball to get there and just couldn't catch it in stride for what would of been a TD

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Young2Rice:

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Young2Rice:

Originally posted by SoCold:

Originally posted by Nuns:

Originally posted by SoCold:

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by ChazBoner:
3rd down for the steelers after Bruce Miller's TD drop. Can you please explain to me wtf armstead is doing? Clear shot on Ben, doesn't take it. Instead stands there and does the shuffle/raise the roof dance. A gif would be nice.

AA as the left DT on a loop.
No idea why he hesitated to pressure Ben. He should have been chomping at the bit to finally smack Ben. Perhaps he thought is was a screen pass?

Looks like a young inexperienced guy who's thinking too much and not just reacting.

If you look at the stunt, he is the last defender on the right side of the dline. He likely has contain responsibilities. It looks like he focuses contain first then heads up field. Disciplined.

think he's supposed to shoot the gap in between the T and G not go all the way around the end lol

It looks like a stunt with Carradine to me. Would have gotten the safety if he shoots that gap. Contain would make sense if it was Russel Wilson, but Big ben isnt running very far.

It's a line stunt. No doubt about it. Notice how the two rushers on the right side of the DLine crash inwards. It's to create space for AA to loop around.

Yeah that is what I suspected. Looks like a nicely dialed up play with poor execution.

I think I know why it looks like AA was hesitant. He wasn't hesitant, he was just clumsy in turning the corner. 6'8" 300+ guys don't turn corners well.

Kind of question why Armsted is in there. we are down 10-29. I know it's hindsight but if another DL is in on that play I think he has a better chance of getting to Ben and maybe getting the safety. We did go down the field and score on the following drive. Could have been down by 10 points with the safety. Oh well. Better luck this week.

Originally posted by Antix:
Boldin's been dropping passes left and right now it seems like forever. What the hell?

I'm glad somebody is noticing that!

Originally posted by ChazBoner:
I like what I've seen from kap so far. Still a couple wtf moments here and there, but he's definitely progressed as far as keeping his eyes down field and taking a look around every now and then.

You mean like all QBs?

Originally posted by ChazBoner:
I like what I've seen from kap so far. Still a couple wtf moments here and there, but he's definitely progressed as far as keeping his eyes down field and taking a look around every now and then.

Just curious which wtf moments you're referring to.

Great picture and edit breakdown....it allows compete,understanding of what went wrong. Unfortunately that got repeated more than once. Technique looks simple to fix , but getting shoved backwards is harder to fix if our guys aren't strong enough.... But maybe technique can fix that too....I hope. Terrific explanation guys and thanks....you just answered a lot of questions ....frankly that looked infixable.

The better rivals podcast talks about when we ran 2 run/pass options plays. Can we take a look at those? I don't remember us doing a run pass option in the Harbaugh era. One was a quick pass to Vernon and one was a bunch formation pass to Boldin for about 9 yards. I hope we continue to use these. Especially if we are in hurry up mode

Originally posted by Luckycharms:
The better rivals podcast talks about when we ran 2 run/pass options plays. Can we take a look at those? I don't remember us doing a run pass option in the Harbaugh era. One was a quick pass to Vernon and one was a bunch formation pass to Boldin for about 9 yards. I hope we continue to use these. Especially if we are in hurry up mode

Yeah I saw that. It was a packaged play concept. I'll post the GIFs later.