Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor joined John Harris on Trib Live Radio on Tuesday for his weekly “Ike Taylor Show” and Taylor talked on several topics during the almost half hour spot. Taylor specifically was asked about the change at offensive coordinator and how if it were up to him, he would want the offense to run. Taylor gives his reasoning why in the interview from the perspective of a defensive player. You can listen to the full interview here and below are the three questions and answers concerning the running game transcribed below for your convenience.
Harris: The recent changes to the coaching staff?
Taylor: You know I am just as curious as any other fan as far as at least knowing who we are going to get with this offensive coordinator. Its tough losing a guy like B.A., but you know just coming from my perspective, and being in the league a couple of years, it\’s definitely a business. So change does come sometimes. Around this organization it doesn\’t come too often, but it does come. For the most part, guys who have been leaving our organization, they get jobs ASAP, so as far as like being a coach that\’s a good a thing. There\’s is no better pedigree we have as far as we have as kind of coaching staff, if you just look back towards the NFL, just going all the way back, I think we are a blue print to a lot of coaching staffs. From Coach Tony Dungy to Coach T. I mean a lot of things have started in the great city of Pittsburgh.
Harris: What direction do you want the offense to go in regards to run or pass?
Taylor: As long as we score points, it really don\’t matter, but just being a defensive guy, and if Coach LeBeau is going to come into a game, the first thing we are going to try to do is try to stop the run, and the reason you try to stop the run and try to make a team one dimensional, you got to eliminate it. It\’s hard for a defensive coordinator, or it\’s hard for a team in general, to be able to worry about one stopping the run, two stopping the pass. So if we can eliminate the run for sure, it helps the team out and it helps the defense out altogether, because eliminating the run, or neutralizing the run, you stop the clock. So basically if I can run the ball on you pretty much whenever I want to, I\’ve got control of this clock. So we know a lot of things come into consideration when you pass the ball. If you are in shotgun, it can be a bad snap. We can tip a pass off. The quarterback can get sacked. It\’s a lot of scenarios that can go our way when you pass the ball, when you have a team that\’s just going to pass the ball, let alone passing and running. When a guy just hands the ball off and can control the clock, it\’s hard as an individual or player and a defensive coordinator to help, one your defense, and two to help your team on the offensive side. So it goes both ways, but me personally, I would love to run, but just the guys that we have at receivers and the quarterback that we have, I can understand us passing the ball because why waste that talent sitting on the sideline, but at the same time if you can do both or be good at both, it\’s a long season. It\’s a good season for us, its hell for whoever that we are playing.
Harris: More thoughts on running the ball?
Taylor: Man, that run game, if you can\’t stop that run game, its hard on any defense. I don\’t care who you got on your defense. When you can\’t stop that run game it\’s a whole different world and I\’m just saying it coming from the defensive side. I mean we got good running backs, so I am sure whoever come in we\’re going to take a look at it. They are going to sit down with Ben, they are going to look at all the scenarios and figure we can do both. If we need to we can pass and if we need to we can run the ball, but just being a defensive guy I love when my offense is smashing and getting four or five yards a pop, milking that clock. But I know at the same time we can go on and score in a hurry in 5 seconds with Mike Wallace, A.B. and Emmanuel Sanders. So how ever you want to look at it, we can do it, but I just think when you establish yourself as a running type team it just makes it hard on the opponent.
