Just when we thought the Pittsburgh Steelers missed tackle issues were subsiding after three straight weeks of 10 whiffs or less, the defense laid another egg on Sunday, led by Antwon Blake and Ross Cockrell’s poor play.
Your individual breakdown:
Antwon Blake: 6
Ross Cockrell: 3
Mike Mitchell: 2
James Harrison: 2
Lawrence Timmons: 2
Will Allen: 1
Jarvis Jones: 1
Bud Dupree: 1
18 whiffs total, with half the team’s missed tackles on the day coming from Blake and Cockrell. The latter hasn’t been awful at tackling this year, but a clear lack of physicality is present when watching him. Tries to arm tackles and drag guys down consistently. Blake is clearly playing injured, and wasn’t a good tackler when healthy, but his performance right now is humiliating. This needs to be the last week he starts for the Steelers this season.
Just a snap shot of Blake’s ridiculously poor form as a tackler yesterday:
He’s not even attempting to wrap up or even tackle honestly, just getting in the way and barely slowing people down. How this is a better option than one of the best cornerbacks in football on your bench, I’ll never understand.
Allen didn’t have a high number of whiffs, but the one he did have was dreadful. This missed tackle on Thomas Rawls made all of us scream at our televisions I’ll wager.
His benching for Robert Golden can’t come soon enough. Blake and Allen were victimized time-and-time again by Seattle on Sunday, both in coverage and as tacklers.
Cockrell looked like a little kid out there trying to tackle, and got reamed out by Mike Tomlin on the sideline after this miss:
Then of course, there was the Seahawks game-sealing touchdown by Doug Baldwin, courtesy of a blown coverage by Blake, missed tackle by Mitchell, and then another missed tackle by Blake.
It should also be noted that Dupree’s miss and one of Harrison’s misses were both would-be sacks of Russell Wilson in critical moments of the game. The Seahawks quarterback is incredibly elusive, but those were both big missed opportunities for the Steelers defense.
Missed Tackle Counter (Season)
Antwon Blake: 28
Lawrence Timmons: 18
Will Allen: 14
William Gay: 12
Ryan Shazier: 10
Jarvis Jones: 10
Ross Cockrell: 8
Mike Mitchell: 7
Bud Dupree: 6
James Harrison: 6
Arthur Moats: 6
Sean Spence: 4
Robert Golden: 4
Stephon Tuitt: 4
Cam Heyward: 3
Cam Thomas: 3
Steve McLendon: 3
Cortez Allen: 2
Vince Williams: 1
Brandon Boykin: 0
Shamarko Thomas: 0
Terence Garvin: 0
Daniel McCullers: 0
Anthony Chickillo: 0
LT Walton: 0
