A week and a half ago, the Pittsburgh Steelers matched a touchdown drive by the Las Vegas Raiders with a quick-strike response, QB Kenny Pickett hitting WR Calvin Austin III for a 72-yard touchdown. While Las Vegas had a good coverage plan drawn up to defend the play, they did not match up their personnel well with a player who could match Austin’s speed either with his own speed or technique.
That wasn’t the case this past Sunday, especially after already putting it on tape. As the offense again tried to tie things up all in one shot, former Steelers CB Steven Nelson had other plans, picking off the deep pass play intended for Austin that they ran the week before. More on that in a bit, but former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger was actually a fan of the call.
“It was a good read by Kenny, actually. They were looking for a quarters coverage, got the safety down”, he said during his Footbahlin podcast. “Steve Nelson made a great play. He made a phenomenal play. Went up and took it away”.
After the game, Nelson explained that he relied on film study to make the play. “They hit the same player, same formation look like last week”, he said, adding, “I was just ready for it. Recognizing the formation and the player who they run the post with, and it just allowed me to go out there and make a play on the ball”.
Alex Kozora already did a thorough breakdown of exactly what Nelson was talking about yesterday, defending a shallow cross, which you can read by clicking through the embedded link above. Alternatively, you can just click the giant embed below.
Every offense runs itself largely out of one core set of plays, but there may not be one in the league that is as transparent as Pittsburgh’s under offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Because of that, you really do have to consider grading the players’ performance on a curve, because they are not being put in ideal positions to succeed. Not that there wasn’t anything Pickett could have done differently.
“I’d like to see the receiver give a little bit of an outside move to create more space, but I thought Kenny maybe could’ve thrown it across the field a little more. He ended up throwing it…where the receiver kind of had to jump”, Roethlisberger said. “Maybe take a little air off it, put it out there a little more”.
When the defense already knows what play is coming just based on the way that you line up in a given context, there is a problem. Now, that is going to happen in every game just because tendencies are tendencies for a reason.
How much blame does Pickett get for the play when it’s on the play caller for putting the offense in a predictable position where the defense already knows how to defend it? You really have to have flawless execution in that context, and probably a bit lucky as well, to pull that off, especially down the field.
