Last Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers OLB Nick Herbig recorded his first sack of the regular season. When you watch the play below, you see Herbig beat Los Angeles left tackle Alaric Jackson with speed off the edge, bending the corner around the third-year man, racing home to get Stafford on the ground for a loss of six yards.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Herbig said that he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to rush on that play but made a last-second call when the ball was snapped to go hunt QB Matthew Stafford.
“I mean, yeah, kind of,” Herbig said to the media on video from the Steelers’ YouTube channel. “If you watch, it was kind of just like a hurry-up play and we’re kind of talking to each other and I just saw the ball snap, so I let it rip.”
As you can see in the play above, the defense was trying to quickly communicate the play call as the Rams got to the line of scrimmage in a hurry-up offense. Herbig had his eyes in the backfield as the rest of the defensive line shifted and the linebackers communicated the play to the rest of the defense. Herbig may have been tasked to drop into the flat for coverage, but the ball ended up getting snapped as the defense was communicating the adjustments needed to be made. Herbig decided to send it off the edge, winning the corner around Jackson and dropping Stafford for a loss on first down.
When the opposing offense goes up-tempo and incorporate the no-huddle, it can be quite difficult to get properly set as a defense. It sounds like Herbig wasn’t sure what his exact task was supposed to be on the play he got a sack, but it ended up working out in his favor as he got home and helped push the Rams back to second-and-long. Having played only 67 defensive snaps this season, Herbig’s role on defense has been minimal, mainly serving as a rotational player for Watt and Highsmith with OLB Markus Golden being the primary backup. Still, he made an impact play coming off the bench in relief of Highsmith, filling the role that Pittsburgh drafted him to be as a backup pass rusher and core special teamer.
