Steelers HC Mike Tomlin indicated that they would make changes this year, but most have found those changes underwhelming. While many wanted a slew of coaches fired, very little of that took place. They moved on from two position coaches, though, and one of the new hires previously worked here two years ago.
The Steelers did make some meaningful changes in terms of personnel, most notably at wide receiver. They made a blockbuster trade, specifically, for DK Metcalf, but then they traded George Pickens, essentially a swap of 1s. Where we should see more differences, though, is schematically. That might be more obvious on offense right now, but they are coming to the defense, too.
“We’re throwing in a couple new calls”, Beanie Bishop Jr. told Mike DeFabo of The Athletic recently about the Steelers‘ defense. “Some new zones, a couple new mans and a couple new blitzes and things like that”.
“Obviously, teams aren’t going to be prepared for certain things, like, ‘Oh, we’ve never seen the Steelers run this’”. Now that’s a pretty juicy quote I’m sure Steelers fans have been waiting to hear for a while. Of course, Bishop is just a second-year player, so it’s not like his historical knowledge runs that deep.
But then again, the Steelers’ defense has employed such consistency over the years that they rarely offered any surprises to their opponents. I still remember distinctly when they unleashed a dime defense against the Patriots in 2011 using Cortez Allen and Ryan Mundy, which inspired the first article I ever wrote about sports in the Long, Long Ago.
So what kind of changes might the Steelers be working on? DeFabo wrote that Bishop refused to elaborate, which is entirely understandable. The defensive side of the ball is where they made coaching changes, though. They did not renew the contract of DB coach Grady Brown, replacing him with Gerald Alexander. Likewise, they swapped out ILB coach Aaron Curry for Scott McCurley.
One of the areas in which the Steelers remained steadfastly stubborn was trying to make do with a traditional four-man pass rush. Their sack numbers have lagged in recent years, and they have become more resistant to blitzing. Perhaps feeling more secure in the secondary, they will amp up the aggressiveness this year.
Having a secondary without any rookies new to the system will also help them communicate better. That is a point of emphasis this offseason after the Steelers’ defense struggled with that in the second half of last season.
But what will they do that will have people saying they’ve never seen the Steelers run it before? That is an intriguing comment, but, unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait to find out. Meanwhile, Beanie Bishop will have to wait to find out if he’ll be a part of it. Right now, he is likely in the driver’s seat to start in the slot, but a lot of things can happen along the way.
