It’s never easy to slow down Myles Garrett. But the Pittsburgh Steelers have no choice but to try. Acknowledging that even the best plans often don’t stop Garrett, Mike Tomlin offered an overview of how Pittsburgh will try to prevent him from taking over Sunday’s game.
“It starts with Myles Garrett,” Tomlin said Tuesday via the team’s YouTube channel. “We’re highly familiar with him. But everyone in the division is. Yet I think he had two-plus sacks versus Baltimore, two-plus sacks versus Cincinnati this year. We’ll take our shot at working at minimizing him. A component of that is staying out of one-dimensional passing circumstances. We better do a good job of that.”
Even knowing the clear dislike that exists between Garrett and Steelers fans, it’s impossible to ignore Garrett’s productivity and talent. Garrett’s been remarkably consistent, posting 14-plus sacks in each of the last four seasons. He’s on his way to making it five-straight, picking up four sacks over the Browns’ first five games. He leads the NFL with eight tackles for loss and has eight QB hits.
As Tomlin mentioned, the best way to prevent Garrett from taking over is situational. Avoiding third and long and the obvious pass situations where Garrett can pin his ears back and rush in addition to the Browns creatively using him around the defensive formation. Unlike T.J. Watt, Garrett can and has aligned in every gap. Getting the ball out quickly is another antidote. Veteran Aaron Rodgers is releasing the ball faster than any other quarterback – a 2.52 second snap-to-throw time.
“We’ll use tight end body position,” Tomlin said. “We’ll use chip help. We’ll slide the line that way. But everybody does. This guy has 100 or so career sacks with people doing that and yet he still gets home.”
Left tackle Broderick Jones has a tall task ahead of him but he won’t be flying solo. Tight end Darnell Washington is one of the best pass blockers at his position and could offer plenty of help, especially if he repeats the high snap count he saw in Week 4. Running back chips and inside protection from LG Isaac Seumalo will also be used.
Under OC Arthur Smith, the Steelers like using play-action. That mission is harder when facing Garrett. Longer-developing plays without true pass sets where the quarterback takes his eyes off the rush. In the past, Pittsburgh has specifically called play-action with Garrett off the field.
In 14 career regular-season games against Pittsburgh, Garrett has 13 sacks. His impact plays run far deeper than that. The Steelers will need their best schematics and execution to make sure Garrett doesn’t add to his graveyard ahead of Halloween.
