Is there any reason Butler played zone vs Stafford?

[feltdizz]

just felt like Butler wanted to see if he could do his old stuff that NEVER works vs good QB's.

I swear to Allah if this man pulls out a zone vs the Pats I will walk to Pittsburgh and slap him my damn self.

[Steelhere10]

If he does, they need to fire him on the spot.

[BURGH86STEEL]

The Steelers play zone every game. Stafford was able to exploit the holes in the zones. Defenses don't usually play man to man for an entire game. Two keys for the Steelers to defeat the Pats are stopping the run and getting quick and consistent pressure on Brady. Brady will find eventually find someone open if the Steelers don't get pressure. An open WR for Brady is different than most QB's in the league because he is usually accurate with his passes.

[pittpete]

He had to play zone because he doesnt have the DB's to play man....Oh wait a minute, that was last year or the y e a r b e f o r e......
sarcasm off>

[Iron City Inc.]

We dropped 8 often and we saw both Bud n TJ in coverage often perhaps that scheme was why James was not used. But as stated above that is a formula for a loss against the Pats so lets trust we do not see it when that day comes.

[SteelCrazy]

We were running some kind of cover 6, but with TJ dropping instead of a NB.

When it worked it looked good, but with 423 yds passing, it wasn't working much.

Brady will destroy this coverage

[NorthCoast]

We dropped 8 often and we saw both Bud n TJ in coverage often perhaps that scheme was why James was not used. But as stated above that is a formula for a loss against the Pats so lets trust we do not see it when that day comes.

Which begs the question; how have teams that play primarily man defense done against NE? Two teams come to mind; KC - they are 0.500 against NE since 2008. SEA - they are 0.667 against NE since 2008. So it seems that yes a team gives themselves a better chance with large doses of man coverage.

[feltdizz]

The Steelers play zone every game. Stafford was able to exploit the holes in the zones. Defenses don't usually play man to man for an entire game. Two keys for the Steelers to defeat the Pats are stopping the run and getting quick and consistent pressure on Brady. Brady will find eventually find someone open if the Steelers don't get pressure. An open WR for Brady is different than most QB's in the league because he is usually accurate with his passes.

hmm... sure seemed like we played more zone last game. I would think we would do the opposite against a QB like Stafford. If that same D shows up against Brady it could be another frustrating day. While the Pats seems to be struggling to score TD’s this year they never seem to struggle against us when Brady is playing.

[Starlifter]

zone or man vs. brady doesn't mean squat if we don't get pressure. That's the key. If he has more than 3 seconds to make a throw he'll pick apart any zone or wait till his guys push off and get open in man. I'm more concerned with butler finding ways to get in brady's face and keep him dirty all game. I don't care what super diet he's on - make that 40 year old body have to climb off the ground a dozen times and get his bell rung a few more, and we can beat them. If we don't, if he has all day back there - there's no scheme that will stop him.

[Captain Lemming]

This chart came out October 8th.
We were last in the NFL in percentage of time in man defense, number 1 for percentage in zone.

I think they are just playing a less "cushiony" zone with the talent they now have in the secondary which "looks" like man.

[Mr.wizard]

We don't play a lot of man to man defense in fact most teams in the NFL don't play a lot of man to man defense. The reason Stafford passed for 400 yards is because he's really good and we didn't pressure him up front. Hell, look at what Watson did to the Seattle defense, Chiefs d gives up a ton of yards, Houston D a ton of yards, Denver D a ton of yards, the key today's defense is turnovers and preventing TD's. The QB's and wide receivers are to good to just lineup in man coverage every snap.

[feltdizz]

I could see if Stafford was threading needles but that wasn’t the case.

Pretty sure we made these moves on D with Haden so we could play more man.

[Eich]

It would be nice to see a stat on this but it always seems to me like when Ben is throwing, it's often into tight coverage. But when other teams throw against our D, they find a nice open space in our zones. It would be nice to see stats on how many times our passes are contested vs. how often we contest a pass on D.

[papillon]

I could see if Stafford was threading needles but that wasn’t the case.

Pretty sure we made these moves on D with Haden so we could play more man.

Actually, Stafford was threading needles to the holes in the zone, the announcers even pointed it out on more than one occasion. They were saying that Stafford is one of the few QBs that could do it because of his arm strength. Unless, I completely misunderstood what they were saying during the game.

Pappy

[Captain Lemming]

It would be nice to see a stat on this but it always seems to me like when Ben is throwing, it's often into tight coverage. But when other teams throw against our D, they find a nice open space in our zones. It would be nice to see stats on how many times our passes are contested vs. how often we contest a pass on D.

Dude you are seeing things from "fanvision". It is the same reason people on both sides think the refs hate their team.

You don't rank as a top pass defense through 7 games by routinely allowing wide open spaces in zones, no matter how bad the QB.

Conversely, the angst about our passing game despite a win IS PRECISELY BECAUSE wide open receivers were either missed or dropped easy catches. Juju's TD was no "tight window".

I would make the case that Ben could EASILY had 400 yards AND actually scored more touchdowns. They had no success whatsoever covering our receivers.