Gary Horton from Scouts Inc. put together his list of the “AFC’s top 10 most dynamic duos” and he must not have run it by Warren Sapp because Horton has the Steelers taking up two of the top-10 spots. That’s not too shabby considering that there were only 10 duos ranked among the 15 AFC teams.
Horton ranked Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown ranked as the AFC’s second-best duo behind the Ambiguously Gay Duo Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, and he had James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley as the No. 7 pair. No other AFC team had two pairings on opposite sides of the ball ranked higher than the Black & Gold.
For Horton’s list to be accurate, Wallace is going to have to actually show up and play otherwise AB is more of a solo act than part of a duo, and Harrison and Woodley are going to have to stay healthy if they want to play more than just Madden 13 together.
Here’s what Horton said about Wallace and Brown:
“Wallace may get more publicity because he is a vertical outside receiver with blazing speed who makes big plays, while Brown is less flashy, working out of the slot and catching a lot of underneath passes — but they both give defenders fits. Between them, they accounted for 141 catches, 2,301 yards, and 10 TDs last season, but only two of those TDs were by Brown. With Wallace stretching the defense deep, it opens up room for Brown to work underneath, and defenses can’t afford to double-team both guys. With new offensive coordinator Todd Haley calling the plays in Pittsburgh, this duo’s production will likely go up in 2012.”
And here’s what he said about Harrison and Woodley:
“There is a temptation here to write off this dynamic duo because age and injuries are starting to catch up to them, as they only played a combined 21 regular season games in 2011 with only 98 combined tackles — low numbers for these proud veterans. However, they remain the foundation of an accomplished defense that is still very tough to make plays against and their combined 21 sacks is still a very respectable number. They are physical edge rushers in Pittsburgh’s 3-4 scheme, but they are also very effective versus the run. Both guys do a great job of setting the edge, making it difficult to exploit either side of the defense or slide protection. If one of them slipped, the Steeler D wouldn’t be nearly as effective.”
Steeler Nation has to be pumped to see the Steelers’ repped so well on the list, especially since Ben Roethlisberger and Troy Polamalu didn’t even have to be mentioned for the Steelers to dominate. But you know it’s going to garner even more hate for the Steelers since so many other tandems were left off – except from the Raiders who had their kicker and punter round out the list…seriously. Oh well, get over it, Texans fans.
Source: Yardbarker: Pittsburgh Steelers
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