The Steep Price of Excellence for the Steelers’ Defense

I started watching football in 1980.

That qualifies as pretty bad timing if you are a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. I have the vaguest recollections of the Black and Gold’s fourth Super Bowl victory over the then Los Angeles Rams in 1979 but little else. My first true memories of Steeler football are of a 9 and 7 football team in 1980 that kicked off a decade of mediocre football in the Burgh. It was truly the only down period of Pittsburgh Steeler football in my lifetime.

I do not have memories of Joe Green and Jack Lambert eviscerating offenses with ferocity and skill. I do not have memories of Mel Blount blanketing and shutting down the top receivers in the game. I know of that only from books and the grainy highlight videos of that era. My memories are of those proud warriors on the back ends of their career when they were no longer elite players. There were occasions when they could still be great but never again was there the consistency of dominance that existed in the 1970s.

I cannot help but wonder if we are living that again in 2012.

The Steelers of the 70s got old together and the team simply could not replace those great players. That aforementioned decade of mediocrity in the '80s was the price of dominance.  For 4 Super Bowl championships in 6 years that price was a bargain.

The Steeler defense of the 2000s also got old together, again with championship results. You do not break up a dominant group that was the driving force behind an 8 year run of excellence including three Super Bowl appearances and two championships.

Eventually, the run has to end; especially given the NFL’s infinite array of methods to promote parity amongst its members. The question is, are the Steelers about to pay the same price they did in the '80s? Will it take a decade to replace the deep and talented group of stars that drove this recent success?

For what it’s worth, I thought the defense was showing its age in 2009 when the Steelers started regularly blowing 4th quarter leads; often to mediocre (or worse) opponents. To their credit, these proud warriors fought back with another brilliant season in 2010. The defense was the driving force behind an 8th Super Bowl run. That the Steelers ultimately lost that game does not change my view that keeping the unit together was the right move.

And statistically the Steelers had another strong defense last year. They ranked number 1 in the NFL in points allowed; a fairly difficult statistic to argue with. And yet I’m guessing most Steelers fans would say there was something different about last year’s unit. Somehow the defense never seemed as good as the numbers it produced, even before the unspeakable day they were Tebowed in Denver.

The 2011 defense was solid but certainly not the elite, game changing unit we’ve grown accustomed to. There was a shocking paucity of impact, game changing plays; a hallmark of the black and gold for the last 20 years. Worse than that, you got the sense that any truly elite QB was going to pick them apart. It was, adjusting for the philosophical differences of the era; very similar to the 1979 defense; a solid group but one that did not perform to the level of its immediate predecessors.

This results in part from the NFL’s incessant drive to become outdoor arena football. It’s hardly a coincidence that we are seeing record passing and scoring numbers in the league the last few years. It started with liberalized illegal contact rules that made it harder to cover. Then came the reflexive penalty flag pretty much any time a defender dropped a hard hit on a quarterback or receiver. A big component of the Steel Curtain for years was intimidation. Any receiver who went over the middle risked a trip to the hospital; and teams were well aware of that danger. Now those same receivers can run through the middle with impunity.

In short, the NFL has legislated intimidation out of the defensive game plan; a change that damaged the Steelers as much or more than any other team.

Even with the reality of these changes it’s impossible not to notice the aging of this defense. We’ve already seen age and injury take out Aaron Smith and James Farrior. Casey Hampton and James Harrison seem to be on the same path. And it’s slowly but surely taking its toll on the unit’s most indispensable player, Troy Polamalu. It seems only a matter of time before Troy loses that half-step of speed that makes him so dominant, and/or he takes one to many cracks to the cranium (if he has not already).

This transition was inevitable and quite frankly I expected it sooner than now. I’ll be the first to admit I was not overly surprised watching Peyton Manning pick the defense apart last Sunday night; most notably as a result of a complete lack of pass rush from the second quarter on. Certainly the absence of Harrison and Ryan Clark played a factor and hopefully their returns this week (or later) will be impactful. That does not change the fact that both players are aging; and Harrison is now doing so on an injured knee.

I am not suggesting things are hopeless. The Steelers used two first round picks in the last four years on defensive linemen in Ziggy Hood and Cameron Heyward. If either or both become impact players it would make a huge difference. The jury is still very much out but to this point neither has been a true difference maker. Heyward is still very young; the clock is ticking on Hood.

That means that in 2012, the Steelers two most dominant defensive players are the same as they were in 2008; Polamalu and Harrison. Given their age plus accumulated wear and tear, that’s not a sustainable formula for success at their age.

I also wonder if the zone blitz, 3-4 defense can still be effective in today’s NFL. That defense has always been predicated on obliterating the running game and then blitzing from all angles against QBs in long yardage situations. I’m not sure that approach can work in a league where teams play Madden, video game football, willingly abandoning the run and throwing 50 plus quick passes a game. New England and Green Bay have shown definitively how to beat the Dick Lebeau defense. Those same two teams were stymied twice in five years by the NY Giants; a defense built around a dominant from four. The Giants can pressure the elite passing QBs of today while still dropping 7 defenders in to coverage.

That said, any scheme can be effective with the right players. It’s possible the Lebeau scheme is outdated. It’s every bit if not more possible that the Steelers no longer have the depth of elite personnel to be a truly dominant defense. I’m pretty sure the 1974 and 2008 Steeler defenses could have dominated with virtually any scheme.  The players were simply that good.

So am I predicting doom and gloom? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I have tremendous faith in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ organization. No team in sports has been consistently better at rebuilding and retooling on the fly. Few teams in sports do a better job of maximizing the talent they have. The last eight years have been without question the second best era of Steeler football ever behind the 70s; but keep in mind this team has been a consistent championship contender for two decades. I always believe in this franchise and I still believe a playoff berth in 2012 is fully possible.

That said, sustained excellence in the NFL almost always comes at a price. Eventually teams are forced to rebuild or at least retool. I can’t help but think that the Steelers might be on that path, at least on one side of the ball.