One of the common themes of complaints that we have heard throughout the years about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense under former defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, and now under his protégé and successor, Keith Butler, has been that they too often spend their time dropping their rushers into coverage, which some feel is a waste of opportunity.
I don’t know if they plan to change that any time soon, but we do know that it was still ever-present just last season, and Pro Football Focus has the statistics. According to their charting, no team in the league last season spent more time dropping pass-rushing players in their front seven into coverage than the Steelers did, and really only one other team was particularly close.