Joe Hadens Steeler Debut

C'mon Butler...this isn't hat you got him for:





Joe Haden was one of the biggest free agent signings in Pittsburgh Steelers history by name value alone. The team had never given an outsider the money that they threw at Haden, and they expected him to come in and be a starting caliber cornerback, if not better, right away.

That wasn't quite what happened. While the Steelers won the game 21-18 behind a solid defensive performance overall, Haden himself wasn't great. Pro Football Focus delved into the numbers after the game and they weren't particularly promising.

rest of the article:
http://pit.247sports.com/Bolt/The-common-thread-in-Joe-Hadens-Steelers-debut-107364566

i couldn't agree with this article more...the playing "safe", and playing not to give up the "big one" , usually is doomed to fail. how many times does the "prevent" defense have to fail before they realize it doesn't work ? how many times have we all seen a team play great D the for 58 minutes, only to watch the other team march right down the field and score in 2 minutes or less because the D went into prevent to stop a big play ?

Haden wasn't put into the best situation to suit his skills. He's still learning though, it was his first game and he didn't have the luxury of a lot of time to get accustomed to everything well ahead of time. I'm sure they'll use him more aggressively as he becomes more comfortable with the defense and everything they're trying to do.

I think the entire team wasn't put in a good position to win comfortably last week.

Offense was rusty, Bell especially looked less than stellar.
Defense looked out of sync with each other and the feel of the game was almost pre-seasonesque

I am just happy we walked away with the win on the road against our division rival a team that plays us like its their Superbowl twice a year. The Browns have gotten better that defense is damn tough. Ben, AB, and many of the starters played very little during the preseason not even mentioning Bell. This next week should show the true nature of the Steelers and hopefully what they are or aren't capable of this year. The Vikings are no joke they took it to the Saints Monday night and their Defense has a fast front 4 that will get after BB so Haley better have a game plan for it besides....

BUBBLE SCREENS! LOL

If I don't see another shitty Bubble Screen all year I would be beyond ecstatic...

SteelerFreak58 wrote:

If I don't see another shitty Bubble Screen all year I would be beyond ecstatic...

I said the same thing after the first possession.

I'm giving them up until the ravens games to prove to me they are serious about all their Man Coverage talk this past off season.

stlrtruck wrote:

I think the entire team wasn't put in a good position to win comfortably last week.

Offense was rusty, Bell especially looked less than stellar.
Defense looked out of sync with each other and the feel of the game was almost pre-seasonesque

I'll go even further.  It was the fifth preseason game.
The way the NFL works now is to do everything possible to have your "stars" healthy for the regular season.
So, teams play their stars very little in preseason and the result is crappy football in game 1.  And maybe even crappy football in games 2 and 3.

And the NFL wonders why viewership is on a downward trend.

FrancoLambert wrote:

stlrtruck wrote:

I think the entire team wasn't put in a good position to win comfortably last week.

Offense was rusty, Bell especially looked less than stellar.
Defense looked out of sync with each other and the feel of the game was almost pre-seasonesque

I'll go even further.  It was the fifth preseason game.
The way the NFL works now is to do everything possible to have your "stars" healthy for the regular season.
So, teams play their stars very little in preseason and the result is crappy football in game 1.  And maybe even crappy football in games 2 and 3.

And the NFL wonders why viewership is on a downward trend.

and i'll go even further ... starters were constantly given days off in camp.

Defense played well enough despite being out of sorts. I think they can be scary good when they all get on the same page. I mean they've got Mike Hilton out there, TJ Watt, and Joe Haden all players that are are new, new to the team, or new to this defense. Once those guys gel and start getting things down pat, the sky will be the limit for them. Same goes for the offense, they're installing new wrinkles and guys like Bell shouldn't have spent the offseason writing crappy raps and bitching about how much he's getting paid. He blatantly wasn't in game shape against the Browns but things will start to come back together.

Being at home this weekend should energize these guys.

you got to give credit the Browns offensive play call against Haden.

imo, Haden played a damn good game being signed so close to the start of the season. Stay healthy Joe so Burns can learn from your play on the field.

Honestly there's been a lot of talk of the sacks we had in this game, and a lot of them were coverage sacks. Not enough credit's been given to the coverage. Also I like how the db's weren't always playing 10 yards off the receivers, there's definitely a changing philosophy in place.

Fire Arians wrote:

Honestly there's been a lot of talk of the sacks we had in this game, and a lot of them were coverage sacks. Not enough credit's been given to the coverage. Also I like how the db's weren't always playing 10 yards off the receivers, there's definitely a changing philosophy in place.

read where Hayward gave Haden props about getting extra time to get to the QB.

Considering it was his first game for us I thought he held his own. I think it only gets better from here if he stays on the field.