With an assist from Rex Ryan, the Steelers might have written the blueprint Sunday on how to slow down Tom Brady enough to beat the Patriots.
The Giants and Jets will be the first to find out, considering they are the next two opponents on the Patriots’ schedule starting with the Giants this weekend at New England.
Fed up after losing six of their seven meetings with Brady, the Steelers borrowed heavily from Ryan’s playoff strategy last January of flooding the field with defensive backs in hopes of confusing the Patriots’ Canton-bound passer.
The big difference — and what helped produce the Steelers’ convincing 25-17 win at Heinz Field — was Pittsburgh’s decision to all but abandon its trademark zone blitz scheme and play very physical man-to-man press coverage on all the Patriots receivers.
Aided by a fierce pass rush that kept Brady off-balance, the Steelers’ plan — or “formula,” as Ryan called it yesterday — worked beautifully. Brady was held to fewer than 200 passing yards (198) for the first time all season, and Wes Welker didn’t look anything like the NFL’s most dangerous receiver with six catches for 39 yards.
“There are things they did that obviously caused some problems,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said yesterday during a terse — even for him — day-after news conference. “We either didn’t make adjustments to it quick enough, or in some cases we tried to adjust to it but we just couldn’t get it done the way we needed to get it done.”
The Jets, who play host to the Patriots next week in an important AFC East rematch, also are a man-coverage team, but don’t usually play as physical as the Steelers did Sunday.
“We showed how you can beat that team, at least on defense,” Steelers safety Ryan Clark said. “They’re not expecting you to play man or get physical with them, so I think it surprised them. You just have to stand your ground with them.”
That’s easier said than done, because few teams have the Steelers’ depth and pass-rushing ability on defense.
But the Giants are on that short list of clubs that can regularly put their hands on opposing quarterbacks, so the league will be looking to see if Big Blue tries to replicate the Steelers’ strategy.
Unfortunately for the 5-2 Patriots, the Steelers also wrote a script for what to do on offense to knock off New England. The Steelers spread out Belichick’s 32nd-ranked defense with four- and five-receiver formations, then kept Brady on the sidelines for two-thirds of the game by way of a relentless short passing game.
Ben Roethlisberger completed 36 of 50 passes for 365 yards against a helpless secondary as the Steelers — thanks in part to a Patriots pass rush that lacked any consistency — controlled the clock for nearly 40 minutes.
The defensive woes had Belichick on the defensive again yesterday as he was asked to explain having the NFL’s worst defense despite using 25 draft picks on defensive players since 2007.
“Time to move on,” Belichick said. “I don’t want to get into everything that was a self-inflicted wound.”