The Philadelphia Eagles won the most one sided superbowl in recent memory by demolishing the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22, the Chiefs were scoreless in the first half and even with 40-22 being a blow out this scoreline genuinely flatters the Chiefs. Despite having a quarterback most people would rate somewhere in the middle of the league, the Eagles managed to win it all and could serve as a blueprint for the Steelers but what kind of team have they built and is copying it possible ?
Team Philosophy
There are different schools of thought in regards to team building and whether to build your team front to back or back to front, Bill Belichick and his disciples generally believe building from the secondary first as does Brandon Staley and ironically enough lots of the defensive minds that try to run Vic Fangio’s style of defence. Offensively Peyton Manning’s teams always preferred to give him weapons over protection, trusting him to be able to use his awareness with reading defences and quick release to bypass a pass rush. Even in Pittsburgh with Big Ben’s superbowl teams the offensive line was average at best and there being a reliance on Ben making magic happen.
The recipe for success in Philadelphia is by dominating the trenches, on offence it means building an offensive line which can steamroll opposing teams out the way at will or give quarterbacks time to find an open receiver when passing. On defence it means being stout against the run forcing defences into third and long situations then unleashing hell with an array of pass rushers.
I believe however that a good offensive line will act as a force multiplier in terms of it will make space and allow a good running back to look great or a great running back to look unstoppable ala Saquon. With pass protection, pass catchers will find ways to get open and if you give any quarterback enough time to go through progressions they will be able to find an open man again making a decent quarterback good or a good quarterback great and so on.
Looking back
Pittsburgh have clearly made the offensive line a point of contention in recent drafts picking numerous lineman with premium picks to mixed results so far but it is still early days. I believe the Steelers should give consideration towards defensive lineman in this draft depending on how the board falls. The Standout teams of this century had players like Aaron Smith, Brett Keisel, Casey Hampton who while these players were certainly multi talented they were traditional 3-4 ends who could hang their hat on things on stopping the run firstly which forces teams into third and long. This may sound outdated in someways but when you consider that the two most recent first round picks for the Eagles were Jordan Davis who could easily be a 3-4 Nose tackle in the vein of Hampton and Jalen Carter who admittedly is an unbelievably talented player but his bread and butter is stopping the run.
Back to basics
The Steelers arguably have an even more devastating array of pass rushers in Watt, Highsmith and Herbig, consistently as the season progressed however they weren’t able to pin their ears back and rush the quarterback. The recent picks at defensive line for the Steelers such as DeMarvin Leal and Keanu Benton are hybrid type players along the defensive line almost in the mould of Cam Heyward or Stephon Tuitt but don’t seem to have that level of talent needed to pull off being so multi faceted and rather than dominating in one aspect of the game they are average at everything. While Benton has shown progress and certainly could still grow into a good player in this league, it’s time for the Steelers to get back to trying to build a steel curtain type defence from the front backwards.
The Eagles this year, just like the Bucs and Giants previously have shown that if you can get after an elite quarterback with 4 people by bringing pressure in his face through the middle of the line then a superbowl is attainable.
With a lack of viable options at quarterback for Pittsburgh to look at in the draft and free agency it is highly unlikely they will find their long term solution at the position this year.
Perhaps the best offence is a great defence for the Steelers this year and getting a fully functional multi talented D-line could certainly prove to be the force multiplier along the defence that the Steelers need.
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