They weren’t just finishing sacks, if you look at QB hits, the Steelers hit the quarterback 44 times in the first 9 games (4.9 per game), and 78 times in the last 10 games (7.8 per game). Don’t read that as a knock on Heyward, he’s a phenomenal player, and he was in 2016. Meaning that the Steelers had Cameron Heyward for all but 2 games when Dupree was out, and they didn’t play together at all in 2016.Īnd yet the defense got many more sacks and turnovers with Dupree than they did with Heyward. Heyward played 7 of the first 9 games, and didn’t play afterwards. You might be thinking that other player changes impacted those results, Only one player missed more time in one half of the season than the other though, and that was Cameron Heyward. With Bud Dupree: 10 games, 32 sacks (3.2 per game), 18 turnovers (1.8 per game). Without Bud Dupree: 9 games, 13 sacks (1.44 per game), 10 turnovers (1.11 per game). If you add in the 3 playoff games the Steelers played in, they recorded 8 sacks and 5 turnovers in those games as well. In the 7 games Bud Dupree returned and played, the Steelers recorded 24 sacks, 3.43 sacks a game.įurthermore, the Steelers forced 10 turnovers in the first 9 games, and 13 in the last 7. In 4 of those 9 games the Steelers didn’t record a sack at all. In those 9 games the Steelers recorded 13 sacks, 1.44 sacks per game. Bud Dupree missed the first 9 games of the 2016 season. It wasn’t a change in talent, it was a change in scheme.īut then the 2016 season happened. Remember the personnel change was largely Bud Dupree replacing Jason Worilds, and Worilds had 3.5 more sacks in 2014 than Dupree did in 2015. In 2015, with almost the identical defense that ended the 2014 season 26th in sacks with 2.06 sacks per game, Keith Butler’s defense recorded 3 sacks a game and ended the season third in the NFL in sacks. Watt was drafted, but it started before that. When people talk about the rise of the Steelers pass rushing dominance, they tend to start in 2017, when T.J. The defense had changed, under Keith Butler, and it really stood out that the first pick of the Keith Butler era was Bud Dupree. And that’s Lawrence Timmons and Ryan Shazier at inside linebacker. The outside linebackers combined for 9 passes defended, the inside linebackers defended 11. James Harrison led the edge rushers with 5. Cameron Heyward, Stephon Tuitt and Lawrence Timmons all had 5 or more sacks. The number of Steelers with 3+ sacks doubled from 4 in 2014 to 8 in 2015.īlitzburgh was reborn, a team that sent pressure from anywhere and everywhere, and lived off creating pressure through the middle. in 2015 the top 3 Steelers sackers combined for only 18.5 and the team recorded 48 sacks. The top 3 sack artists from 2014 combined for 20.5, and the team recorded 33 total sacks. The only change in personnel was Dupree replacing the Steelers leading sack getter from 2014. With comparable talent on the field the defense improved, going from 25th in yards per rush allowed to 6th, and improving their sack rate from 26th in the NFL to 9th. It was that change that made the difference in the defense. The Steelers changed from the defensive line two-gapping while the linebackers rushed the quarterback to setting the defensive line free to attack and putting more responsibilities on the linebackers. The big change was Keith Butler’s new pass rushing philosophy. It was mostly the same defense that was terrible in 2014. I needed to cover that because that is a very small turnover in talent. On the front line the Steelers replaced Jason Worilds with Bud Dupree and Brett Keisel retired, clearing the way for Stephon Tuitt to start. At linebacker Ryan Shazier played in 3 more games. Heading into 2015 the Steelers swapped Brandon Boykin and Ross Cockrell in for Brice McCain and the last year of Ike Taylor, replaced Troy Polamalu with Will Allen. When you look at per play and per drive numbers, the Steelers ranked 31st in yards per play (6.0) and 25th in points per drive allowed. The Steelers defense played the 2nd fewest snaps in the NFL, and faced the 4th fewest drives in the NFL. The Steelers offense was designed to eat clock and keep the defense off the field, and it worked. The Steelers defense was in bad shape, they ranked 18th in both total points and yards allowed, the Steelers worst NFL rankings since 1991, Chuck Noll’s last season. We’re going to start back at 2014, Dick LeBeau’s last season as defensive coordinator. We are going to go beyond that, look at team defensive numbers to see the difference in the end result, and also what parts of the Steelers defense struggled or improved when Bud Dupree was not playing. Bud Dupree missed the last 6 games of the 2020 season, and on the surface it is pretty easy to take the record with Bud Dupree (11-0) and compare it to the record without Bud Dupree (1-5) and say the Steelers were better with Bud Dupree than they were without.
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