Dom Capers 3-4 Blittsburgh Defense

Dom Capers is responsible for the creation of the Pittsburgh steel-curtain-like defense. It utilizes the 3-4 alignment with 4 roaming linebackers. This blend of different blitzing tactics and great talent among the players, this defense has put Dom Capers among the few great minds of professional football. It also earned Pittsburgh a trip to the Super Bowl, as well as a new head coaching job for Dom Capers with the expansion Carolina Panthers who stunned the football world last year by overtaking the perennial winners San Francisco 49ers. "We present a kind of unique problem to the offense in that those four guys [the four linebackers] are all going to be a full-time deal for a back," said the former defensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers LeBeau "It’s very difficult for an offensive coach to design a protection. The back’s got to block one of those guys, and it becomes a chess match as to what protection they’re in as to what pressure we’re bringing." "Normally, if you live by the blitz, you die by it," said John Teerlinck, former Detroit

Lions assistant head coach. "But Pittsburgh has the people in the secondary to run the receivers. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better secondary in football."

When they move into their dime defense with six defensive backs and four down linemen, the Steelers used their hard-hitting defensive backs close to the line of scrimmage in the slot. That way, they can either cover the wide receiver or they are close enough, fast enough and big enough to blitz the quarterback.

Thus, when the Steelers go into their dime defense, the offense faces a perplexing combination that looks like this: the middle linebacker moves to the right outside rush spot and the right linebacker moves to the the left linebacker position with two down linemen between them. The left linebacker moves to the middle linebacker position. A Corner and a safety are near the line of scrimmage, in the slot positions. Any or all of them can blitz. Click To see this play (88k)

"They challenge you," Houston coach Jeff Fisher said, "challenge offenses mentally and physically with their ability to provide different links and their ability to pressure the quaterback."

"Pittsburgh," Teerlinck said, "has every blitz known to man."

And they use them, blitzing more than any team in the NFL. Against Miami, they blitzed Dan Marino 39 times-and not only lived to tell about it, but sacked him an uncharacteristic four time, intercepted him once and limited him to one touchdown pass in Pittsburgh’s overtime victory.

Until then, the NFL had an unwritten rule-don’t blitz Marino.

"When’s the last time you’ve seen Marino like that?" defensive end Ray Seals asked. "He was jittery out there. We were bringing it as a team."

They lived by the blitz, but some predicted they would die by it.

"Sooner or later, it’s going to catch up with them," Cleveland defensive end Rob Burnett predicted in mid-December. "That style of defense is going to catch up to them. It’s going to be their end."

There is debate as to whether or not it was the style or the execution, but the Steelers were blitzing when San Diego’s Stan Humphries tossed a 43-yard touchdown pass to Tony Martin with five minutes left in the AFC championship game to stun favored Pittsburgh, 17-13.

Linebacker Chad Brown was inches from Humphries as he threw it and he knocked the quarterback down.

But the Steelers were in a three-deep zone play, a defense that is designed to stop the deep pass. Martin simply blew past Tim McKyer, who bit on a fake.

LeBeau scoffs at any suggestion that blitzes finally caught up with the Steelers.

"There are no absolutes, no 100 percents in any competitive endeavor," he said. "To say that every defense we run is going o be successful every snap, that‘s not so. But we think that the success that defense had last year would say would say that we’re on the right track."

LeBeau noted that a team that allows 5.7 yard for every pass attempt is doing a good job. Whenever the Steelers used their pressure defense, it permitted a mere 3.3 yards on average in 1994.

"Our pressure defense last year had better numbers that any particular defense that I’ve ever been associated with," LeBeau said. "And I’ve been taking these numbers quite a few years. These were very, very good defenses. We don’t concern ourselves with what someone else may say."

That leaves the rest of the National Football League to ponder this: What if the quaterback-mashing, bone-crushing Pittsburgh defense gets better in 1998?

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