bradfordera
(TNS) When the Steelers and Green Bay Packers met in Super Bowl XLV in 2011, the showdown wasnt solely about Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers, two of the most prolific quarterbacks in NFL history.
It was also about a pair of defenses that, not surprisingly, were mirror images of each other.
The Packers were run by defensive coordinator Dom Capers, who had previously helped coach Bill Cowher and the Steelers build their 3-4 defense.
The Steelers defense was led by Dick LeBeau, who was hired as a secondary coach in 1992 and helped implement the zone blitzes and fire-zone blitzes that eventually became known as Blitzburgh.
The Steelers were ranked No.
1 in total defense during the 2010 regular season when the teams met in the Super Bowl.
The Packers were No.
2.
They looked like twins.
You could have taken a guy from their huddle and put him in our huddle and taken a guy from our huddle and put him in their huddle, and it would have been the same, Capers said.
They would have known exactly what to do.
Mike McCarthy, then the Packers coach, had admired that defense since he was a wide receivers coach at Pitt in 1992.
Now he wants to emulate it in his first season with the Steelers.
It was one of the first things McCarthy mentioned during his introductory press conference in January and it will remain a primary objective for new defensive coordinator Patrick Graham when the Steelers get to training camp.
Ive always been a fan of it, McCarthy said.
I always thought it was the toughest one to compete against as an offensive coach.
It was part of the reason I went to it in Green Bay.
Thats why McCarthy hired Capers in 2009.
One year later, the Packers won the Super Bowl.
I know Mike, being a Pittsburgh guy, he always liked that scheme because it put pressure on the offense, said former Steelers safety Darren Perry, who was on the Packers defensive staff in 2010.
It was, We dictate to you.
You dont dictate to us.
It was an evolution It is unlikely the 3-4 defense will have the same impact in 2026 as it did 34 years ago, when Cowher brought his version of the scheme to the Steelers.
Offensive schemes have changed from two-back sets to three- and four-receiver formations, forcing the Steelers to play more sub-package defenses that include five and sometimes six defensive backs.
But the results were instantaneously impressive in Cowhers first season.
And the scheme has remained the same for decades, right up until LeBeau was not rehired after the 2014 season.
LeBeau was the last vestige of the original 3-4 defense installed by Cowher and Capers.
Since LeBeaus departure, the Steelers have ranked in the top five in defense just once.
At the time, there arent many teams that were still staying with the 3-4, Cowher said on the phone recently.
It was an evolution that really took place, and we just continued to take it to another level every year.
And a lot of people started transitioning to the 3-4 around the league.
Cowher was only the second coach in NFL history to make the playoffs in each of his first six seasons.
The Steelers success was built around the dominance of their defense.
In the most sincere form of flattery, other teams began copying the Steelers defensive template.
The downside was those teams also started to draft the same types of players the Steelers coveted.
When I first got there in Green Bay, I took every defensive play from the Steelers, said Perry, who played for the Steelers from 1992-99 and joined the Packers coaching staff in 2009.
Thats how we put our cut-ups together.
We actually taught our 2009 defense off of the Steeler defense.
Perry remained friends with LeBeau and would often talk to him when Perry joined the Packers.
I remember Dick called one time and he said, Hey, DP, you guys are running our stuff better than we are right now, Perry said, laughing.
Thats because the pieces looked strangely familiar, especially to McCarthy, a Pittsburgh guy.
When Dom and I got together, he used the Pittsburgh model of our 1992 defense, Perry said.
So we got a Clay Matthews.
We got a B.J.
Raji.
Those were the two guys that we drafted.
And then we had a Charles Woodson, who was like our Rod Woodson.
Nick Collins was like our Carnell Lake.
So there are certain pieces that you want to have in place to make it strong.
Sticking with the 3-4 The Steelers have some of those pieces in place.
They have T.J.
Watt at outside linebacker.
They have Yahya Black for when they need a big nose tackle.
They have Jalen Ramsey, their Rod Woodson.
And they have DeShon Elliott, their Carnell Lake.
With the exception of Watt, none of the current pieces can compare to the ones they had in 1992 or the ones the Packers had in 2010.
But they are the significant components of the 3-4 defense.
It starts with the personnel you bring in here, in terms of focus on the three bigs and then the outside backers and inside backers, Graham said.
You talk about just the front structure, theres a lot of flexibility that you gain by bringing in players that fit that, as opposed to some teams that go about it in terms of the 4-3 defense.
Graham is in his 17th season as an NFL assistant, fifth as a defensive coordinator with four different teams.
His background is spiced with coaches who embraced the 3-4 Bill Belichick, Dean Pees, Pepper Johnson, Matt Patricia, Brian Flores.
These guys know the 3-4 defense, Graham said.
Theres going to be little tweaks here and there, sprinkling in something.
But ultimately its whats best for the players we have here.
But nobody knows the 3-4 and developed the profile that swept the NFL like Capers and Cowher.
State of the scheme Make no mistake the Steelers used the 3-4 defensive front in the later stages of Chuck Nolls career, right up until the time Cowher replaced the Hall of Fame coach in 1992.
But when Cowher brought in Capers, a defensive backs coach with the New Orleans Saints, they took the scheme to another level.
When he was the defensive coordinator with the Kansas City Chiefs, Cowher got to know Capers because both teams held training camps in Wisconsin in the summer.
He had Derrick Thomas, and we had Ricky Jackson and Pat Swilling, so there were similarities, said Capers, now a senior defensive assistant with the Cleveland Browns.
He called and said, I like what you guys do on defense.
The marriage was an instant success.
The Steelers went from 22nd in total defense in 1991 to No.
2 in 1992.
They never finished outside the top 10 for the next five years, even after Capers left to become head coach of the expansion Carolina Panthers in 1995.
There are a lot of things that I really wanted to do in Kansas City with Marty [Schottenheimer], but he never really gave us the leeway to do some things that were kind of done, Cowher said.
But we kind of kept pushing the envelope a little bit.
Because of the way the game is played today, with teams using multiple-receiver sets, the 3-4 is no longer a teams base defense.
Nose tackles have come off the field and been replaced with an extra defensive back in nickel and dime schemes.
The Steelers used their sub-package defenses at least 75% of the time under Mike Tomlin.
Even though McCarthy wants to emulate the defense he has admired for 34 years, it remains to be seen how much he can use the 3-4 scheme with the Steelers.
The history of the Steelers defense and staying with the 3-4 is important as far as the origin of it, and thats something we can build off, McCarthy said.
Ive been a head coach 18 years.
Ive had one top-five defense, and we won a Super Bowl that year.
The importance of defense is critical.