Greg Cosell's Playoffs Preview: Steelers have three stars, and another emerging weapon too

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense is dangerous because of their three superstars: quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, running back Le’Veon Bell and receiver Antonio Brown. We all know about them.

Late in the season, a new dimension started to emerge. Slot receiver Eli Rogers now presents a very, very tough matchup for defenses as well, like they didn’t have enough to worry about already.

Rogers doesn’t have the name recognition of the Steelers’ “Big Three,” but he could be a huge factor in the playoffs. Against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, The Dolphins will likely match up slot cornerback Bobby McCain to Rogers. That matchup won’t get the headlines that Roethlisberger, Bell and Brown do, but how the Dolphins handle that will be very important in the outcome of the game.

Rogers came on late in the season (he had 220 yards in Pittsburgh’s final three games, about 37 percent of his season total of 594 yards), and Roethlisberger seemed to have more confidence in him as Rogers showed he had the ability to win one-on-one matchups in the slot. Rogers also helped clear things out for Brown, which we’ll break down in a moment.

Here are a couple plays that show how Rogers can beat cornerbacks if they’re matched in man coverage on him. Against the Ravens in Week 16, Rogers was in the slot, the Ravens went “man free blitz” with safety Eric Weddle as the edge blitzer, and cornerback Jerraud Powers was matched against Rogers. With a six-man protection, Rogers beat Powers to the inside on a crossing route and had room to run for 39 yards.

This was an impressive route, from Week 15 against the Cincinnati Bengals. Rogers was matched against cornerback Josh Shaw in Cincinnati’s “2 man” look (which basically is man coverage with two deep safeties – this might be an important defensive look for Sunday’s game too). Rogers ran a great stick-nod route to beat Shaw and scored a 24-yard touchdown.

The Dolphins used a lot of “2 man” in the first meeting between the teams back in Week 6. It’s not a defense that I’ve seen work well against the Steelers very often, but it worked for the Dolphins in a 30-15 win. It’s also not a defense I’ve seen Miami use much before or since. Their normal third-and-long defense is either “Cover 3” zone, “Cover 1” (man), or “Cover 2” zone. They must have figured that “2 man” would slow down the Steelers. We’ll see if they go back to that on Sunday, and how Pittsburgh adjusts. It’s not easy to match up with the Steelers in man coverage; Ravens defensive coordinator Dean Pees switched to almost all zone in the fourth quarter of Week 16 because he clearly felt he couldn’t play man against Pittsburgh’s receivers.

A benefit of Rogers coming on strong late in the season is Pittsburgh used him and Brown in route concepts together. In the Steelers’ biggest play of the season, it was a two-man concept with Rogers and Brown.

In the final seconds against the Ravens, Rogers ran a fade from the slot and Brown ran a slant from the outside. The Ravens switched, with Shareece Wright taking Rodgers on the fade. Powers jumped the slant but was a beat late, and Brown caught the slant and had an unbelievable effort to get across the goal line for the winning score.

Earlier in the fourth quarter, the Steelers had a mesh concept with Brown and Rogers running shallow crossing routes, and Powers abandoned his underneath zone responsibility to run with Rogers. That left Brown wide open for 21 yards.

Of course another huge part of this game, and any playoff game the Steelers play in, is Bell. Against the Ravens, the Steelers’ first possession featured six Bell runs – they were all from different formations and they were six different runs. The Steelers have outstanding versatility in the running game, because Bell allows you to do anything.

I thought this was a great run by Bell, which shows his ability to set up defenders and playoff his blocks. You see outside linebacker Terrell Suggs jump inside, reacting to Bell’s initial path. Bell then cut outside to the open edge, leaving Suggs stuck inside. He gained 23 yards. It’s really hard to defend this.

We know that Bell makes the Steelers’ run game really hard to defend. We also know that Roethlisberger is really good from the pocket, and Brown is masterful at running any type of route and beating double teams on him. Now you take all of that and add in a dangerous slot receiver like Rogers, who can beat single coverage? You can easily see the challenge the Dolphins and any other defense will have against the Steelers in these playoffs.

Podcast: All you need to know for wild-card weekend

Subscribe to Grandstanding • iTunes • Stitcher • Soundcloud

– – – – – – –

NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.