Buyer's Remorse? Steelers Getting Next to Nothing Out of High-Priced LaMarr Woodley

I guess I will take a wait-and-see approach with Woodley. We can certainly agree that, given the money he is making, he should be an unstoppable force. However, as a Dallas Mavericks fans- World Champs!! (sorry, never thought I would be able to say that)- I wonder if Woodley is more Dirk than Kobe. He needs to have guys around him to count on. Specifically, I quickly looked at a couple of plays again. Specifically, although Smith has been criticized for getting washed out on the long TD to Foster, he was in fact injured on the play. Instead, Chris Hoke was completely manhandled, leaving half of the field to be covered by Woodley and Polamalu. That is simply a no-win situation. A professional athlete that can not take that to the house is not an elite athlete.

If I get time, I will try to talk about this in my first actual post, but I wonder if Woodley was resigned with an eye to a future incarnation of Steelers defense. Rather than guys like Keisel and Smith, we now have more athletic, pocket-collapsing types like Heyward and Hood. Methinks, there might be a slight transition going on in which Woodley should thrive.

Woodley needs to STEP up. Right now, he’s playing like Clark Haggans.

the few in agreement with you, in regards to resigning Woodley. I really like the guy and think he can contribute, but he needs to do it when it matters during the season, not just late and in the playoffs. With the way things have looked I’m wondering if most of the D players are out of shape. Most of the D needs to step up and play at a higher level.

But my feelings were more that signing Troy P before the season was over was a mistake rather than Woodley.

But in both cases, there is a long way to go.

A friend of mine who is a Sox fan compared Woodleys contract to Carl Crawfords thus far.

Hopefully he can turn it around but he doesn’t look like a fraction of what he’s been.

is not so simplistic.. in part is the scheme we ask him to play…for that matter all our line backers.. our def line is over matched on every down given the size of todays offensive lines… at that point you need extrodinary talent to over come such disadvantage.. against the finer offensve lines even talent will not prevail.. there will always be a splash play from a talented defensive LB but down in and down out its a losing proposition.. I couldt agree more about our linebackers speed… far to slow to be effective pass defenders.. sadly this is the root weve taken …Im off the belief the 3-4 defense is a thing of the past, and coincidentally…so does NE’s head coach… simple truth is, the new rules instituted to enhance the passing game has had a profound affect on "steelers specific " 3-4 scheme… Im of the belief we need to revert back to a 4-3 defense… Have you seen any of the Detroit games…or even Raider games..?…where simple every down pressure appears to be the only way to effectively over come the pass game advantages… of course doing so involves some personel changes…but I think its time we made the transition… Im all for playing 4 down linemen this yr…not that I could have influenece .. say… debo – kiesl – mclendon – hood ….rotating in heywood… if u ask me, this is a sure fire way to both stop the run, and get pass rush… I could see… timmons- farrior – wiorlds quite nicely playing the pass game as well as run and edge support….then shake out the best for the secondary…. only hope those in position to make tough decisions…do I relize this puts some invested $$$ on the bench… if you ask me putting the best players on the field to win games should be priority… food for thought…. in complete sincerity….feel our path forward needs to be a 4-3 base defense…

wouldnt it be nice to see

ike 1 clark allen troy 2 as our secondary…?rotating in a 5th for obvious downs…why not field the best talent every play?

be the beginning of a transition to the 4-3? The D-line is getting pushed back 3-5 yards on runs. It doesn’t take a math major to see that averaging 4 yards per play will lead to 1st downs.

I still believe—but I too am concerned.

I think the lockout has hurt this team much more than we imagined it would.

I am just not seeing the effort. < Simple as that.

Woodley’s run support has not been awful. He’s making plays here and there and this one shouldn’t let you say “Well, it’s all bad.” What you should really be alarmed about is his lack of a pass rush this year. Through 3 games last year he had 2 sacks and 15 pressures. This year he has 2 sacks and 5 pressures. That is really alarming and a huge concern for a guy being paid to get to the QB. If it keeps up…at what point do you put Jason Worilds in on obvious passing downs? Or is there too much pride to admit that we might have made a mistake?

Keisel might be the most underrated player of this year. His injury is getting little to no talk and I think it’s been a huge impact. Right now, he is our best DE by a good margin. Aaron Smith is old and not creating the disruption he used to. We need Keisel back.

I mean Woodley was trying to catch Foster and knocked Troy out of the play, but I am not sure Troy would have stopped him anyway. He was already beaten. The D has not gotten to QBs as a whole.

but the OL has been horrible. we knew it last season when we limped into the SB with Pouncey hurt. We should have spent some $$$ on someone, or drafted a few guys

Light a fire under Woodley as well as the rest of the defense. Even Troy has played with passion only at times. More effort is needed. Passion – big plays – sacks and takeaways.

Inject more speed and youth into the defense — sitting Smith and Farrior and getting some added time for Cam and SS.

The defense has been the strenth of our team and the prime reason we reached the SB three times in six years. In past years, they would have saved the offenses butt, something they failed to do twice this year and did unconvincingly in Indy. It’s not that they are terrible, they are not. They are good, but performing below the line right now. If we have any chance of reaching the post season this year, it will not be without a dominating defense.

That can explain the lack of sacks if the QB is able to step up in the pocket and make a throw. On the Foster TD, there are very few OLB that make that play and Troy did take a bad angle on the tackle.

I really like the way you express a valid concern of many Steelers Fans. Regardless of how bad our O-Line plays or how much Aaron sucks, Woodley must play at a much higher level, no excuses for him so far this season.

Where Ike Taylor has played well after signing the long-term deal Woodley has been quiet. I liked that the Steelers resigned him but so far he is not coming close to performing like his contract suggests he should. He’s one of the few players in the NFL to have double digit sack totals the past three years and is a big play OLB so it was a no brainer to resign especially considering the age of the defense. He needs to pick it up definitely but history suggests he will.

Playing on the strong side is much different than playing on the weakside. For starters, you often have a TE lined up on your side and teams typically run on your side. So this means that you are more likely the one who has to keep contain, more likely the one that has to deal with a FB (if you get through the TE), more likely the one who has to worry about getting a cut block from a receiver on your side…..

On the backside you’re more likely getting a free run or having to beat one player to get a chance to chase down the play. Face it on the run, the left tackle typically blocks the RDE not the ROLB.

As for the pass rush, teams will often line the TE up on the right (especially on early pass downs) so the ROLB often will have to travel further to get to the QB (cause you’re either lined up head up or outside the TE). In addition, the ROLB has to keep contain (cause most QB’s are right handed and will roll to their right) and they can see you coming. So this often results in Woodley using a bull rush so that he can toss the lineman to the side to make a play on the QB if he steps up or if he tries to roll out. Finally, I’ve seen numerous times where Woodley has had to put a jam on the TE or the slot receiver on his side which also means he’s not getting right into a pass rush.

For the LOLB, they are also responsible for contain but most QB’s won’t know if you’ve blown it so you get more of a chance to pin your ears back and just go for the QB. Of course you also get to deal with the other team’s best pass blocker (usually) but I’m not arguing that Harrison isn’t awesome so there isn’t much left for me to say.

I guess what I am trying to say is that you can’t compare Woodley to Harrison when it comes to “getting pressure” on the QB because the job is soo much different. I’d be interested to see some sort of stat that would show how many times Woodley has had to chuck a TE or a slot reciever on his side and how many times he has had to drop into coverage because I feel like he hasn’t rushed the QB nearly as much this year as he did last year.