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Steelers’
defense says it plans to rattle Brady PITTSBURGH — This won’t be any snow job — sorry, Tom Brady, but the weather forecast for Sunday’s AFC championship game in Pittsburgh is partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid 50s. That means no snow piled up to the shoetops, no shivering defenders sliding in coverage, no repeat of the winter wonderland conditions that existed for the New England Patriots’ frozen-field victory over the Oakland Raiders. Still, despite the hospitable conditions predicted for the first AFC title game between the two teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense had this advice Thursday for Brady: don’t get comfortable. The Steelers watched as Brady passed for 312 yards against the Raiders in Saturday’s 16-13 playoff victory — 238 in the second half — by never letting the conditions, the opponent or the pressure of the situation get to him. But while they saw it, they don’t think he can do it again, not against the NFL’s No. 1 defense on its home field, in a far-less-friendly environment than Foxboro and in a game far more important than the one he just played. “We definitely want to make him feel the pressure,” linebacker Joey Porter said Thursday. “I’ve been watching him on tape and he’s a little too comfortable back there. I don’t know if he hasn’t been getting enough pressure or what, but we can’t let him sit back there and go through all of his progressions before he throws the ball. We want him to throw the ball real quick.” Brady probably was the biggest surprise star of the NFL season, coming off the bench to lead the Patriots to 12 victories in 15 games. But he has not yet opposed the Steelers, who intend on rattling him by constantly changing the direction and intensity of their pressure. “For what I’ve seen of him, he reminds me of Donovan McNabb when we played the Eagles last year,” Porter said. “We’re blitzing, but he’s sitting there looking at us and smiling. You don’t want a guy sitting there smiling, you want him to be worried.” So far, he hasn’t been; Brady’s 63.9 percent accuracy rate on passes was second in the AFC to Rich Gannon’s 65.8 percent for Oakland. “We want him (Brady) to keep his head on a swivel, saying, ‘Man, where are these guys coming from?’ If we get to him like that, then we’ll know our game plan is working.” If Brady has an advantage, it is that he has seen the 3-4 defense in practice. While the Steelers are the only NFL team that uses the 3-4 as its base defense, the Patriots employ it more often than any team except Pittsburgh. “It’s going to be difficult for him, but you can’t put everything on the quarterback,” safety Lee Flowers said. “Our defense always attacks the middle and always attacks the edges.” That’s why some teams use quick throws, screens and draws to get the Steelers’ defenders going against the flow of the play, and they expect exactly that from New England. “They’re a running team that likes to pass, and they throw lot of screens to keep you off balance, screens to slow us down on defense,” Porter said. |
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