The Pittsburgh Steelers pass defense was ripped apart by the Kansas City Chiefs in week two. A huge part of that was due to the fact that Travis Kelce was quite literally always open. Pittsburgh had no answer for him. Linebacker Jonathan Bostic was the man charged with the task of covering Kelce most of the game, and this matchup made it very clear: Pittsburgh’s linebackers can’t cover tight ends. Jon Bostic and company must either improve their coverage skills quickly, or start being helped more by the safeties.
Jon Bostic’s Lack of Coverage Skills
Poor Week Two Performance
Patrick Mahomes looked like an all-time great quarterback against Pittsburgh. Young quarterbacks love throwing to their tight ends, and Mahomes was no different on Sunday. Kelce finished the game with seven catches for 109 yards and two touchdowns. The first of his two touchdowns came while the Steelers were in zone coverage. As you can see, Kelce just slipped between the two middle linebackers, Bostic and Vince Williams. The safety was late getting to the play, and Kelce made the catch and got in the end zone. The video does a good job of illustrating how slow Bostic looks in comparison to a top level tight end. “Turn and chase” was the coverage technique that Bostic appeared to utilize on this play.
MAHOMES ➡️ KELCE 🔑🔑 https://t.co/JUSphTLurF
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) September 16, 2018
Kelce’s second touchdown of the day came with Williams, not Bostic, in coverage. But, the principle of needing linebackers to improve or be helped is still very clearly illustrated. See how Kelce just slides right past Williams, right down the seam. Once again, the help from the secondary gets to the play way too late, resulting in an easy touchdown. Plays like this simply can’t keep happening, because any offense can easily exploit these holes. Telling the tight end “Hey, run straight past that guy that’s much slower than you” is all a coach would have to do.
MAHOMES ➡️ KELCE 🔑🔑 https://t.co/JUSphTLurF
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) September 16, 2018
There is one more play (starting at 0:56) from Sunday that perfectly shows Bostic in one-on-one man coverage. Pittsburgh had two deep safeties on the play, leaving the deep middle of the field open. Seeing this, the Chiefs employed the aforementioned strategy of having the tight end run past the slow guy covering him. Bostic just couldn’t keep up, and the safeties obviously couldn’t get there in time due to the coverage scheme. It’s an ongoing issue that needs to be addressed sooner than later, or things will go south quick.
Steelers Must Pick Their Poison
There are two ways for the Steelers to attempt to address this issue. The first option is the likelier option, which is having safety help for opposing tight ends. They will see that isolating a linebacker on a quicker tight end is opening up huge holes in their defense. Here, the issue comes with what happens when the corners don’t have as much safety help. Then, corners will be left in more one-on-one situations. Yes, the same corners who also haven’t been the best in coverage this season. With the current talent level, it just seems like it will be difficult for the Steelers to find a way to cover everyone. Maybe getting Joe Haden back from injury will help address the problem.
The other route the Steelers could take is to decrease Jon Bostic’s snap count. Or, even Vince Williams’s snap count. There are two reasons that this likely will not happen. First, both Bostic and Williams are monsters in the run game. Stopping the pass is only half the battle, and removing either of these two would definitely diminish the team’s ability to stop the run. Second, there isn’t much speed behind these two at middle linebacker, either. Undrafted rookie Matthew Thomas looked sharp in preseason. However, there’s a big difference between making plays in preseason and being asked to cover Travis Kelce one-on-one. Overall, it’s a problem that no one seems to know the solution to, but a problem that needs a solution to be found now, before it’s too late.
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