In the postseason, his coverage has been outstanding. Regular season it was shaky but he's been awesome in the postseason from a coverage standpoint.
Man ive always disliked E smith, mainly due 2 his coverage skills. But lately he has shut me up well not really lately.. since Jim went down he has played better each game. N remember he came back from a concussion. He has the body of a lb man wen u see em n he HITS like one 2..
He's our best run-stuffing DB and not surpsingly, the two games he missed down the stretch were two of our worst efforts against the run all year. Mendenhall gashed us in that game and Forte did as well the following week. Hopefully his presence can help shore that up this time.
So question...were Smith's troubles in coverage (he's had a few DPIs) when he was playing deep safety and had to pick his man up after he blew by him or were they in man coverage and he was just getting schooled? I remember he was good in man coverage on RBs and TEs last year, I remember he covered Chris Johnson last year and he actually picked off Kerry Collins while staying stride for stride with Johnson.
No need to apologize, my bubble is alive and well. The job they've done these past two weeks has been VERY GOOD. You know they're responsible for covering the other options right? Leonhard and Smith being out forced them to learn this defense. Rex talked about the emergence of Pool and Lowery. So sorry to burst your bubble but we do have very good safeties.
I want Smith to knock Hines Ward not into next week...into next freakin year. Ward looks for cheap shots. He looks to injure people, like Harrison does. I say fight fire with fire. In this case, do unto others before they do onto you. It's football, and it's how the Steelers play it. Let's get thier heads on a swivel before they do it to us. Smith is just the guy for the job. I'd also like to see Connor lay a hit on Harrison early. Get that focker's head on a swivel too.
Agreed, i'm sick of hearing about Polamolu factor. Did anyone watch Polamulu against the Ravens? he looked TERRIBLE, very bad. He missed to tackles, one that lead to a TD and then another that gave the Ravens a first down on like the 3 yard line. Instead of leading to negative yards, he cost his team points. Last week Polamulu looked like the worst safety in the NFL, Id rather have him in their. Hes been terrible all season and will probably continue that trend Sunday. Eric Smith and Pool will be the 2 best safeties in this game.
I don't think Smiffys problems (back then) were due to one type of coverage over another. If you cast your mind back a few months ago when Jimmy was still playing, there was a communication problem between the WHOLE secondary, the biggest culprit being Pool. You can disagree with me here, but I actually think that Jimmy's injury has been a blessing in disguise, the entire secondary has had to step up and damn well understand all the nuances of the different slides and protections. Same players, same roles but forced into being better football players, the biggest and most notable player being Smiffy, not least because hes filling for Jimmy. Once Jimmy is back next season, this secondary is going to be even better.
Trey Wingo disagrees with you, but I agree with you :up: On more than one occasion TP was waay out of position and too aggressive.
There is a difference between playing very well and being a very good safety. Our safeties have played very well over the past couple of weeks. Nick Collins and Eric Berry are very good safeties. See the difference??? Eric berry vs Eric Smith.... hmmmmm
I'm not sure Berry is all that, scheme can make some safeties look very good when they aren't in terms of stats. Madui (sp) Williams put up incredible numbers until he got traded into another scheme. Look at the bump in Kerry Rhodes' numbers since he went to AZ. Pollard was putting up great stats, and KC cut him. That KC D is designed for the SS to get a lot of tackles. When measuring how good safeties are, stats really lose a lot of signifigance. They really have to be graded within their schemes and responsibilities. OK, I'll say it. Both Ed Reed and Polamalu are great, but they have another safety cleaning up after them when they go after big plays. Another very good stay at home safety. It's the scheme. Even Polamalu has spoken about the Steelers giving up too many bigh plays, and it's often because Polamalu gambles. In this scheme, both Leonard and Smith are good, maybe nearing very good but not great safeties. Pool is finally learning how to play in Rex's scheme. Big play safeties are often over rated because we just don't hear about their major screw ups very often. We only get exposure to the big plays they make. Look at Polamalu's two blown tackles last week. Knowing just how good a safety is or isn't is not an easy thing for most fans to even know. It's how well he plays in the scheme.
