The Pittsburgh Steelers signed veteran cornerback Darius Slay last offseason, continuing a long trend of signing veteran cornerbacks in the CB2 role. Steven Nelson, Ahkello Witherspoon, Patrick Peterson, Donte Jackson, and Slay all had varying degrees of success in Pittsburgh, but the latter didn\u2019t even make it through a full season.<\/p>\n
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Slay was released on December 2, 2025 after a largely poor showing with multiple injuries sprinkled in. In a recent edition of his podcast,\u00a0Press Coverage,\u00a0Slay went in on the Steelers\u2019 defensive schematics and subtly blamed Mike Tomlin for those perceived schematic issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ain\u2019t gonna lie to you, that Pittsburgh stuff\u2026 that s\u2014t\u2019s backwards over there,\u201d\u00a0Slay said via Alex Kozora of Steelers Depot. \u201cThat ain\u2019t [Teryl Austin] s\u2014t. TA ain\u2019t teach none of that s\u2014t in f\u2014king Detroit. [We played] outside leverage every f\u2014king call. That\u2019s why you see when [Jalen] Ramsey ever got scored on, he\u2019s chasing someone that\u2019s running away from outside leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slay added that the Steelers were coached to play outside leverage because the defensive line was expected to bat balls down if passes went inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what these [coaches] were telling me – you play outside leverage, and if they catch a ball inside, it\u2019s on the d-line because they\u2019re so good at batting the ball down,\u201d Slay said. \u201cI\u2019m not banking on that. That\u2019s the only thing I did not like about the defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many fans and former players have expressed how predictable the Steelers\u2019 defense has been for years. Former New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman said they always did well against Pittsburgh because the Steelers never changed their looks and New England always knew what they would do.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew exactly what they were doing,\u201d\u00a0Edelman said. \u201cAnd they still do what they did. They still do the same G\u2014damn s\u2014t [they did] when I was playing Tomlin\u2019s defense. I\u2019m like, \u2018We still have linebackers covering the three slot?\u2019 Every time we play Steelers, I have at least nine catches. You would think that they would change it but no, they do what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a new head coach in Mike McCarthy and new defensive coordinator in Patrick Graham, there should be a slew of refreshing changes made to the defense in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pittsburgh Steelers signed veteran cornerback Darius Slay last offseason, continuing a long trend of signing veteran cornerbacks in the CB2 role. Steven Nelson, Ahkello Witherspoon, Patrick… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":46187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\n