The man behind the Curtain
INDIANAPOLIS – The man who foiled the dream season stood there, tucked off to one side of the locker room, barely noticed in a real estate of torn athletic tape and sweaty jerseys. Reporters shuffled by him, poking their head into a crowd that was waiting for Jerome Bettis. Others scrambled after Ben Roethlisberger, who was heading down a hall for a press conference.
All the while, Dick LeBeau stood there next to his bag, pleasantly happy but mostly forgotten in a game of heart attacks and helmets slammed to the turf.
In a season when the planets seemed to have aligned for Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, it was this 68-year old coach from Ohio who was the master of the universe for a day. While most everyone wanted to talk about a fumble, a game-saving tackle or a questionable call, it was LeBeau's Pittsburgh Steelers defense that had made Sunday's improbable win possible.
"His plan was perfect," bragged linebacker Joey Porter.
"He drew up some new plays this week, and we were coming scot-free," Pittsburgh linebacker Larry Foote said.
Scot-free and into Peyton Manning's kitchen. It was a scene that looked eerily familiar to the Colts' first loss this season, when San Diego mixed up its 3-4 blitz schemes and threw Manning and his rocket-fueled offense into a tizzy. For Pittsburgh, that was the goal from square one, after giving up an 80-yard touchdown on the Colts' first play from scrimmage in a loss earlier this season – a game in which the Steelers' defense seemed consistently on its heels.
"I think we've been running the 3-4 longer than San Diego has been running it," LeBeau said when asked if the Chargers' earlier success had helped him tailor this week's plan. "We looked at the video and thought they did a good job, but we just ran our defense, really."
The memory of that game quickly was wiped away Sunday, as Indianapolis went four-and-out on its first two drives, allowing Pittsburgh to jump out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead. LeBeau mixed his fronts early and often that quarter, and he consistently brought multiple players to the line of scrimmage – sometimes as many as seven players swarming back and forth before each snap.
"We mixed it up and did a good job of dropping eight and bringing pressure and trying to disrupt them," Steelers head coach Bill Cowher said. "For the most part, we did it, but you're not going to contain them for 60 minutes."
Pittsburgh's defense didn't – giving up a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns – but it threw Manning and company out of their rhythm long enough to dictate the pace of the game. Subtract the second quarter, when the Colts held the ball for more than 10 minutes, and the Steelers' defense and ball-control offense dovetailed perfectly to hold a 2-to-1 edge in time of possession in the first, third and fourth quarters.
It was a trend that clearly frustrated Manning, who overthrew multiple receivers in the first three quarters and endured five sacks. While Manning completed 22 of 38 passes, he threw for only one touchdown and appeared to have an interception overturned on a questionable call in the fourth quarter. Also, he never found a groove with Marvin Harrison, partly because of the mixture of pressure and occasional double coverage on his favorite target.
But one of the oddities early on was Indianapolis' failure to use maximum-protection sets, instead relying on the offense's staple menu of three wideouts and a healthy dose of tight end Dallas Clark in passing routes. As in the San Diego loss, that strategy left Manning vulnerable to blitzes that came from all over the field – from defensive ends, corners and linebackers. Even nose tackle Casey Hampton nearly drilled Manning for a safety in the third quarter.
"They mix up their blitzes and looks every single week," Manning said. "It's kind of a signature of Dick LeBeau. Every week they have some different looks.
"Let's just say we had some problems in protection. I'll give [the Steelers] credit for their blitzes and their rush, but we did have some protection problems."
For Pittsburgh, the defensive strides couldn't be coming at a better time. The victory marked the second straight playoff game in which a coordinator came up with new wrinkles that significantly penetrated an opponent's scheme – last week, offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt produced a creative game plan against the Bengals. More importantly for Pittsburgh, Sunday's performance suggests a return to the team's hallmark defensive play that led it to a 15-1 regular-season mark in 2004 and made it a Super Bowl favorite. One month ago, these Steelers looked like a far cry from that team.
And now?
"We're back to being one of the best defenses in football," Porter said. "You can write us off all you want, but we just shut down one of the best offensive teams in football. … Last time, we let them jump on us, but this time, we hit them first and made them play our game.
"We're dictating things."
