New England Patriots

New England Patriots vs Pittsburgh Steelers: 5 Matchups to Watch

Updated Mar. 5, 2020 12:56 a.m. ET

Fansided, Hal Bent/FanSided via Musket Fire

The New England Patriots face-off against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night in the AFC Championship game.

The New England Patriots are playing in their sixth consecutive AFC Championship game while the Steelers are coming off an impressive upset over the favored Kansas City Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium.

A game this big is all about matchups. With little need for any preamble, let’s get right to the individuals who can swing the the game and determine who goes on to Super Bowl 51.

Antonio Brown vs Malcolm Butler

Oct 23, 2016; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown (84) breaks off of the line of scrimmage against New England Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler (21) during the third quarter at Heinz Field. New England won 27-16. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

The Steelers’ offense misses the retired Heath Miller at tight end after the popular player retired after the 2015 season. Free agent acquisition Ladarius Green has been injured more than healthy and in his place Jesse James had just 39 receptions during the regular season (all statistics from Pro-Football-Reference.com unless otherwise noted).

Add in the loss of wide receiver Martavis Bryant due to a year-long suspension and wide receiver Markus Wheaton to a shoulder injury leaving him on injured reserve after just three games and the offense in Pittsburgh has basically been Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown.

Opposite Brown has been the maddeningly inconsistent Sammie Coates and slowly improving Eli Rogers. Darrius Heyward-Bey is basically a special teams players at this point and Demarcus Ayers and Cobi Hamilton scare nobody.

For better or for worse, the Steelers’ passing game is Brown. Arguably the league’s best overall wide receiver, Brown is smart, strong, fast, athletic, runs precision routes, understands the offense inside-out and has great hands. Despite releasing stupid Facebook Live videos in the locker room, he remains a handful for any defense.

Brown matched-up with Malcolm Butler man-to-man in the 2015 season opener. Brown had nine receptions for 133 yards and a touchdown but 24 of those yards and the touchdown came in garbage time as the Patriots had a two touchdown lead with three minutes to play and focused on playing prevent defense and keeping the Steelers receivers in front of them.

In Week 7 with Landry Jones at quarterback for an injured Roethlisberger, according to ProFootballFocus.com the combined coverage of Malcolm Butler and Logan Ryan held Antonio Brown to just five catches on nine targets for 94 yards and an interception by Butler. That is a 37.7 quarterback rating for passes throwing to Brown.

With Brown and Bell coming out of the backfield, the Patriots cannot sleep on the Steelers passing attack–especially with the big play ability of Roethlisberger. New England needs to start with stopping any big plays downfield by Brown.

The matchup of Brown and Butler has already been immortalized in a pizza commercial, but in all seriousness the Patriots will not hesitate to leave Butler on an island with Brown. The Steelers will move Brown to mix the coverage but New England is equally comfortable leaving Logan Ryan or Eric Rowe in coverage of Brown with safety help from Duron Harmon or Devin McCourty over the top.

The Steelers are going to make some big plays and going to put together a few scoring drives–the offense is simply too talented to be completely shut down. The Patriots will look to replicate their success without Roethlisberger by focusing on Brown in coverage and flooding the secondary and trying to generating pressure with their front four and occasional blitzes to slow the Steelers’ passing attack.

Keeping Brown under control and forcing Roethlisberger to find other targets underneath instead of downfield is a recipe for victory. The plan for getting to the Super Bowl starts with Malcolm Butler keeping Antonio Brown from making big plays downfield.

Le’Veon Bell vs Dont’a Hightower

The Patriots finished the 2016 season with one of the top rushing defenses in the NFL. The Patriots ranked third in the league allowing just 1,417 yards, first in the NFL with just six rushing touchdowns allowed, and eighth in yards per attempt at 3.9 yards per rush.

They faced a number of strong rushing teams including Jay Ajayi and the Miami Dolphins (twice), Lamar Miller and the Houston Texans (twice), LeSean McCoy and Buffalo Bills, David Johnson and the Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland and their top ranked rushing offense at the time in Week 5, Todd Gurley and the Rams, and Bell in Week 7.

With Dont’a Hightower healthy and on the field at linebacker the Patriots have not missed the rapidly declining run defense from Jamie Collins before shipping him out of town. They have had the ability to keep an extra safety or cornerback on the field and still be able to prevent opposing offenses from running on them in the nickel defense.

Rookie Elandon Roberts has used his speed and surprising strength to make an impact in limited playing time. Kyle Van Noy and Shea McClellin have helped out in the running game as the few Patriots’ linebackers have had the ability to stop any opposing running game.

Bell had just 81 yards on the ground in the first matchup as he averaged less four yards per rush as he needed 21 carries to get to that number of yards. Most of his damage was in the passing game as he had ten receptions for 68 yards.

On the defensive line, the Patriots have had some issues with controlling the edge as defensive ends Jabaal Sheard and Chris Long often got caught upfield or pushed inside and failed to set the edge. With the return of Rob Ninkovich to the defensive end position after his four-game suspension and increased playing time for second-year defensive end Trey Flowers the Patriots quickly went back to defending the run on the outside.

Add in the strong run defense of defensive tackles Malcom Brown–who is blossoming into a well-rounded defender in his second season–and veteran Alan Branch who has been a rock in the middle and the run defense being strength is no surprise. Even rookie Vincent Valentine has been effective in his limited snaps.

These defensive linemen need to maintain gap control and allow linebacker Dont’a Hightower to do what he does best: stuff the run.

This week the Patriots will face a Steelers offense with a running back in Le’Veon Bell who is averaging 4.9 yards per carry and 105.7 yards per game. Bell has contributed both running the ball and as a receiver this year. Just 24 years old, Bell has been able to be one of the best players at his position when healthy or not suspended.

Before the first matchup, New England head coach Bill Belichick went out of his way to complement Bell. He said, “He’s a tremendous player, great hands, catches the ball, very quick, makes people miss, strong, breaks tackles, excellent balance, tough, doesn’t run out of bounds, fights for extra yardage, a great player… They have a lot of depth at running back and it doesn’t matter who’s in there — they’re a problem. But Bell’s as good as anybody we’ll play.”

The Steelers’ offensive line has been fantastic with center Maurkice Pouncey healthy at center and veterans David DeCastro and Ramon Foster the interior of the line is strong at the point of attack and solid. Left tackle Alejandro Villanueva is solid in the running game and right tackle Marcus Gilbert’s return to health has jumpstarted the offense .

Bell has piled up some big games on the ground, but often against bad rushing defenses. He lit up Kansas City’s overrated run defense last week and before that piled up big yards against Buffalo, Miami, Indianapolis, and Cleveland. However, not to knock Bell, he also topped 100 yards against Baltimore and the New York Giants–two very good run defense.

Stopping Bell is a challenge that will require the entire defense staying disciplined to slow him down. From the defensive line maintaining gap integrity to the linebackers filling their lanes, every player on defense has to do their job and tackle well. One way to prevent big plays is to have the defensive ends and cornerbacks maintain the edge and funnel Bell back inside to Hightower.

It is not easy to eliminate Le’Veon Bell and the Steelers’ rushing attack, but an entire team effort and strong tackling by Dont’e Hightower will make it possible for New England to slow him down.

Martellus Bennett vs Lawrence Timmons and Ryan Shazier

The New England Patriots’ offense has remarkably remained consistent without All Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski. The loss of Gronkowski has often been a death knell for the Patriots as many of their postseason exits are tied to his injuries.

To combat the Gronk injury issue, the Patriots swung a trade in the offseason with the Chicago Bears to add veteran tight end Martellus Bennett. Bennett–like any tight end in the NFL not named Travis Kelce–is not a difference-maker of Gronkowski’s level. However, he is a capable receiver and chipped in with 55 receptions for 701 yards and seven touchdowns despite battling nagging injuries all season.

Bennett struggled in his first postseason appearance with New England last week against Houston and the Patriots’ offense needs their tight end at top production level. Earlier this season the Pittsburgh linebackers had their hands full trying to slow Gronkowski.

Bennett was held to one reception for five yards in the earlier Patriots win in week seven, but Gronkowski had a number of big plays as he had four receptions for 93 yards and a touchdown. He torched the Steelers’ linebackers in coverage exploiting gaps in the zone coverage for 7, 13, 36, and 37 with each reception converting a first down or touchdown.

The Patriots will need Bennett to exploit the pair of Steelers’ inside linebackers in pass coverage. Last week Kansas City’s Travis Kelce had five receptions for 77 yards including three of those receptions for 39 yards working over the middle of the field with Ryan Shazier and Lawrence Timmons trying to slow him down.

Timmons is a solid veteran who makes plays in the running game but struggles at times getting back in space. While solid in a zone, he is often overmatched trying to cover man-to-man.

Shazier is extremely athletic and has deceptive speed for a player his size. When Pittsburgh is in man coverage, they try to get Shazier on the tight end so his leaping ability, make-up speed and hands allow him to make plays. Shazier has an interception in four consecutive games (including both playoff games).

Tom Brady loves to work the middle of the field and attack match-ups with linebackers. Shazier and Timmons will be in his way clogging the middle of the field. If Brady can work Edelman underneath and Chris Hogan or Malcolm Mitchell deep, he should have space to find Bennett for a few big plays in those seams in the zone defense.

James Harrison and Bud Dupree vs Nate Solder and Marcus Cannon

The Steelers’ offense lost their interior pass rusher when 3-4 defensive end Cameron Heyward was placed on injured reserve after playing just seven games. Despite playing less than half the season, Heyward is fifth on the team with three sacks.

The defense received a boost when 38-year old veteran James Harrison returned to a full-time role and 23-year old former first round draft pick Bud Dupree came back from injury. That duo leads the defense with 9.5 combined sacks. The only other defensive players with more sacks than Heyward are defensive end Stephon Tuitt (four sacks) and inside linebacker Ryan Shazier (3.5 sacks).

The Steelers’ success on defense–particularly against Miami and Kansas City in the playoffs–has been predicated by the pressure created by Harrison and Dupree. Against Kansas City, ProFootballFocus.com noted that the Steelers created pressure on Alex Smith on just eight of his 37 dropbacks.

Against Tom Brady, giving him almost 30 passing plays without pressure will result in much more damage than a mid-range quarterback like Alex Smith. What won the game for the Steelers’ defense was when they got pressure on Smith he crumbled: Smith finished 0-7 with a sack and interception on pass play under pressure.

Unlike Houston with Belichick disciple Romeo Crennel mixing-and-matching defensive fronts, the Steelers under defensive coordinator Keith Butler do not do much to mix up their looks. Dupree and Harrison are coming off the edge despite the matchup. That could be their undoing.

Nate Solder and Marcus Cannon are the Patriots’ best pass blockers on the line and should draw Harrison and Dupree. With Tuitt the only interior defensive player capable of getting any kind of pass rush, it takes pressure off rookie Joe Thuney and second-year blockers Shaq Mason, and David Andrews.

Tom Brady–despite throwing two interceptions last week–still performed better than Alex Smith did under pressure. Per ProFootballFocus.com Brady was only six of 13 passing for 105 yards with two sacks, a touchdown, and an interception. If he approaches those numbers at all (assuming Pittsburgh can generate as much pressure as Houston did) it will be a long day for the Steelers’ defense.

Trey Flowers vs Alejandro Villanueva

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been excellent on offense this season due in large part to their top-notch offensive line. For all the Le’Veon Bell carries and long passes from Ben Roethlisberger to Antonio Brown, the quartet of Alejandro Villanueva, Ramon Foster, Maurkice Pouncey, David DeCastro and Marcus Gilbert have been doing the dirty work up front to allow them to shine.

The tackles Villanueva and Gilbert shook off a slow start (Villanueva) and nagging injuries (Gilbert) to turn this unit around after an inconsistent first half. DeCastro and Foster are above-average at guard and Pouncey is consistently excellent in both pass and run blocking.

New England has generated pressure on opposing defenses through their rotation of pass rushing defensive ends. Second-year defensive end Trey Flowers has been a force rushing the quarterback from the outside and sliding inside on obvious passing downs. Fellow defensive ends Jabaal Sheard (five sacks), Chris Long (four sacks) and Rob Ninkovich (four sacks) also provide a solid pass rush.

Generating pass rush against the Steelers is difficult as the offensive line allowed just 21 sacks for 175 yards. In the two playoff games, the Steelers allowed just two sacks for 15 yards.

A key matchup will be Trey Flowers on the outside against Villanueva. Villanueva is likely the weakest link of the offensive line–although that is more of a complement of the other four blockers as Villanueva has been excellent recently but is just a smidge below their level of high play.

Flowers needs to contain the running game by staying strong on the edge and keeping Le’Veon Bell from leaping outside for big gains. In addition, he needs to pressure Roethlisberger in the passing game to keep him from having time to sit in the pocket and wait for his younger, speedy wide receivers getting downfield behind the coverage.

Flowers has played well but is essentially a rookie after playing just one game for a handful of snaps last year. Flowers had a big game last week with three pressures in the passing game and six rush stops (per ProFootballFocus.com). If Flowers can replicate that performance, it will put the Patriots in position to advance in the playoffs.