Tom Bradley brings a resume of several players he was able to grow into being fundamental defensive backs that can attack the ball around the field. While the Steelers' secondary gave up numerous big plays down the field, Bradley's history of coaching defensive backs in the NCAA show a tendency of being able to improve the ball skills of cornerbacks.
For years, the Steelers' defensive backs struggled with players selected through low draft picks and a lack of superstar talent while Carnell Lake was secondary coach. Lake helped the likes of William Gay go from being a weak point of the secondary to being a reliable player at various positions in the defensive backfield. But Lake's secondary never turned into an elite group.
So when the Steelers brought in Bradley as their new secondary coach for the 2018 season, many wondered what he could bring to the team and help improve with the Steelers' current players. The Steelers' current secondary boasts two first-round picks in Artie Burns and Terrell Edmunds and a second-round pick in Sean Davis. Bradley will have the opportunity to mold these young players to the style of football he wants his defensive backs to perform, so we take a look at how his players have performed over the years.
When you look at Bradley's career with both Penn State and UCLA, no major defensive backs came out of either program that would've significantly benefited from his tutelage, but few players were ever selected high in the NFL Draft. The only defensive back selected from UCLA during his tenure was cornerback Fabian Moreau, a third-round pick by Washington in 2017.
But Bradley was able to grow decent ball skills in players regardless of their pedigree. I watched dozens of games from both Penn State and UCLA over his years and noticed certain tendencies that were common denominators for how his players approached coverage situations. One of the most notable traits was how they played the ball in the air and the discipline they displayed to stick with a play to force incomplete passes even when the ball got to the receiver.
This was a play in 2008 from Lydell Sargeant, a senior cornerback that would later go undrafted into the NFL, as he played backed off coverage against Ohio State and was able to find the ball despite not being in the best position. Sargeant plays a soft, underneath zone coverage and combines both reading the quarterback with his eyes with his ability to locate the receiver and attack the hands to force this incomplete pass.
Watch how his head goes back-and-forth between the quarterback and the receiver, and how to finish the play he attacked the receiver. But instead of going for a big hit, he used his hands to swipe through the hands of the receiver and force a drop:
The proper phrase to describe that effort is for the defensive back to "fight through the hands," as Sean Davis described to me last season after he accomplished a similar feat in a play against the Lions. But it's something the Steelers didn't do enough in 2017, and also a focused point I saw across the years for Bradley's players.
Here's another example of a similar play from Justin King, whom Bradley helped grow to being a fourth-round pick, against Brian Robiskie, an eventual second-round pick, from a Penn State game against Ohio State in 2007.
Watch how King plays backed off coverage and keeps his eyes on the receiver the entire time. Even when Robiskie gets behind King, the Penn State defensive back keeps up with his 4.31 40-yard dash speed and make a play on the ball by fighting through the hands of Robiskie and strip the ball from his hands.
King effectively turns a touchdown into an incomplete pass with well-timed and aggressive hands:
In today's NFL, defensive backs face a difficult challenge of having to be aggressive in order to make plays, but having to also be careful with their timing so as to not draw a flag for pass interference, unnecessary roughness and a number of other penalties.
The most effective method of avoiding such penalties is to develop techniques and practices that lean away from big hits and rely more on well-placed and well-timed usage of their hands. This takes a great deal of athleticism and skill, which is why cornerbacks and great pass defending safeties are such a high priority in the NFL.
Bradley's coaching taught those positive traits in several players, and the most recent to make the NFL was UCLA's Moreau. Bradley helped Moreau grow from being a player who struggled to find the ball in his early years into recording eight passes defensed in each of his final two full seasons in the NCAA.
Watch how Moreau presses the receiver here at the line without ever jamming them with his hands. He's shadows the receiver all the way across the field and once the ball arrives, he swipes away the pass from his hands to force the drop:
One of the more interesting notes of all of Bradley's cornerbacks I noticed was how many of them didn't even try to jam receives at the line, a very normal and helpful technique for the average cornerback both in NCAA and the NFL. While I wouldn't expect Burns to stop pressing receivers under Bradley, if he can improve his ability to find the ball deep down the field and attack the ball without drawing a penalty, that could propel his game to the next level.
Watch how Moreau matched up with JuJu Smith-Schuster when they faced off in college. Moreau doesn't press Smith-Schuster, but he attacks the ball once it gets to the receiver's hands. We all know Smith-Schuster made several combat catches like this in the NFL, so him coming down with this ball isn't all that surprising, but it is an example of how Bradley's style of approach faced off against a top-flight NCAA receiver:
This is also where the legitimate question as to how this style of coverage will play out against elite receivers arises. No cornerback can go without occasionally getting beat by receivers in today's era, but the key to focus on is teaching methods that will yield less penalties and provide better opportunities for defensive backs to make plays on the ball and stop opponents from making big plays down the field.
We all saw how teams such as the Titans, Jaguars and Colts beat the Steelers' defense over the top with deep passes, sometimes with the defense losing the ball, so it makes sense this could be one of Bradley's first points to emphasize with the Steelers' younger players.
But Bradley has talked in the past about the importance of adjusting your coaching plans to fit the skill sets of your players. Back in 2015, UCLA lost both Moreau and Myles Jack to season-ending injuries, and Bradley made it clear his defensive scheme would shift with the talent available to him. UCLA would go on to lose their bowl game to Nebraska that season, but their defense put up a shutout performance and allow only 9 points to No. 18 ranked Utah in the final stretch of the season.
The other aspect Bradley will have to bring to the Steelers' secondary is how he helps players develop mentally and how he can help the progression of Burns, Davis, Edmunds and other young players such as Cameron Sutton and Brian Allen.
Even in his final season with UCLA, Bradley was working on the development of his young players, as evidence by the progression of freshman cornerback Darnay Holmes, who recorded three interceptions in his first season.
This was one of the comments Bradley had of Holmes when he first started working with the team and where he had to grow:
“It’s not so much the physical (adjustment),” Bradley said. “He’s getting tired – he’s not used to this type of tempo, obviously – but mentally, there’s a lot of stuff we put in. … The learning curve in the pass game is a lot different than high school.”
Holmes' progression was visible throughout the season as he went from being a player who relied on his speed and natural athleticism to adapting his game to make plays by reading the progressions of offenses.
Watch how he sat back in his zone and baited a poor throw from Washington quarterback, Jake Browning, by covering an inside receiver and then breaking to the sidelines to make the interception:
Growth is the key factor that Bradley has been able to incorporate in his players throughout the decades of work in the NCAA. With the Steelers' current youth in the secondary and the opportunity to put together a strong core for the future, Bradley could be the man for the task to put them on the right path.
