FOXBORO -- There's only so much you can do with Antonio Brown. The Patriots know that, and how they choose to defend him this weekend at Heinz Field will go a long way in determining just how successful they are against the Steelers defensively.
Bill Belichick's club will have the benefit of not having to see the combination of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (out with a knee injury) throwing to the two-time First Team All-Pro receiver, but even with backup Landry Jones on the field, defending Brown will be a challenge.
"Very difficult," Belichick said on Wednesday. "He’s got a tremendous skill set, very quick. He almost always can create separation in his route. He’s a very good technique route-runner so he does a great job of setting up routes. He does a really good job of getting on top of the DBs, almost stepping on the toes before he goes into his route so they can’t get any kind of – they can’t really anticipate it. He does a great job of stacking the defenders where he gets a step on the defender then he kind of cuts him off so that the defenders like a full man behind him so he can use his body to protect the ball on the deep balls.
"He’s hard to jam on the line because of his great quickness and then as I said, when he gets that half a step on the defender, not that he necessarily out-runs everybody on the field, but once he moves in front of them and stacks them then he is on top of them. The skills with the ball in his hand as a runner are exceptional. You see that on the punt returns. You see it on a lot of those under routes, catch-and-run plays, so you don’t want to back off of him and let him catch it and break a tackle or if you get up on him he runs behind you. That’s a problem, and he’s a good intermediate route runner, too. In-cuts, comebacks, curls, things like that. He has great quickness coming out of cuts so he’s very, very hard to cover."
What the Patriots did with Brown in Week 1 of last season was use Malcolm Butler in man-to-man coverage while using both single-high and Cover 2 looks to help protect against explosive gains. Butler, who was playing in his first game as a starter, played Brown competitively, forcing him to make some difficult catches, but Brown still went for 133 yards and a touchdown on nine grabs, reeling in all manner of passes from screens to down-the-field targets off of double-moves.
The Patriots could look to double Brown more aggressively this time around, but as Belichick indicated, even that wouldn't necessarily prompt Jones to look elsewhere.
"He’s seen a lot of double-coverage, too," Belichick said. "I don’t think that really bothers him either. He knows how to beat that. When you double him, I mean at some point he attacks one guy so it really becomes single coverage. He takes the other guy out of it and then he beats that guy. So he’s tough. He’s really tough."
New England Patriots
Patriots safety Devin McCourty may serve as an extra set of eyes to track Brown, but he echoed his coach's beliefs that a simple double-team won't do the trick against one of the game's best pass-catchers.
"I think when you double-team a guy it’s easy to stay with him through the top of the route," McCourty said. "But no matter what at the top of the route, you could be trailing him, you could be over the top, inside, outside, he does a good job of turning it into a one-on-one when he gets to the top of the route. That’s tough. It’s tough to stay with him.
"I think one thing is you watch him, for a guy that’s not that big, he catches everything. They throw the ball around and he goes out there and catches it with his hands and brings it in. I think his ability at the top of the route, with his quickness, his hands, he’ll go out there and try to catch every ball thrown around him."
The Patriots can take some solace in the fact that throws may not be around Brown as consistently with Jones behind center, but if they don't keep him in check, they know it may take only a play or two for him to break the game open.