Steelers' Shazier: Defense 'looking like garbage right now'

Moments after buttoning up a flowered print dress shirt in the postgame locker room, Ryan Shazier's assessment of the Steelers defense Sunday was blunt.

“We're looking like garbage right now,” the linebacker said after the Steelers' 27-16 loss to the New England Patriots. “(Opposing offenses) can do whatever they want to do right now.”

That might be a tad harsh, considering the Patriots were held below their season average for yards, and it was the third-fewest points they have scored this season.

But while the Steelers defense might not have been “garbage,” a few big plays cost them a chance at a victory.

Roughly one-third (117 of 362 total) of New England's total offense came on four plays — and those four plays almost solely were responsible for three of the Patriots' touchdowns. Three of the four came in the second half, and two of the four came on long receptions by All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski.

“I thought we had a good plan,” linebacker Aruthur Moats said. “But at the same time, when you don't execute it every single snap, then you get those big plays like Gronk was able to make in the second half, which ultimately ended up being the difference in the game.”

Gronkowski's 36-yard touchdown reception over the middle on third-and-6 in the third quarter from what probably was outside of Stephen Gostkowski's field-goal range gave the Patriots a seven-point lead.

Gronkowski's 37-yard catch on the Patriots' first drive of the fourth quarter set up LeGarrette Blount's 5-yard touchdown run on the next snap.

“We have to keep putting pressure on the defense. If you do that, eventually you will make some plays, or they will over-adjust or something,” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said. “We got Gronkowski going down the middle, then Gronkowski going the opposite way.”

Shazier seemed to corroborate Brady's theory of “overadjusting” by saying he thought the Steelers had a good plan for shutting down Gronkowski in the first half but then changed that plan.

“We were giving them calls that Tom didn't like, and I guess when we changed up a little bit and (Brady) got to seeing things he liked, they took advantage of it,” Shazier said.

Gronkowski was thrown to just once in the first half — a 13-yard catch in the second quarter.

“They came out the second half and had two explosive plays — one for a touchdown and another set them up for a touchdown,” linebacker Jarvis Jones said. “There were some huge plays in the second half. And it ended up why the game transpired the way it did.”

Gronkowski, who attended Woodland Hills, has torched the Steelers as much as he has any NFL opponent on a per-game basis. In five games versus the Steelers, Gronkowski has 30 catches for 496 yards and eight touchdowns.

“ ‘Gronk' is who he is,” said safety Robert Golden, who went to college at Arizona with Gronkowski. “And they just out-executed us.”

The other two big plays the Steelers permitted were James White's 19-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter and Blount's 25-yard run in the fourth that came three plays before Gronkowski's touchdown.

“When you think about it, they weren't having a lot of success,” Moats said. “And then you throw those two (Gronkowski) plays in the second half, you look at the scoreboard, and that ends up being the difference.

“It's definitely frustrating. But we're not looking for comfort. We understand that we dropped the ball with that, execution-wise, a couple plays where we really just didn't execute the way we needed to, and that's the difference in the game. It's frustrating because we know how good we can be, but at the end of the day, when you're making those mistakes and we‘re not executing the way we need to, you gotta deal with the result.”

Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter @C_AdamskiTrib.