Super Bowl 47: Ngata goes down and we don't have any other good defensive lineman that year and the niners begin a resurgent comeback after the lights go out, effectively killing any of our momentum. Lights don't go out, we blow them out. But we won, so your point is invalid. Not to mention we effectively contained Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in the postseason with our defense that season... Nice try though
2014: Down Jimmy Smith. Literally had people signed off the street playing in our secondary. Going against an all time great in Brady, who lives for this shit. Defense was actually solid in applying pressure for most of the game. If Jimmy is there: We win not only that game, but probably the super bowl as well.
2016: Jimmy was gone. Pass rush was even worse last year than it was this year. Offense also played far worse last year than it did this year. "But Pees blew it". Once again, just like yesterday, Pees did NOT go vanilla at all. He was blitzing at the appropriate moments and the Steelers shut us down. Not Pees' fault at all. No matter how you spin it.
Sad thing is... There's plenty to criticize Dean on. Those games are not on him.
Problem with the Steelers offense is, shifting more attention towards Antonio Brown's direction only opens the door for Haley to kick our ass with Bell or any of the other WRs that they have. That offense is a pick your poison offense. Doubling is just gonna open up someone else who is a threat. Only person we could really shut down was Ben, especially to help mask our now weakness at corner. We failed to that despite trying.
I mean, I'd rather have a Pagano and do hope Pees retires, but he's hardly to blame for our problems both last night and throughout the game.