Joe Haden won't be only Steelers corner tasked with finding way to stop Packers' Davante Adams | TribLIVE.com
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Joe Haden won't be only Steelers corner tasked with finding way to stop Packers' Davante Adams

Joe Rutter
| Thursday, September 30, 2021 3:23 p.m.
AP
Green Bay Packers’ Davante Adams gets past Detroit Lions’ Jamie Collins during the second half of an NFL football game Monday, Sept. 20, 2021, in Green Bay, Wisc.

To no surprise, Davante Adams is tied for the NFL lead in receptions after three games.

Arguably the most productive wide receiver in the NFL last season when he had a league-high 18 touchdown catches, the Green Bay Packers star has caught 25 passes this year, a total buoyed by a 12-catch, 132-yard performance in Week 3 against the San Francisco 49ers.

That would make Adams a nightmare matchup for any NFL cornerback, let alone a veteran of Joe Haden’s pedigree. But while Haden said he will be mindful of Adams when the Pittsburgh Steelers play Sunday at Green Bay, stopping the 2020 first-team All-Pro wide receiver won’t be his full-time responsibility. Coach Mike Tomlin made that known to the team earlier in the week.

“He’s not just a, ‘Hey, Joe, go over there and good luck,’ ” Haden said. “Coach T said that in a meeting. Everybody has to know where he’s at. Playing with Aaron Rodgers this long, they have great chemistry together.”

Rodgers and Adams have emerged as one of the NFL’s top quarterback-receiver tandems in recent years.

Adams caught a career-high 115 passes last year while totaling 1,374 yards and those 18 scores. Two years earlier, he caught 111 passes for 1,388 yards.

After catching just 11 passes in the Packers’ first two games, Adams hit his stride against the 49ers.

He’ll get plenty of attention from the Steelers.

“He’s all 11’s guy,” Haden said. “He’s T.J.’s guy. Hhe’s D-Bush’s guy. He’s everybody’s guy. We have to make sure we know where he’s at. I’m not following him.”

So it is that Haden will cover Adams only when the four-time Pro Bowl threat lines up across from him at the left cornerback spot. Right corner Cam Sutton will be asked to cover Adams on some plays, and it could be James Pierre’s job in certain subpackages when Sutton moves inside.

“We try to do a couple things with different people,” defensive coordinator Keith Butler said. “If we know that they’re getting a guy the ball at a certain time, then maybe we’ll try to double him or something like that. But (Rodgers) spreads the ball around a little bit.”

Adams, by far, is Rodgers’ favorite target. The only other Packers player with double figures in receptions is running back Aaron Jones with 10.

Butler said the Steelers will provide help in the secondary so Adams doesn’t repeat his performance against the 49ers when he was targeted 18 times and nearly doubled his catch total from the previous two weeks.

“Sometimes we use safeties to double. sometimes we use inside linebackers to double,” Butler said. “There are a lot of thing we do or try to do, but we don’t want to tell them what we’re doing so I’m not going to be real elaborate about how we try to stop people because I want them to find out on Sunday.”


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