For as explosive as the Steelers' offense will be in 2017 -- and we could be looking at a group that averages 30 points a game -- the team is only going as far as their defense takes them. On the surface that sounds silly because Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell are three of the league's best players, but if we learned anything from Januaray's AFC Championship loss, it's that until the Steelers figure out how to stop Tom Brady and the Patriots, there will be no seventh Lombardi Trophy anytime soon.

The biggest issue was the inability to pressure Brady, who faced predominately zone schemes from the Steelers. Consequently, Brady was able to stand comfortably in the pocket and methodically pick apart a secondary helpless to do anything about it. This fact wasn't lost on coach Mike Tomlin when he spoke to reporters at the owners meetings in March.

"Our inability to play man-to-man effectively and our inability to apply pressure on the quarterback without blitzing were issues in that game," Tomlin said of the Patriots playoff loss.

So what was Tomlin looking for in a defensive back who is successful playing man to man?

"Staying close to people, it's that simple," he said.

A month later, the Steelers took former University of Tennessee cornerback Cam Sutton in the third round, and he arrives in Pittsburgh with a history of playing man-to-man defense. So too does the team's 2016 first-round pick Artie Burns, who played well as a rookie, though mostly in zone-based schemes.

"Every team that's won Super Bowls the last couple of years has been able to play man," Burns said this week from OTAs, via ESPN.com's Jeremy Fowler. "We want to be a team to play man, get the pressure on the quarterback and attack coverage downfield."

"It's always some opening in a zone defense," Burns continued. "It's someone who missed a drop, or it's always some group in a zone defense. To be able to play man, to get a guy right in someone's chest with the pressure, it affects the quarterback a little bit."

Pressure will hopefully come from outside linebacker Bud Dupree, the Steelers' 2015 first-rounder, and his 2017 first-round counterpart, T.J. Watt, in addition to defensive ends Cam Heyward and Stephon Tuitt. If Pittsburgh can consistently get after the quarterback with four rushers that will go a long way in easing the burden on an athletic-but-inexperienced secondary that includes 2016 second-rounder Sean Davis, who was quietly one of the defense's best players a season ago.