I was being overly reductive - and a bit hot-takey. The problem with Tomlin isn't that they don't play man - it's that they've basically been using the same defensive plays for a decade (and this goes way beyond using the same scheme), and he does absolutely nothing to vary them. (and they do play a little man, and a little press). They're like the Colts offense from a decade ago - where you could tell what play they were going to run when they lined up - you just couldn't stop it (except now they don't have the talent to pull that off).
There's just no reasonable argument that the Steelers are doing the same level of game prep the Patriots are. They do basically the same thing on both sides of the ball every week, no matter who they're playing.
I have come to believe that the difference between the Patriots and everybody else is not so much smarts or work ethic but discipline. They are committed to game planning at every level of the organization - scouting, player acquisition, cap allocation, training coaches, and coaching players.
The Steelers aren't stupid. Mike Tomlin and Keith Butler aren't stupid. They know Tom Brady carves up zone defenses. But they were playing two raw athlete rookies in the secondary (Artie Burns and Sean Davis) and a short-armed corner who can't press (Ross Cockrell). It's hard to game plan when you're relying on guys like that.
The Patriots commit to an ability to game-plan. They go for versatile players who can do many things over one-trick ponies who do one thing exceptionally well, they go for smart players who can pick up scheme, they go for tough players who can take tough coaching (a lot of teams give veterans Wednesdays off). Other teams may want to do what New England does, but then they really like this fast guy who can't pick up the playbook, or this big strong guy who doesn't study in the film room, and then they limit their options.
The Seahawks are fascinating because they have a similar organizational discipline but take a diametrically opposite approach - they say "we do what we do" so they can just grab crazy athletes and win on execution rather than game plan.