Kenny Pickett Thoughts

I guess Daniels and Seamalu are playing in a worse system than their previous ones then?

 

This argument will put some into two philosophical points of view. Is the performance of a player strictly on the player or those that are supposed to develop them so they can perform? Players are combined, tested, analyzed, timed, etc to death. Supposedly the organization knows what they are paying millions for, supposedly. So, if a player isn't performing, is it him or the coaching to put them in situation to succeed? I see a lot of coaching changes when team do poorly and not so many players leaving at the same time. Are they both to blame? No right answer just a thought. JMO>

 

For sure TL can take it. he is a much bigger dude then KFP. He had four Steelers draped on him and it seemed like he could take another lol

 

Slowly we will become the Pirates with this mentality. its not 1969 you cant just win by only drafting and not signing top free agents and hiring top assistants. You get what you paid for. The Minkah move was amazing and stunned me that they did it. They need to be bold like that in building a quality staff. Cowher brought in great assistants when he came here, he was smart and knew he didn't know everything and went out and got great assistants. Tomlin has hired garbage.

 

Well we have watched teams like the browns and lions wallow in mediocrity for decades. Every 2-4 years they fire their coaches and gm’s and start fresh. How is that working out for tolbose franchises?

 

Flores was a safe hire for Tomlin as Flores was of no threat to Tomlin coming here under the circumstances in which he came here. They were friends before he came here. It was known this was a brief stopping point for Flores and that he was going to act in more of a consultant coach role. He was not given any position of real authority and it would have been crazy for Flores to undermine or show up Tomlin when Tomlin was gracious enough to offer him that position to get back on his feet so to speak.

I don’t think anyone will dispute Tomlin is an intelligent guy. I don’t think anyone will dispute Tomlin is pretty good at player talent evaluation and in particular character evaluation and reading people in general. It is evident by the way he communicates about others he is pretty good in evaluating people and communicating with others. I do believe Tomlin has two flaws however that effect his ability to hire Coordinators and it is not based on his football acumen or intelligence.

1. Tomlin hates interpersonal conflict. You see it by the way he addresses players issues when players act up or kind of go rogue. I feel like he gives them way too long of a rope to hang themselves before addressing the issue with them directly. the pattern seemed to repeat itself many times with players such as AB, Ben, JuJu even disgruntled players who were upset and basically quit on the team and forced their way out such as Harrison, the Edge player from KC and the RB from NE. I feel like their was a little bit of that element with Todd Haley when he was here as well. Those things grew and bloomed into more than they needed too under Tomlin because he was resistant to deal with the conflict. I can see the same thing happening all over again with Pickens. My point in saying all of this is Tomlin wants Coordinators that are not going to ruffle team cohesiveness and unity and to certain degree challenge his authority. I believe he values this over the football acumen because he feels if their is a void with football acumen he is smart enough himself to fill that void.

2. Tomlin desires power and control. This became evident to me when he slowly edged out Lebeau and started to implement more of his defensive philopshies. I understand their was some merit at the time because Lebeau’s defense did not match up well against Brady and the Patriots and that was the hump we had to get over. But I just feel now as a result of the control he has gained and his desire to avoid conflict he has been resistant to bring in tenured assistants who may rock the boat or whom he knows he would have to give up some control too in order for it to work.

Tomlin has built up enough of a tenure and respect within this league that I’m pretty sure he would be a hot commidity if he left the Steelers. With that being said he has job security whether it is here or elsewhere. I don’t think the Rooneys are holding back on Coordinator pay. I don’t think the Rooneys are dictating to Tomlin to fire or keep Canada. That has never been how they operate. Now after this year they may but in the midst of it all they have always remained pretty steady. I think the Rooneys are pretty fair and they put alot of trust in Tomlin and give him alot of freedom and power to make choices. The other element to all of this is the human element. I think both the Rooneys and Tomlin place a high value on that so hiring from within or promoting from within is a big thing for them. By all accounts both Canada and Austin sound like great people. But unfortunately it just isn’t working out.

I think that Rooney needs to step in and save Tomlin from himself and they need to reset what Tomlin role is within the organization. what i mean is allow him to get back to the big picture which is where he is his best and remove him from the minutia of the day to day where I don’t think that is a strength of his and get some bonafide coordinators in here. Perhaps thats another reason why they have struggled to get coordinators in here because they know that Tomlin micromanages and will limit their ability to coach or growth within the organization. I’m not sure thats the case on the offensive side but I definitely feel like it is the case on the defensive side. For whatever reason the team has been stagnant for quite a while and we have had the same problems year over year over year. We have thrown draft choices and free agents at those problems and we have not rectified them.

Out of frustration I say trade Tomlin but I don’t really mean it. My ultimate desire would be for Tomlin to give up a little of the day to day control from an X’s and O’s perspective and bring in some bonafide Coordinators. Cleveland did it with Jim Schwartz. If they can do it we certainly can.

 

Being that we don’t know what the coordinators get paid or “the budget” maybe it’s best to stick to things that are known

 

Seems the Eagles are fine with getting rid of SB winning staff to get right back into contention for a SB. Besides, I am not talking about every 2-4 years, they deserve to suck. It's the 17+ years that is ridiculous. How many more is enough? JMO>

 

I believe I said this almost 3 years ago. It doesn't take a genius to see it was coming. All You had to do was look at the Qbs in College. I said that the media was trying to sell these running/ so called double threat Qbs....because they seen what was coming, and they couldn't say....yeah....there is a bunch of bad Qbs coming. You know what most did, and will do now that I bring it up again??? Laugh. Even though it's rearing it's ugly head.

 

Really. Did they win a SB with the new staff I missed???

 

It has been reported many times in the media that not only do the Steelers have less assistants than most teams but they are some of the lowest paid.

Also, this board has a lot of threads based on a lot of assumptions with absolutely no proof, now we can only talk about things that are known? Might as well delete 90% of the threads here.

 

Pickett has been tasked with two things. Keep the game close and do not under any circumstances turn the ball over. Then in the midst of not having a running game, a terrible scheme, terrible oline play, giving up the highest pressure rate to four lineman fronts while passing into more coverage as a result and the hot route concept being totally inept with in the system or the plays taking way to long to develop. Isn’t funny the games looked sort of similar under Ben as well where we struggled for three quarters then went to the hurry up no huddle to essentially take the OC and scheme out of the equation late in games which is the only time we had success. Yes Ben was washed but his football acumen wasn’t. His ability to read defenses wasn’t and his ability to hit the open receiver wasn’t. Funny how he could still do all of that in the fourth quarter but he couldn’t fit the previous three quarters just Pickett. The thing Ben couldn’t do was escape the pocket and extend plays and throw the long ball with accuracy like he used too but yet he syltill had success running the hurry up spread offense when Canada was no longer involved just like KP. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

 

I don’t buy that. Why would we skimp on coordinator pay and not player pay? We used to be able to get great coordinators under Cowher and early on under Tomlin. This is all about Tomlins ego, power, control and avoiding conflict with coordinators who may be inclined to challenge him. You kind of see the same thing going on in New England as well.

 

I am of the opinion that most of these players are near elite athletes. These guys were the top stars in high school then went in to be the best of the best in college. Once they reach the Pros I believe it is more about coaching, scheme, their individual desire and work ethic and their mental aptitude and emotional stability to handle the stress of all of it more than it is the physical part.

Some schemes can be excellent on paper but so darn hard to execute from a mental and aptitude perspective that they just don’t become practical schemes. Sometimes the simpler the better. I think we tried to do something similar to what Shanahan is doing but we don’t have the adequate knowledge of it and we are ill equipped to teach it effectively. Not to mention there seems to be no cohesion between the OC scheme and the blocking scheme.

I always felt Tomlins strong point was connecting with the players emotionally and positioning them to play outside if their head to the best of their physical ability. But his weakness was X’s andO’s. I feel like he is now to involved in the X’s and O’s Side. Tomlin to me is like a father and psychologist first and foremost and I think he has such a strong belief in himself in that area that he can will these players to play outside if their heads in spite of how difficult the scheme is to execute. So when Tomlin stand up there and says we need to execute better I believe he genuinely believes that and it is all mental. I think Gomlin takes it as a personal affront that he can’t get these guys over the bump mentally in spite of the system.

 

The difference in Staff....
All teams have different configurations.

I think a good model looks like:
Model Steelers
Head Coach Check
Assistant HC None
Offense C Check (Used loosely)
8 staff Check
Defense C Check
8 staff 6
ST's C Check
Assistant ST's None

On a pay scale, that's a little harder to figure.
Given we are 4 down from the model, then yes, we are lower paying.
But from what I can gather, as far as paid/per we seem to be ok.

I feel like our coaching should be upgraded.
I think a large step forward would be to remove Matt Canada and his staff. This is offseason work of course.
Beyond that, I don't know. This is a hard time to be constructive as emotions are in the mix and generally, everyone wants owner on down fired.

 

I'm not saying they do....but You should know the answer to this. They can't skimp on the players pay. They are ....by rule forced to pay a certain amount of the cap. There is no rule on coaches, and the like.

 

Agree with the bit in bold, that would almost certainly make a big difference.

Re Tomlin I’m not sure he is as insecure as some think, he has had high profile coordinators in the past and even position coaches like Munchak, good coaches and assistants make the HC look good and Tomlin will know this.

I read recently that it was Rooney that hired Canada, not sure if that is confirmed or not but if that is the case then MT doesn’t have full control of the hiring and firing (not that they ever fire anyone) but he seems to be getting all the blame.

 

True but for many years the Steelers paid right up to the cap and even pushed money out spending far more cash in given years than they needed to. A lot of other teams don’t do this.

It does balance out over time of course.

 

We know He doesn't have full control of the Hiring, and firing....Arians, and Haley are prime examples of this. Unless it has changed since then.

 

Yet he gets all the blame for mediocre coaching.

I can kind of get the argument that he like to have a certain amount of control of the defensive game plan but there is no reason whatever for MT to want a poor offensive coordinator and play caller. It hurts him badly and kills the defence by putting them back on the field over and over. The theory has no substance at all as far as I am concerned.

 

The Indians don't seem to be benefiting from the chiefs. Look it's a combination of poor QB play and coaching. Our coaching staff is unable to affect play on the field. Our offense is horrible and except for some splash plays on defense they ain't that good either. Why? Is it all players. I think the team is fundamentally broken this year. There is no offensive plan. None that I can discern anyway. KP is not the answer. Which means we're screwed for a few more years. I feel bad for TJ. He will never see a superbowl ring while playing for the steelers

 

Depends on what pick, no?

 

They are playing good football. Us? Well not so much

 

Coordinator salaries have not been reported many times. They haven’t been reported a single time as they’re not public knowledge. Y’all like to run with this narrative the Steelers are cheap because they don’t have the biggest staff, but ignore the fact they could be paying their coordinators more than those with larger staffs. So once agai. Stick with the known

 

Pickett has only thrown for 2 TDs in one game thus far in his career. I have to laugh when some spin it as a multi-TD performance. Two TDs does not equate to multiple, it's a pair. Three or more TDs then we can start calling it a multi-TD performance.