Looks like Haley has no plans on leaving

8-8 next season here we come

http://pittsburgh.sbnation.com/pittsburgh-steelers/2012/12/28/3811252/todd-haley-steelers-cardinals

Really it isn't anything I am thinking about," Haley said about being a candidate for other head coaching jobs. "I've said a bunch of times and even when I came in and sat down with Mike (Tomlin) earlier on, this is where I want to be."

 

I don't have a problem with Haley coming back. While the offense clearly underperformed this season, I didn't expect them to be perfect in his first year.

 

LOL at the people who want to change corrdinators every year. Yep. I'd like to see where these people work at. Must be McDonalds.

Haleys offense looked really good up until Ben got crunched. After that it was wing it and sling it all over again.

Ben needs to learn how to quick read a defense at the snap of the ball and that is why he had trouble with the plays. Give it another year and see how it works out. I believe it will work just fine.

 

anyway ben had to change type of offense , in the arians one he would have been sacked and killed , every year always more

 

Haleys offense uses a lot of running and play action. The key to this offense is the oline and ours got destroyed this year. After this year we know a lot about three rookies whole all have shown a lot of potential in one way or another. Imo the line will be Gilbert Colon Pouncey Decastro and Adams. That line could be very good for a long time. We need a real deal running back and I would have no problem with using the first on a top flight runner. I know we have other problems but with Lebeau system the defense will at least be decent. I just think we get a dangerous runner this offense will be potent. I'm really excited about Paulson and think we could go with a lot of 2 TE sets given heath is back. This was a bad year but the Steelers have those every once and awhile and normally get a great first pick and rebound well. This is forever going to be a what if they were healthy year in my mind.

 

really? It doesn't get much worse than a 3.8 ypc average for an offense that's supposed to based on the running game/play action pass. Oh yeah injuries
Never mind that our small speedy receivers aren't built for that type of offense. Square peg meet round hole

 

I guarantee if Haley is offered a HC job he's gone.

 

Lets see. 1st year OC working behind yet another inconsistent O-line after ST's blunders that pin them deep in their own end on a regular basis. Yea, He certainly is a square peg trying to dink and dunk his way to success with a receiver who gets bored and loses focus at any given time. Lets not forget nor blame the QB read and release time is that of a turtle sprint. I expected miracles and anything less is complete failure. Quit being dillussional.

Haley will be here longer than most think.

 

He won't be offered any, you have this coaching staff confused with Cowher's in the 90's when a bunch of his coordinators went on to be head coaches.

 

Don't get me wrong I would be surprised if he gets much attention after this year and the debacle in KC. However, if there is an offer he will take it. It makes zero fiscal sense to do otherwise.

 

Have you ever thought to yourself that some people aren't necessarily driven by greed? He's living where he grew up and surrounded by many family and friends. He may not have an offer but even if he did I doubt he would consider it. He and his family are not starving to death I can promise you that.

 

Yep. And most of them were failures.

 

Sorry, but anyone that was expecting a new OC to be stellar during the first year was kidding themselves. As a fan, I was *hoping* for that, but I went into this season fully expecting it to be a learning situation for the offense. The injuries didn't help at all either.

The best thing to do is to learn from the mistakes and move forward. Getting a new OC every time you don't have a stellar year is over-reacting.

 

Prior to his injury, Ben was completeing passes to 10+ different players a game. I remember one game he completed passes to 11 different players by halftime. Out of the first 9 games this season he had a 36 completetion game, a game with 27 and just 9 against KC. All other 6 games he completed between 21 and 24 passes. He averaged 23.3 completions a game, yet he was routinely completing passes to 8+ different players. I know he completed passes to 12 different players one game and like I already mention, another game when he completed to 11 players by halftime. That's great ball distribution considering he was only completing less than 24 passes a game. All the receivers and all the tight ends were involved in the dink and dunk passing game. Ben would dump the ball off to whichever running back was in the game instead of taking sacks or forcing horrible passes that were picked. (The exact opposite of what he has done in all 3 games since his return). His efficiency through 9 games was beyond amazing. Desipte just completing, on average, just over 23 passes a game - about two would be for TDS. (17 TDS through 9 games). He had 4 INTs through the first 9 games. In comparison, he has had 4 in his 3 games since returning.

People are bashing Haley/the dink and dunk for games that were played the way Arians used to call game. That includes - rarely using a full back, 5 wide on 3rd and short, letting HEATH!!!! disappear for 2+ quarters, no play action and Ben taking sacks instead of dumping off the ball. We didn't do this through the 1st 9 games and Ben was having an potential MVP caliber year and we were 6-3 as a team despite some poor performances from the defense.

The question isn't "why haven't we fired Haley yet?". The question is, "why did the offense get away from what worked the first half of the season?". Injuries to the oline can explain why the run game (and therefore playaction) struggled. It can also explain some of the sacks.... The fumbles can also explain a lot... But neither of those explain why we stopped using a full back and pulled running backs after a few good runs. So we can add puzzling coaching decisions to the list.... A number of poor decisions by Ben should be mentioned (and not just the late INTs) ..... And starting what seemed like 98% of drives at or inside the 20 couldn't of been good.

 

Whoopie! How many of those 6 wins could be considered quality opponents? Two? Redskins and Bengals? Praying that ben can bail us out on 3rd down repeatedly is no way to win for an extended period time. Funny how no one mentions doing nothing with decent starting field position season.

 

i wouldnt say Haley uses a lot of running plays. they have less carries than they did under BA and most people around here complained that he never called run plays.

 

I'd rather beat teams than lose to them... Chargers... Cowboys....BENGALS.... And if you remember, as I mentioned in my post, the defense was not exactly shutting down teams the first half of the season. The Steelers offense had a lot of improvements to make after the first half of the season. But it's hard to improve our success on 3rd down when we led the league in 3rd down conversions. It's hard to imrpove a qb who is throwing 4 INTs every 9 games.... It's hard to tell your qb to throw more than 2 TDs a game when he's only throwing 23 completions total...... The first 9 games were a work in progress for the offense. The last 3 were disasterous, pathetic, scary, painful, laughable and so forth.

The last paragraph of my last post gave some explainations for the free fall. It just doesn't make sense to blame dink-and-dunk offense for our struggles when what we fielded the past 3 games didn't have the slightest resemblence to dink-and-dunk.

 

hmmm

It seems to me there were a couple of occasions in the last few weeks where we started on the plus side of the 50 and went haley ball to nowhere. Dwyer, Dwyer, 1 yard pass or Dwyer, Dwyer, Sack seems to ring a bell.

but, but, but injuries.. the oline..., its his 1st year, but, but, but...
We are 7-8 and worse off in almost every single offensive category(including top and 3rd down conversion)

 

Since when is running 67% of the time dink-and-dunk? And running without a full back was one of my complaints over the last 3 games. And sacks don't happen if the qb dumps the ball off. (completions to 12 different players in a single game "ring a bell", as you put it.)

And you are the only one using games started with Batch and Lefty as proof the offense declined from last year. I'd hope 3 games of no offense wouldn't be good enough to still have a better offense than last year. If you want to judge what kind of TOP and 3rd down conversion percentage the dink-and-dunk offense produced, then look to the games we actully ran it.... the first 9 games..... Don't look at games with an injured Leftwhich, no practice time Batch or the games we stopped doing what worked at the begining of the season.

 

The two scenarios I suggest in my previous post were with Ben at the helm and largely what we saw all year(run, run, hope ben can bail us out). I'm not picking out single games with Batch or Lefty playign qb. I'm looking at the entire season and comparing it to 2011 and 2010. In those years our line was decimated and we lost ben or started without him for extended periods of time. What was supposedly working in the beginning of the season was against garbage teams and consisted largely of Ben converting on 3rd down. As soon as those numbers came down to normal our glorious little offense came crashing down.

 

Right on.
Very knowledgable post. Must've learned it from that old PGHSportstalk forum.

 

Currently there are 5 former Cowher assistants who are head coaches in the NFL, not counting Arians-
John Fox, Marvin Lewis, Mike Mularkey, Ken Whisenhunt, and Chan Gailey. The first 2 are going to the playoffs, the last 3 - all former Steelers OC I might add- are all likely to be fired.

 

Cowher's tree also included Jim Haslet and Dick Lebeau.


Coaching trees are rarely successful, if for no other reason than most coaches aren't successful. Only one wins the Superbowl each year, and between Bilicheat and Tomlin, they've taken 7 of the last 12 Lamar Hunt trophies. Speaking of Bilicheat, would seem that he has outlasted all of the branches in his tree. Yes Romeo Crenel is still coaching, but I don't expect him to win anything or last much longer. Bill Walsh, now there was a talent factory.

 

I was talking about this quote of yours.

"We are 7-8 and worse off in almost every single offensive category(including top and 3rd down conversion)"

You can't use the part I bolded, and the explaination you gave after, to prove the above statement of yours in an effort to discredit the dink-and-dunk offense. That is because we didn't use a real dink-and-dunk offense after Ben got hurt and we still haven't returned to it. If you look at the TOP and 3rd down conversion percentage after the first 9 weeks, we were at or near the top of the league in both. That's called success. If you take into account all the games after (which means yes, you did include the games with Left and Batch), then of course the numbers will look closer to 2010 and 2011. But as a just explained, that doesn't actually compare the dink-and-dunk to Arians offense of the past.

The reason Ben was able to complete so many 3rd downs the 1st 9 games was because he'd be facing 3rd and 3, as opposed to the past 3 games were he was lucky to have anything shorter than a 3rd and 8. Taking what the defense gives you (which is the main benefit of dink-and-dunk) is how you get to 3rd and 3.

Every defense and defensive play call has a weakness. As we all know, that's true for the #1 D in the entire league. It doesn't matter if it's a "garbage team" or the Steelers D. Tom Brady has used offensive game plans complete devoid of the run game to pick great defenses to pieces using dink-and-dunk. Teams use it against our D all the time, and they still manage some success. You can't just brush aside Ben having a near MVP season and Miller having a career year through the first 9 games as "garbage teams". No defense can defend an offense that completes passes to 11 different players in one half.


Don't get me wrong, I hate the two runs in a row (with no full back) and pass attempt on 3rd and 9 as much as anyone. That's part of the reason why I felt the Steelers needed to fire, or "retire", Arians after last year. As I pointed out in my first comment, the problems faced by the offense the past few years reared its ugly head the past few games. Those problems aren't because of the dink-and-dunk offense, they are largely because we got away from it.

 

I blame a lot of poor offense on a bad o-line and injuries most of the time there were no holes for the runningbacks to hit. I have no problem with Haley returning next season Big Ben was off to his best start statisically before he got hurt.