The biggest mistake the Steelers have made in the past 10 years...

In my opinion, the biggest mistake that the Steelers have made in the last 10 years was not re-signing Plaxico Burress after the 2004 season. Why? Because this marked the point in which they began a series of misguided ventures at the WR position (Cedric Wilson, Lee Mays, Limas Sweed, Holmes, not resigning Washington, and now the Wallace, Sanders, Brown debacle)

They seemed to lose the idea of having receivers that can do more than just run fast. Remember when Tommy Maddox, in the not-so-pass happy league, passed like a champion and we had two 1300 yard receivers (Ward and Burress)?

And now, before this season began a lot of us thought that our "young-money" receivers were the best grouping we have had since the 70s.

Well, false.

The Steelers should have held on to Burress, and we would have had a very special offense with Ward/Burress/Randel El (I know he left for more money after XL), Heath, and oh yea a guy named Willie Parker.

Drafting Mendenhal was also a mistake, but not as huge as letting Burress go. They should have stuck with Parker and gotten a guy like Redman to compliment his speed. We have not had a competent running game, or at least the knowing that we could score a touchdown anytime we called a running play, since Willie Parker.

I highly doubt that we will see another long tenured WR like Hines Ward in the Tomlin/Colbert era, because quite frankly, they don't seem to understand how the position works.

 

I don't know how you can call that the biggest mistake in 10 years, because since they let Burress go, they've been to 3 Super Bowls and won 2 of them. They've obviously did just fine without him.

I think their biggest mistake is overpaying marginal talent out of loyalty to their own guys.

 

Since the team won two Superbowls without him, I have to disagree. Our biggest mistake was letting Santonio Holmes walk. We had the ball with a chance to win a third Superbowl, but we didn't have a receiver confident and talented enough for the offense to drive down the field and make the winning score like we did in 2008

 

And yet, we made it to 3 SB, winning two of them...our franchise is scarred

 

By no means was Mendenahall a mistake. He's our best back by a large margin and losing him is going to be painful.

 

Quite.

I think, ThrowToHeath, there is a bit of danger of a mixture of hindsight and nostalgia, here. For one thing, Willie Parker was not the same after his injury in St Louis. He lost his speed, and didn't have much else (his running between the tackles was subpar at best).

And while the likes of Cedric Wilson and Lee Mays were never going to light the league up, Sweed had a lot of potential, and was the "big receiver" that Ben seems to perenially pine for. Holmes did set the league on fire, and was huge in our last superbowl win. Both of them left for reasons entirely out of Colbert/Tomlin;s control (in fact, while we might remember Sweed's drops, there was clearly something up with the guy off-field).

 

last time i remeber holmes was the man that gave us the last superbowl win

 

freak, that's blasphemous, we all know it was Ben. not Holmes not Harrison.


I have to agree with bobbybiz on the over paying for marginal talent woodley taylor colon soon to be pouncey come to mind


remember when it was players who want big money don't stay in pittsburgh
hell now we are over the cap constantly

 

I think a lot of those guys were kept around because we had been to 3 Super Bowls and they wanted a few more. They were trying to make a run at it. They are slowly ridding ourselves of those high contracts. We will lose a few this year and few more in 2014. By then this team will be vastly different than what we saw in 2012.

 

If Plax had stayed, woud he have been arrested after shooting himself in downtown Pittsburgh, or are the conceal/carry laws more lenient in PA?

 

You are off on this. Wilson was huge for us in the playoffs he had a bunch of clutch grabs. Holmes wasnt a good wr h won the super bowl tor us. Washington is still in the league and producing. Burress wanted big money so if we signed him who knows who we lose Harrison, troy, ike and so on.

 

It was either Hines Ward or Burress, I am glad who the Steelers kept.
Same as Joey Porter/ Aaron Smith somebody had to go and it was Peazy
You can't keep em all.

 

Where did you get Burress wanted big money, he signed a 6 year contract with the Giants for 25 million dollars in 05, that was hardly big money for a six year deal, even in 05....

March 17,2005
Just one week after abruptly breaking off contract negotiations with Plaxico Burress, the New York Giants on Thursday evening signed the free agent wide receiver to a six-year, $25 million contract, ESPN.com has learned.

 

Some of the biggest mistakes of the past ten years...Cutting Keith Urbik...taking Mendenhall in the first round instead of Chris Johnson...How about the ENTIRE 2008 draft?... Replacing the sod prior to a Monday Night game against Miami in 2007...Playing Ben against San Fran when he had a broken foot...Tomlin promoting Bruce Arians to OC...Not trading or releasing Harrison after the Mens Journal article was published...

 

And we got good production from from the guys mentioned for what he made in year combined. If we kept Burress I doubtbrownSanders or Wallace would be Steelers. Sorry but letting him go was the right choice. How can you even argue that when the Steelers have gone to three sb and won two withouthim.

 

I know it's been said already, but you really need this to sink in...... we won 2 superbowls and went to a 3rd without him.... the 1st of those right after he left... we have always reloaded at wr.... burress to holmes..... holmes to wallce..... wallace to ?...(sanders maybe?).... If you want to talk actual mistakes, we could always focus on the team ignoring the development of the o-line until very recently, or maybe, with the exception of one or two seasons, ignoring the development of our special teams.... maybe even not developing any young back-up qb's etc...... we've made far too many mistakes in the last decade...no need to manufacture false ones at a position we've always been quite capable at.

 

Won SB XL and XLIII and lost another one XLV? lost sight of what?

 

We went to two super bowls with arains as the oc and imo our offense never looked as out of sink as it did last year under arain.

 

2008 draft was ugly in retrospect ... Fantasy do-over would look (sort of) like that for me
Round 1: Jordy Nelson, Mike Jenkins or Tracy Porter would all have been nice
Round 2: Ray Rice instead of he-who-shall-not-be-named
Round 3: Cliff Avril, Thomas DeCoud, Mario Manningham instead of Bruce Davis (yeah ... who?)
Round 4: Brandon Carr instead of Tony Hills
Round 5: Carl Nicks instead of Dennis Dixon

Not at lot more interesting stuff behind that ... But holy crap was that a terrible draft looking back a few years later

 

It's not that Bruce was a "bad" OC...it's that Tomlin needed to assert himself. In the short-term, it worked well: the Steelers won SB XLIII (though would they have if Brady hadn't injured his knee and the Cardinals upset the entire NFC?) But I said it in 2007, when Tomlin was hired, that when he didn't clear out the coaching staff and put in HIS people and put his stamp on the team, it sent the wrong message. Keeping LeBeau might have been a no-brainer, but everyone else? Now, six years later, where are we? There is no leadership and the team is heading toward irrelevance. I wanted to stop short of saying hiring Tomlin was a big mistake, because I am hoping and praying it really wasn't. But I can't think of a recent hire anywhere in which the new HC just kept the staff from the previous head coach. Mark Trestman is coming into a similar situation in Chicago that Tomlin did in Pittsburgh. Think Trestman will just keep all of Lovie's people? He's already made some moves.

 

SMH...Really? Really? Really? Wow!

 

Drafting Mendy "was" a mistake and letting FWP go because of him was a bigger mistake and just because he is our best back doesn't mean any of them are any good... I'd say neither of them are starter material

 

FWP was hurt and lost a step and never did another thing. Parker wasn't let go because of mendy he was let go because he was done.

 

12 we go way back but I got to disagree here. We had one bad year it doesn't mean we are about to be irrelevant. How do we know the rooneys would even let tomlin clean house. The fact is with arains as the oc we won football games and super bowls. His success here and now in Indy shows tomlin made the right call in promoting him.