Steelers and Sam Darnold

I highly doubt Rooney was telling Tomlin how to run the team. I wouldn't be surprised if Tomlin was telling Khan how to build the team with Rooney backing him up, but that isn't the same thing.

 

And yet another poster pointed out that players say stuff like that all the time after signing, mostly because they don't want to admit they took the best financial offer.

You claimed that I made something up. I did not. If you don't want to own and apologize for false statements about other posters, that speaks volumes.

 

I would expect the owner to set objectives and the employees drive to those objectives in a well run organization. The owner doesn't dictate moves.

In this case, and this is just an opinion, Rooney's objective is non-losing seasons, and hope for one playoff game. The employees' moves over the last 10 years and the fact that Rooney kept extending the contracts of current employees (and paying them more each time) indicates the objectives were met and Rooney was happy with the performance of the employees.

 

That is built on a great deal of speculation and no facts beyond the results. Rooney's willingness to keep Tomlin could just as easily have been a mixture of loyalty, family tradition, and the argument that it is hard to fire a coach with a Super Bowl victory on his resume as long as his teams are making the playoffs, or at least staying in contention until the final game of the season every year.

 

The hell they don't. Where do you think I'm getting the stats from, the ether??

 

Obviously Darnold number one concern wasn't chasing after the most money it was more about fit, the point is moot because the Steelers weren't going to offer him a $100 million contract .

 

And the stats I checked said he had 6 fumbles lost .

 

Who cares what another poster said the link had comments from Darnold himself .

 

I suggest you go look again. Some sites show them in different stages like: fumbles from only when breaking the line of scrimmage as in a run, and then the others when he is in the pocket, or behind the line of scrimmage, so they are shown in two different spots, while other sites put them all together like pro football reference, and you dont have to search all over the freaking site to find it. He fumbled 11 times. I never said they didnt jump on some of them. Even if his team jumped on all of them, He still fumbled 11 times.

 

Who cares if it was recovered by his own team then it wasn't a turnover .

 

My guess is that Rooney doesn't get too involved with the minor details.

But I do think he sets the mission of the team (something like "Get into the playoffs as often as possible because you never know when you catch lightning in a bottle"). I think part of that mission is "we don't believe in rebuilding". I think the MM hire (and Rooney saying he doesn't want a rebuild) support that idea.

I also think that every year, he sets a short term priority (e.g., last year he said we needed to get better at run defense). These comments are usually pretty (1) general and (2) obvious (e.g., saying we need to get better at defending the run after giving up 200 yards on the ground against the Rats in the playoffs or whatever).

I don't think he meddles much in individual personnel decisions though (e.g., you have to draft Harmon in the first round). Although I wonder how much of a hand he had in Todd Haley getting hired.

 

So again. If our RB fumbles 11 times next year ,but we jump on 5 of them. It's OK then. LoL No worries, just lets keep him in there. You can dang we bet if his team around him wasn't so good it would have cost him many times.

 

Well that makes no sense whatsoever

It’s a loss of down

It’s a loss of yards

Are you really this insensible

 

results === facts === the only way to measure what is considered acceptable by Rooney.

It is illogical to say the factual results were not acceptable by Rooney when he kept giving raises to his employees.

That right there is a great argument for Rooney being satisfied with the output of his employees which, factually, meant "as long as his teams are making the playoffs, or at least staying in contention until the final game of the season every year" all is good -- to me that's half assing it.

 

No, that isn't obvious and you don't know what his primary concern was last offseason. Neither do I, but I'm fairly certain the Steelers could have paid him enough to get it done and they had the cap room.

 

No, that is not the only way to read that. This isn't some normal corporate situation. This is one of 32 of these jobs in the world. It's damn difficult to find guys who can win as consistently as Tomlin did, including a Super Bowl. The Rooneys have all understood that.

 

It’s the biggest ‘what have you done for me lately job’ - it resets every September and it’s a cut throat corporate situation if winning SBs is the objective.

My kids were born after the last SB win… I want to watch a SB win with my kids, not tell them about some glory days of the past.

 

My daughter was five for the last one. She was sitting with me as I watched the end of Super Bowl XL, but she was two, so she doesn't remember it. None of that is relevant here.

The Steelers thought their best option was to stick with the consistent winner who had taken the team to two Super Bowls and won one of them. They didn't make change for change's sake, in part because they value loyalty. That does not mean they feel like the last 15 years have been acceptable.

 

Totally agree, they preferred to give the big money to TJ and went after Rodgers for a cheaper one year deal. They probably didn't even think seriously about getting Sam

 

That is probably true, which proves wrong those posters who claimed that Watt's contract didn't hurt the team and doesn't hurt the team going forward. Of course, massively overpaying a player in steep decline hurts the team, but sometimes we need instances such as this to make it clear. The Steelers probably would have been a little better in 2025 with Darnold. They would definitely be in much better shape heading into 2026.

 

Who counted more on the 2025 salary cap, Darnold or Rodgers?

Looking at 2026 and 2027, Steelers have more than enough cap space to fit listed Darnold cap # under the projected cap in those years.

Darnold is not a Steeler because of cap concerns. Stop spinning a tale that math does not support.

 

Yup, the Qb still cant read defenses and the RB still cant hold onto the ball, those are concerns for any coach.

 

Ha! Cats are out here arguing with math now.

There is zero version of reality where Sam Darnold was going to sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers. They could've given him a dump truck full of unmarked bills and he still wouldn't have done it. He knew he was one step from being out of the league at worst and holding a clipboard until he retired at best.

If that is the situation you find yourself in, are you going to:

A. A place that runs the same system as the only one you have experienced NFL success playing in and is coached by the only OC that has told you he believes you can succeed in the NFL.
B. A place with a suspect OL, only one sorta good WR, and a coach who hasn't had a good QB season in 6 years.

I mean is that really a choice?