Mike Tomlin is stepping down from the Steelers

How many times did Cowher beat New England in the AFCCG? LeBeau and Cowher's defense gave up 34 points in 2004 and got a pick 6 for a TD sit this one out .

 

With thousands of former members, and billions of potential members, if you were only correct, I would suggest you entertain a future as a clairvoyant. But alas .....

 

Yeah Im sure.
Did we win 10 games last year??
Did we win 10 games the year before?
Did we win 10 games the year before that??
Did we make the playoffs 5 out of the last 6 years??
Yeah Im sure. Juat because you didn't win in the playoffs doesn't mean You didn't make it. Read slowly

 

I can make good argument that the current New York Giants are in a better situation for the next 3 years that the steelers if you look at the roster.The steelers defense have the oldest defense in the NFL despite average result in the last 5 years

 

You clearly see how your question here isn't related to the statement you quoted, right?

I will ask on this forum again (which I think hasn't yet been answered by anyone): How many playoff games do you think the Steelers had where Bell, Brown, and Ben started and finished? And what happened in those games?

How many playoff runs did we make where Bell was healthy and played in the playoffs at all? What were the results we saw?

I know I've said these things a million times (but most not here). Just like I'd imagine that you've argued your side of this argument a million times. Which is part of the reason I'm glad the Tomlin era is over. After this year, Steelers fans who think we should go to the SB every year can start hating MM. Just like they hated Tomlin. And Cowher before him. And probably Noll in the 80s if they were alive at the time (although pre-internet, I bet there was less of this).

I think that aside from Bell not being able to play in the playoffs, there are two main reasons we didn't have more success in this era.

1. The Shazier injury really ****ed up our defensive development. If he stays healthy, the D is just beginning to enter it's prime as the O is at the end of it's peak. We'd have Shazier being just outside of DPOY consideration (with local people saying he should be considered) at the same time that Watt was ascending into what should have been 2x DPOY awards (maybe even 3). The O would have been declining, but the D would have been very good. Instead, Shazier got hurt and we had to try to rebuild the D on the fly. That failed. And it also put off an offensive rebuild so our OL got too old. Tuitt walking away while he was still a very good player didn't help either. But Cam having among the most insane aging curves in the NFL post cap really helped. We've had some bad run D's in the last several years...imagine how much worse they would have been without Cam too.
2. It is extremely unlikely that I will ever see a QB better than Ben play for the Steelers in my lifetime. But if you look at his peers (other HoF caliber QBs from his era), the increase in turnovers Ben has from the regular season to the post season is really large. This got worse as he aged. There are multiple playoff games where he scored for the other team (pick-6 against GB, DTD for the fumble against JAX) that are the difference in the game. And while I put the CLE game at least as much on Pouncey, it was pretty easily Ben's worst game as a pro IMO. Though some will argue he has good stats...as long as you don't look at the turnovers. The Jax game is like this too. And it's harder to see the turnovers because fumbles are harder to find on the box score than INTs. And many will also forget the turnovers on downs (which aren't all on Ben).

In the end, it's hard to win a single elimination tournament in the NFL.

And it's is very unsurprising that we didn't win any of the playoff games we played post-Ben's injury.

 

2004 was the best patriots team among the teams who win 6 super bowl...The great Peyton Manning had scored only 3 points the game before

 

McCarthy is taking over a 10 win team that won the division last year, he even commented on how talented the roster is. Losing in the playoffs isn't taking over a losing team.

 

Dan Marino was old and washed when he was under Jimmy Johnson at the end.Jimmy Johnson still win 2 playoffs game despite that

 

They are a old team with a low ceilling team

 

Of course you can he realized Broderick sucks and he moved on, if he hits on Max it's all good.

 

You don't know ball if you think the Giants are in a better position than the Steelers. They got a RB and QB who can't stay healthy.

 

The question was SB. Try staying on track, or maybe reading more slowly

 

They have better young talent...They just need to be better to close out the game better.They were brutal in this situation last season

 

The Steelers beat them in the regular season it's funny you come up with these excuses for Cowher, but every loss is on Tomlin .

 

Impressive since the pats were in a 32-2 run or something like that at that time and one of the 2 loss was against cowher power and the steelers!

 

Nabers coming off an injury
Skattebo coming off an injury
Dart gets checked for concussion every game
Name one player on the Giants OL better than what the Steelers have?

 

Too bad that Cowher power got outcoached in the AFCCG

 

spygate

 

I don't said this is a great team but this is still in a better situation that the current steelers

 

This is a good point.

McCarthy is under contract for 5 years. It's the Steelers, so he'll probably play out his contract.

In the last 5 years, the Steelers are 48-36-1 with 4x playoff appearances, but no playoff wins. This is a 5 year period when we generally had below average QB play. Each of these seasons was basically the same.

McCarthy did have 5 years in Dallas. He was 49-35-0, 3 playoff appearances, 1 playoff win. Thee of these seasons look the same on the stat sheet 12-5. Two of the seasons were bad 6-10 & 7-10. The good years seem to be when Dak played 12+ games. The bad years are when he didn't 5 games and 8 games.

I think it's likely that he'll do at least OK if Rodgers can stay healthy this year. But I don't think there's much evidence that McCarthy can when he doesn't have an above average QB. The two times it happened in Dallas, his teams were not good. In GB, he basically had either Favre (2 years) or Rodgers (11 years). I think Favre was healthy both years. Looks like Rodgers played 16 games all but 2 years (2013 - 9 and 2017 - 7). In those two years, McCarthy was 8-8 and 7-9.

I really hope that McCarthy can find and develop an above average QB for us. But I don't think that's a think that NFL HCs can really do. I think the cake is mostly baked when you draft guys in the vast majority of cases.

And if McCarthy was really good at developing OK guys to be good starters, I think he would have had more success when Rodgers or Dak got hurt. In all of those seasons, his above-average QB played more games than Ben did in 2019, when we finished out the season with Mason-Duck-Mason.

But without one of Favre, Rodgers, or Dak for ~ half the season McCarthy never did better than the Steelers did when Ben played 1.5 games and we played with young Mason and Duck.

So I'll believe that McCarthy can develop a QB when I see it happen...but I'm generally someone who wants to see something before I believe it anyway.

 

Cooper Rush was still 9-5 in Dallas with McCarthy and the cowboys score over 20 points for most of the time.He was awful last season in Baltimore.Matt Flynn was also decent under McCarthy,over 1 decade ago

 

Same as they have been for a while. And since we've pretty much hit that ceiling at least 3 years in a row, a regression to the mean seems likely.

 

Has it been that long?? I guess so . Since 1933.

 

Thanks 43!

I was getting discouraged as I was looking up the numbers when writing the previous post.

I don't follow Dallas a lot. So I'm glad that there are some positive data points. I think most of his "success with QBs" was "I got hired and a very good QB - two in GB - were already on the roster".

Rush was also drafted in 2017 (and MM was hired in Dallas in 2020). But Rush never started a game until 2021.

If we were talking about Tomlin here, someone would probably point out that early in his Dallas career (2021-22) Rush was 5-1 (first 2 years). They'd probably say that the development he got pre-McCarthy in Dallas is the reason he did well in 2021. Then after he was with McCarthy for longer, he went 4-4 in 2024. "Clearly" getting worse.

I think those kind of arguments aren't good. Especially with a limited sample. Cutting it up like that doesn't make sense. And the fact that he was 500 in 2024 is likely just mean reversion. Probably also says something about the team around the QB (which is why we won with Mason-Duck-Mason in 2019 IMO).

 

And Pickett was 14-10 with the Steelers