Tomlin

factually wrong.

 

Like I said, factually they did. They were in the playoffs within a couple points of going to the AFCC Game in Foxboro.

Without Bell, DWill, and AB.

You're delusional if you think they would have stayed within 3 scores. They did OK against the McCarron's and Manning's, Brady would have been unstoppable.

The Steelers may have been and may now be the 2nd best team in the AFC, but the distance between them and New England is vast. Primarily because of coaching.

Gase coached circles around Tomlin. Belichick is out of his league.

 

I get the whole "we lose to teams with losing records" as a recurring thing.

Putting that to one side, it's probably worth noting that Miami had been making some significant changes in the previous week, and clearly had a new focus and re-energised approach. I doubt the Dolphins messageboards are full of people talking about how the Steelers laid an egg. They'll be talking about how their team, depleted in talent as it was, played with the consistency and focus they've been wanting them to this season, and stepped up to get an impressive win against a hotly-picked opponent.

It's much the same as when we lost to the Eagles. There was a lot of complaints that we lost to a rookie QB. But that rookie QB is actually pretty damned good, and they called an excellent game which exploited our weaknesses.

On top of those two things, in both games we played like utter ****.

 

Explain in coaching detail what Gase did.

 

Exactly.

 

The Eagles haven't won since crushing the Steelers. I'm guessing the Bill manhandle the Phins this week, too.

 

Not so much what he did as what Tomlin didn't do, which was to exploit the Phins weaknesses. Phins couldn't stop the run and were getting torched deep. We played a short, safe passing game in the first half before finally opening up when we fell behind by too much.

Where was the downfield throwing that was successful vs. KC and NY? Throwing you could have set up with play action if you established the run vs. the 32nd ranked rushing defense?

Miami was also the most sacked team in the league. How did Tomlin exploit this? By rush four guys who can't get to the QB. The result, 2 pressures, 0 sacks.

Where was the blitzing that led to 7 sacks against KC and NY?

Tomlin and staff mailed in the game plan, like they always do against bad teams.

 

So when asked to explain the coaching performance you've backtracked from "Gase coached circles around Tomlin" and resorted to generalities.

You might be surprised to learn that a pass that is thrown short doesn't actually mean we weren't running deep routes. Miami played their safeties deep.

Judging the Phins on a few games doesn't really tell the whole story. Did Pittsburgh's 48 sacks last year convince you that they were a good pass rushing team? They have an excellent safety duo, and a 6 man rotation up front that might be top 5 in the league, definitely top 10.

Those team's play a different defense. KC plays a lot of cover 1 with Berry being the center fielder. NY plays a ton of man on the outside bringing their safeties up to be disruptors in the middle.

We ran the ball a lot against them. It was moderately successful. Are you blaming Tomlin for the lack of success running the ball? Maybe guys like Suh and Phillips are actually really good. Maybe Wake/Williams/Jones vs Big Al and Hubbard is an advantage for Miami.

Maybe having their starting LT back... makes a difference.

Blitzing when you are getting gashed by the run... makes sense coach

Cameron Heyward and Ryan Shazier clearly don't make much of a difference in your mind...

If you have no idea what a gameplan actually is... I could see how you draw such a conclusion

 

LOL! Well if you're there too then I'm in good company and proud of it.

 

You can get outcoached even if the other coach wasn't brilliant.

The Steelers threw 3 passes in the first half that were more than 2 yards past the LOS. You can do things to mitigate deep safeties, too, other than dinking and dunking. Do you think we give up on passing downfield every time a team drops their safeties?

In answer to this non-sequitur, they proved that they could be with scheme. They got 48 sacks last year by attacking and blitzing. This year they've called off the dogs for a terribly ineffective 4-man rush. Biggest mystery of this season so far.

The Phins were a missed FG by winless Cleveland away from being 0-5 heading into that game. I'm not buying what you're selling.

Moderately successful?? Bell averaged 5.3 YPC. He gashed the Dolphins on 3 straight runs and on 3rd and 1, they inexplicably put the ball in Landry Jones' hands for his first pass of the game. Absolutely brain dead.

Not changing anything in spite of getting whipped makes more sense.

All the more reason to be creative in getting to the passer. Instead, they used a front four consisting of guys like Moats, Jones, Harrison, and Mathews. Pathetic.

 

Defense is the most common factor when it comes to teams winning superbowl. Fact remains we have a defensive coach and our defense continues to get worse... I understand injuries have played a factor, but steelers have repeatedly been gashed the past couple years the only thing that has remained constant (except last week) is there ability to stop the run.

 

Miami is ranked 31 against the run and we rushed Bell 10 times. Ajayi rushed 25 times and that was more than we rushed all day between all of our backs. If their safeties were as deep as you say then wouldn't that look tend to help us be able to have a little more space in the run game? I'm sure they were playing deep because AB was basically quintuple covered all day long.

 

Miami is not good at stopping the run they have a good pass rush, but that is it. They have a converted wide receiver playing Corner, and repeatedly get gashed by the run. Bell should have had a field day with this match up but only received 10 carries. yes i understand getting him involved in the passing game, but trying to create opportunities in the passing game for him should be used more against strong passing defenses (like denver, minnesota) a team like miami has consistently been gashed by the run. Isaiah Crowell had 140 against them.

 

You are exactly correct. You dont play to miamis strength with there pass rush. Our offensive line is better at run blocking than pass blocking.

 

By the way, I fully expect a fantastic effort this Sunday. Back's against the wall, best team in the league coming in, national TV...wagons will be circled. This is when Tomlin is at his best.

They may not win, but they'll be focussed, fired up, and on point.

I just wish it didn't take adversity to get them to prepare this way. Bad losses cost you seeding, bye weeks, and home games in the playoffs. We should be resting starters in week 17 before a bye, not putting all wounded hands on deck to try to qualify to play a game the following week.

 

We can complain about tomlin till the cows come home, but we all know tomlins job is safe and he has the rooneys strongly in his corner.............

 

10 rushes is much more reflective of the lack of sustained drives and situational football, than it is of poor gameplanning. I don't find Miami's ranking that reflective of their ability. 2 weeks ago they held Hill/Bernard to 89 yards on 31 carries, for a sub 3.0 ypc.... sure they got slaughtered the following week by Tennessee... but I'm not going to put a ton of weight in 60 yards rushing for Mariota, and I'm not going to ignore Suh coming out of the game.

They've also increased Wake's snaps significantly against us, Branch has stepped his game up.

Let's also note that the Steelers only ran about 55 offensive snaps. While Miami has largely given up 70-80 plays a game. It's not that we didn't run the ball, run the ball well, or try to run the ball enough.... it's that we didn't convert 3rd downs and turned the ball over twice.

It wasn't a coaching choice, a bad game plan or anything like that. It was poor execution.
The first drive of the game ends when Ben misses his target (Grimble), although the series likely ended regardless due to a Holding call on our THIRD string OT,

Our 2nd drive we finished with a TD
Our 3rd drive SHOULD have ended with at least a FG (29 yard line), but Ben missed an easy throw and then took an inexcusable sack
Miami drives for 2nd FG.... it's an 8-6 game. The very next play is a game changing INT (Ben horrible decision), and what I would consider a game ending injury.

 

Lazy correlation.

Miami didn't run off the edges all day because Tomlin didn't have the team prepared. Miami ran all day because Ricardo Matthews is a fringe back up, Vince Williams doesn't play well east/west, Burns/Cockrell are not good edge run defenders.

Our offense didn't fall apart because Tomlin didn't have the team prepared. Our offense fell apart because Chris Hubbard and Big Al are a terrible tandem to role out against Wide 9 rushers.

Our offense didn't fall apart because Haley called a bad game. Our offense fell apart because after 3 drives that should've produced 11 points. Our Franchise QB threw a pick and tore his miniscus leading to a Landry Jones taking snaps, and Ben returning at well below par.

The loss of Heyward/Shazier had a huge impact. And will continue to have a huge impact.

The irony is that fans mock Tomlin for "the standard is the standard", yet but place full blame when the team doesn't meet that expectation.

 

So you expect Mathews to play as well as Heyward? After all, the standard is the standard, right?

If Tomlin truly expects that, he's dumber than I thought.

 

Lol...not even remotely true.

 

No, I don't expect Matthews to play as well as Heyward, which is why i'm not blaming gameplans/coaches for it.

Just another lazy steelers fans.... Tomlin wins, it's the team. Tomlin loses, it's Tomlin.

 

Ok, I can live with that LOl

 

Haha. Glad you liked it.

 

Tomlin seemed to gameplan like he expected to see no dropoff from Heyward and Shazier. Just straight up vanilla. No blitzing or scheme to generate pressure. Today in his presser he said that players have to win their one on one matchups.

News flash, genius - you don't have guys who can do that. It's up to you to scheme pressure.

I give Tomlin credit when he has his team prepared well, and blame when he doesn't. His sycophants blame players for the losses solely, as you are doing now.