Butler deserves more time

Eye test. Later in the season nobodies were shredding us even with shazier. That’s not supposed to happen lol. We are close though to having an ok defense

 

One thing we know, an OK defense wont get us through the playoffs next year and as we found out this year an OK defense cost us 3 losses regular season and one thing is certain butler is clueless against NE and i'm tired of excuses as to why this defense looks lost in big games....

 

The game is a team sport but you have to admit that if certain players are taken out the team dynamics can be drastically altered. That just the nature of sports. I hear ya on the capable backup but backups are what they are and not meant to replace long term.

 

5/5 redzone yup. We couldn’t stop when we needed to. Elite defenses do.

 

I guess I feel the same with Butler as I did with Haley. We had them 3rd and long multiple times, and they couldnt get of the field. In those situations during the regular season we would have sent a CB (hilton) on a blitz. I only saw one play where we sent him on a blitz and it ended up being a run play. He should have sent some heat instead of trying to prevent the long ball, which we couldnt do anyway. IMO that was about as bad as the 4th down tries out of the offense.

 

Deserves? No one deserves **** in this world. The hell is this deserve ****? I have seen the worst Steelers defense in the last 2 years, ever. Deserves what?

 

I hear you. Our defense is horrid but I’m optimistic that a couple of changes it will be good again

 

Didn't mean to direct those at you personally Blast, sorry if it seemed. Butler has been with the organization for years before he got the job. He has another year to right the ship. But the meltdowns this defense has is way higher then the success it has achieved to me. Like said, another year to right the ship. I would like to see Gay retire and become a secondary coach and help out Lake.

 

The eye test has been shown in both academic studies, and on this board, to be as reliable as Lima’s Sweed’s hands.

That’s not to say stats are everything, obvs.

 

Right, because no other team in the league plays bad teams.

 

Troy, Farrior, and Shazier were the brains. So what are Tomlin, Porter and Lake? These guys better draft super high Football IQ players or this D is going nowhere. They want Watt to lead now, but he is a rookie.

 

That's actually not the definition of insanity. That quote is same made up nonsense that's extremely overused.

 

That's actually not the definition of insanity. That quote is same made up nonsense that's extremely overused.

 

Say Glenn - if your post keeps repeating, CK may be on to something.

 

So when a team trades their best defender in Chandler Jones and then win the SB, what's the explanation? Surely we can both agree it was good coaching. That's the kind of coaching we needed and didn't get. Besides, Shazier was always out of position too, he just had the speed to recover.

I don't care about numbers, I care about the eye test. Our guys are often out of position. We blow assignments left and right. It seems there's always miscommunication with our defence and there was when Shazier was out there too. I'm getting tired of constantly blaming the players. We draft these high potential guys and they so rarely pan out and even if they do, they go through long stretches looking beyond terrible.

@Blast Furnace I didn't read the whole thread so someone else may have answered you already, but we weren't one of the better red zone defences in the league, in fact, we were one of the worst

 

The premise of this thread is "Butler Deserves More Time". Impressive statistical points were raised to defend this position. If the season had ended after the Pats game, I'd say yes - the D played their hearts out that day (with a few brain farts involving Gronk), perhaps the best this unit could play under the circumstances. But the season didn't technically end that day (psychologically perhaps). It ended with 60 minutes of utter and complete meltdown and failure this past Sunday - this being a second chance redemption day after an earlier season blowout by the same opponent (which BB greatly facilitated). But for several miraculous Steeler TD receptions, the final score would have more closely resembled the way the D was apparently coached and actually performed in this game relative to giving up TDs so freely. This was Butler's Final Exam and I'm sorry to report, he flunked the Bar!

Speaking of the Bar, isn't the going rate of a mulligan these days a round of drinks for the house? Here's to Butler's mulligan - may he use it wisely and effectively.

 

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The Steelers lost because the offense couldn't score.

 

Coming into this year we all knew the defense wasn't going to be elite. The defense needs to be great, but not elite. I think they are heading in that direction. They need a safety, corner, LB and maybe even one more DE and they're good. The draft and free agency can easily account for that.

The defense has a depth issue.

 

I really hope Rooney steps in and exercises his executive authority here. Somebody needs to be held accountable for the underperformance on the defensive side of the ball. I am all for stability so I'd be fine giving Buther another year, but the problem is when the status quo isn't working and you stand pat, it looks like you're settling for less than the excellence that's demanded to put you over the top and into another Super Bowl. Tomlin's inaction makes him look weak here.

 

The defense seemed to turn the corner at mid-season. Then Haden hurt his leg against the Colts, then team started killing us with deep pass plays.

Then once Shazier went down. It was really pulling out a foundation piece, they built this defense around things Ryan could do with his speed.

No one was able to fill in his absence, and the defense became a glaring weakness.

Steelers were really making some good turnovers too, but then those seem to disappear.

Send Mitchell down the road, sign some FA to help at saftey. You might see linebackers drafted with our 1st two picks in the draft.

 

I will say this Butler has put his time in here. He turned down a few jobs where he could have been a DC but he stayed here under DL as the next DC in waiting. This is one of the things that is special about this organization is it's loyalty. We reward coaches and don't fly off the handle and just get rid of them cause fans or media says we should and for the most part it has panned out.

Now with that said my issue with Butler is he learned from one of the best if not the best defensive minds in the game, however we were a 3-4. I really feel that Tomlin wants to put a twist to this D and for some reason we are just way off. We call some crazy schemes at just the wrong times and it comes back at bites us in the poop. I will give an example, last year from week 9 or something we had the most sacks and the top ranked D while giving up the fewest points. We go into New England and what do we do rush 2 guys, we totally change what had been working. The person(s) who decides the game plan is where our problem lies. Is that Butler, is that Tomlin is that other coaches IDK. I feel Butler is a good coach and should be given more time however thing need to change which by the way looked like it did this last gave vs the Cheats. We played a better scheme but again we had some bad planning...like the last drive, you know the single Gronk drive.

I have read on this board people say we have talent on defense and I am pretty sure many of us know Mitchell is a weak link. Losing Shazier was bad, but I have to believe that fixing the ILB spot and getting rid of MM is a big step to this defense playing up to it's ability. Scheme and game planning is as much a fault and with us being as close as we are sending Butler packing is a mistake imo.

 

Stats shmats.....what I saw was a team unprepared on Sunday. A team that let a bad offense take the ball and go right down the field on us. Then after a turnover take exactly one play to rip off another 20yard TD run. I see communication issues that never get fixed and missed assignments all over the field. If this was a one game aberration I could understand but the same thing happened last year and the one thing I can't shake is the deer in the headlights look from both he and Tomlin just like last year.......embarrassing.

For a coach to openly admit he had no faith in his defense,one that he as well has his fingerprints on says a lot to me.