Art Rooney's year-end press conference? Wish list?

Has this already been scheduled? I can't find any information on line about it. I think last year's press conference was held on January 31st so maybe this week?

What are you hoping to hear when Mr. Rooney speaks? As for me, I'd like to hear the following:
-After further discussion with Coach Tomlin, we have decided to terminate the contracts of Joey Porter, our OLB coach, and Carnell Lake, our DB coach. The search for replacements will begin immediately.
-We have promoted Mike Munchak to Associate Head Coach. Coach Munchak and Coach Tomlin will work very closely together to prepare the team and put them in the best position to win week in and week out.
-We will focus very heavily in the upcoming season on situational game management and in-game adjustments as we feel we've been lacking in this category for several years now. As such, in addition to Coach Tomlin and Coach Munchak working closely together on this objective, we will be hiring a Situational Game Management Coach to work in the booth and who will have access to Coach T, Coach M and the two coordinator's throughout the course of the game.
-Discipline will take center stage going forward. We will counsel our players on the proper use of social media and will ensure that no future opponent is ever discussed. In 2018 and beyond, our only focus will be the next opponent on the schedule.
-I have made it abundantly clear that we have enough talent on this football team to win NOW, so the expectation is to win NOW. We will shore up those positions of need, most of them on the defensive side of the ball, and the expectation next season will be to win the Super Bowl. Nothing else will be acceptable.
-EVERY position on this team and in this organization will be critically evaluated over the next 12 months. We will make changes where needed. No front office position, coaching position or player is immune to being replaced if they are not doing an adequate job in player personnel acquisition, player development and performance on the field.
-I look forward to seeing everyone in Atlanta next February!

Anyway, a guy can dream can't he?

 

-I will personally assure all fans that we will attempt to sign every free agent who enters the market, regardless of scheme, age or ability.
-I will insist at the owner's meeting that all other teams cease to pay their players and discourage them from competitiveness, to fall in line with our fans beliefs.
-Likewise, I will put forward a motion that removes all other teams from the NFL barring the Steelers and Patriots, as our fans don't seem interested in anyone else.
-I will request that Coach Tomlin makes the team train, practice and prepare for games, a requirement fans will be aware we have not had since Coach Cowher.
-I am strongly recommending Coach Tomlin brings back the single wing formation, jerseys with odd triangles on the shoulders and leather helmets, because things used to be better in the past.

 

Do we need an OLB coach? This is a relatively new position.

Could there be too many cooks in the Kitchen?

 

I wish I could rate this as hilarious and dislike it at the same time, lol.

 

Just don’t get the love for a former head coach with a losing record. He’s an outstanding offensive line coach, but did absolutely nothing as a head coach and some Steelers fans think he’s the messiah. Makes no damn sense at all.

 

Messiah? Personally Munchak knows the system, has been a head coach, and it can't be a bad thing if the brass decides to part ways with Tomlin. Not saying that it's Tomlin's time to go yet, but wasting the last years of Ben and watching this team go one and done and with another winning regular season I guess is the goal? The lack of discipline is glaring as well as spotty preparation on the defensive side which Tomlin has a big part in so I've heard. This lies at the feet of Tomlin.

I'm sure Mr. Rooney is not to pleased with some of the issues mentioned above including his head coach going on national TV saying that we would meet the cheats twice. Mitchell barking at the Jags locker room door. Bell trash talking about the contract. I'm sure he is looking at the empty seats at Heinz. And so on...

Big year for Mike Tomlin coming up, whether we all agree or not...Big challenges on the horizon.

 

Hey, sometimes second stints as head coaches work out pretty well. Bill Belichick's first stint as a head coach was less than memorable. But his second stint is legendary.

 

Yeah, but we already have a super bowl winning head coach. If we were a team floundering like the browns have been for a couple decades then it might make sense. However, this burn it all down because we lost is asinine. Take the black and gold colored glasses off and anyone with half a brain would see this teem was in shambles defensively. No amount of preparation was going to cure that. Our only hope was for the offense to be perfect and we weren’t. Ben held onto the ball for way too long against an outstanding defense despite being coached to get rid of it. That’s on him not tomlin, Haley, or Fichtner. The same goes with his interception. You tomlin haters are just using the loss as yet another poor excuse to drag out the pitchforks and torches.

 

I'm not a Tomlin hater and I'm not on the FMTI bandwagon. But I also don't believe that Tomlin is above reproach as some do on this board. You mention that the team was in shambles defensively. Some of that is on the coaching yet Tomlin exhibits weak leadership and refuses to make any defensive coaching changes whatsoever. Let me ask you a question. Does Tomlin deserve criticism for anything in your mind?

 

I didn't realize this defense was tasked to go out and stop The Greatest Show on Turf....they were asked to go out and slow down a offense that mustered a whole 10 points against Buffalo or the 85' Bears is more like Jacksonville made them look. If a defensive minded coach and the DC couldn't figure out a way to atleast get in their way a couple times....somebody should of been shown the door on the defensive staff...just for embarrassment alone....we were missing 1 guy for the love of God.

The O put up 42 points ,let's say they gave Jacks 7, Ben's Int? Would it be too much to ask to hold them to a FG....so I'm gonna say we gave them 10. How many points would of been a realistic number to give up besides the 10....another 14 tops? Defense was horrifyingly bad and unprepared.....
Tomlin/Butler one of them dropped the ball....." Obviously "

 

Some of that is on the coaching? You’re seriously underestimating the loss of shazier and don’t seem to understand how it impacted the entire defense. The coaches did what they could with what they had and one addition. Clearly it wasn’t enough, but when you lose a player like shazier they aren’t easily replaceable. Weak leadership?

As for your claims about not being a tomlin hater you were one of the very first people to start blasting tomlin after Shazier’s injury. We were down and y’all took it as an opportunity to start claiming how the team wasn’t prepared. Weak leadership? Who kept that team together and winning despite the team watching their close friend be carted off on a backboard without any feeling in his body? Tomlin did and by doing so exhibited outstanding leadership skills.

I’ve never once claimed tomlin was beyond reproach, but the lengths to which you’ll go to support your narrative is beyond absurd.

 

I think we misjudged how good Bortles is. He is good enough to hurt you if you are not careful. He had some good passing days before that Buffalo game.

ALSO, maybe Buffalo has a really good defense, and maybe our defense is THAT bad?

 

You still haven't answered my question. What does Tomlin deserve to be criticized for? And you think Porter and Lake are doing an adequate job??? That, my friend, is what I call being beyond absurd! And I think I do a pretty good job of supporting any narrative that I choose to put on this message board. What you do is come back with "you're stupid" and "you're absurd" and blah, blah, blah! Why don't you try debating the points instead of getting into the name calling which you so often seem to do. I don't mind a point for point debate and respectful discussion, but you seem to enjoy belittling and acting like a little petulant child when somebody has a different viewpoint than your own. Grow up!

 

Strummer I think a lot of guys think some times a recycled coach learns by his mistake. I remember when the Browns fired Bilicheck I was un-happy. Wanted him long time like Marvin Lewis. Billycheat ended up being a pretty good coach. If that ever did happen he replaced Coach T I would want him to keep the line job too but, know how that goes.

 

Wonder what Art is going to have to say about the defense and will it pertain to any major changes.


I also "wish" to for him to address some of the duties done within the defensive playcalling as well.


Once again, my personal wishes.

 

Oh please forgive me I didn’t directly address that question. Just addressed the rest of them directly. My bad, I’ll fix that right now. For me there are times that I’m puzzled by our clock management. There have been times when we’ve spiked the ball when it wasn’t necessary or kept timeouts for no apparent reason. However, there are also times when the torch and pitchfork crowd is going ape and I completely understand the decision made. It might not follow the path of conventional football wisdom, but a lot of that is based on a time when football games were won 3-0, 7-6 etc.

As for firing or retaining Lake and Porter I see no reason for them to go. First off let’s look at Porter. We don’t ask the same things of our OLB as in the past. Just as we don’t ask the same things of our defensive line. Those two go hand in hand. These days our linebackers drop into coverage A lot more than in the past and have our lineman rushing the passer. For the last decade or so we just asked our lineman to take up space and allow the linebackers to make plays. That is no longer the case.

We led the league this year in sacks with 56. Of those 56 half went to defensive linemen. In the past the majority of those sacks would have gone to OLB with a DL picking up the occasional sack. Pay attention here I said majority not all. So while sack production is down for the OLB it’s way up for the DL. I honestly couldn’t care less where they come from just as long as we are getting them. Which by the way we are which is clearly indicated by the Steelers leading the league in that category.

As for Lake. Why would we want to get rid of him now? We are finally giving him something to work with and things were looking pretty good until Shazier went down. We were holding teams to under 20 points a game and largely shutting down passing games. Let’s not forget we’ve been drafting in the bottom half of the draft for most of a decade which leaves us with scraps. We haven’t had the luxury of picking shutdown corners with our 5th overall pick. What we’ve done is rebuilt almost the entire team without having a losing season in over a decade. That screams leadership and outstanding coaching and sure as ****ing hell doesn’t call for burning it down to the ground and starting over again.

 

There ya go! I knew you had it in you!! You actually made some very good arguments there. Let me be clear, I'm not calling for burning it to the ground and starting over again. I have not called for Mike Tomlin or even Keith Butler to be fired. But there is plenty of evidence that both of them need to step it up if we hope to get back to the Super Bowl before Ben retires. We disagree on Porter and Lake. I believe they both should be gone. What is it about our OLB group that tells you that Coach Porter is doing an adequate job. Jarvis Jones sure didn't develop while he was here. Maybe he was just destined to be a bust. Bud Dupress hasn't developed. In fact, he has regressed. I have alot of hope for TJ Watt but even he didn't seem to develop beyond the flashes of pure athleticism and sheer effort we saw from him earlier in the season. And I believe that Porter helped to botch the James Harrison situation. As for Lake, both Artie Burns and Sean Davis regressed significantly from their rookie seasons to their second seasons. Mike Mitchell don't know what the crap he's doing back there and many of our other DB hopefuls have either failed to develop or have regressed under Lake's leadership. I believe in giving coaches an opportunity but I also believe in accountability. Tomlin does not want to hold any of his defensive coaches accountable for failure and, yes, to me this is a sign of weak leadership on his part.

 

I hate like seriously hate basing a discussion on things like “I believe” etc because there’s no basis of fact. It’s an excercise in futility. Jarvis Jones was never going to develop into a starting OLB. He was way way way overdrafted and anyone that actually watched him play( Living in Georgia I watched every game he played at UGA) would know his sacks were nothing more than coverage sacks. He was hot garbage as an olb. With all of that out of the way I believe wholeheartedly Jones was an AR2 pick. There’s no way our entire scouting department, coaches, and front office watched Jones and drafted him in the first. AR2 did his best George Steinbrenner impersonation and decided he knew better. It’s the only logical explanation.

As for Dupree he needs to get stronger and develop an inside move, but there’s no denying his explosiveness. He was also playing injured yet once again. And your looking for and expecting something from our OLB that we don’t ask of them anymore. There was no botching of the Harrison situation. He can’t do what we ask of our OLB. He was a liability to us in that regard. Use him as a pure pass rusher? Then you’re just showing your hand. You might as well just tell the opposing offense what we are going to do defensively before each huddle. I get it harrison was a fan favorite, but his glory days are long gone. He hasn’t been a dominant player in several years.

 

LOL! I just noticed that I inadvertently spelled Bud Dupree, Bud DUPRESS, in my post above. Boy, if ever there was a Freudian slip!

 

did joey porter rush the passer or drop into coverage? i know he did both but he played throughout the LB'ers rush the passer era. what makes you think he has the knowledge to coach them to do this?

 

You admit that he did both and then ask what makes me think he has the knowledge to coach them to do it? That’s pretty ****ing funny right there.

 

Then why is it such a stretch for our LB to play the pass more as you eluded to? All LB do it but it doesn't mean they are good at it or able to teach someone else to do it. What have our LB done so well to make you see him as proficient in teaching them a complete game. For that matter, what about the inside backers and olsavskys guys? Bellicek had both starting ILB go down this year and they seem quite OK. We have 1go down and the whole defense was in shambles. What's the difference maker between the two in your eyes?

 

I didn’t allude to it being a stretch. I said that’s what they’re doing more now. Just as our lineman are rushing the passer more now than before. This whole pats thing is seriously ****ing tired. Is everything exactly the same between the two teams? No, it isn’t so quit using it as some pathetic trump card. Our defense was average before shazier’s injury. Losing him affected the whole defense and what they try to do. The difference maker is hasn’t changed. Our offense had to be perfect and we couldn’t do it while the patriots offense is damn near as close to perfect as you can get. Our franchise quarterback holds onto the football for 8 seconds and gets strip sacked for a td. Their qb gets rid of the ball in under 2.5 seconds. But tomlin! But porter! But lake! But but but but but but ****ing pathetic

Roethlisberger throws 5 interceptions in a game and it’s fire lake! fire porter! Tomlin didn’t have them prepared!

 

i guess through you're thinking we keep coming up short and that's OK. sorry my friend but i want more from this team. we have way too much talent that is not being utilized to it's fullest. where do you think the problem lies? i know one thing, the offense with the more seasoned veteran coaches has improved and the defense with the less seasoned coaches has taken a step backwards. hmmm why is that a ****ing trend i wonder.