Interesting article gives context to Dupree pick

Sorry, but I do think a relatively weak draft class is relevant. When you have more hits than misses in the draft (especially 1st round), your odds of finding someone who will contribute is much higher. In this particular draft, turns out there were more misses than hits making it a crap shoot. Fortunately for all of us, we can have different opinions.

 

Where a player is drafted has no bearing on how good he could become. It's up to him and the coaches to develop his talent and skill. It's not like Dupree isn't a elite athlete. Something is lacking be it technique,strength or football smarts. All of those things can be improved on regardless of your draft status.
I'm not saying the Steelers made a mistake drafting him that would be hindsight. I'm saying we shouldn't be satisfied because everyone else sucks. You gotta do you.

 

We can, but the truly relevant issue is that they passed on a better player at a position of need.

 

No matter how sexy the women’s feet are that stomp them (looking at you, Rex) or how perfect the barrels, you can’t make top wine with average grapes. AB = misjudged grapes.

This logic seems to imply that (nearly) any guy, drafted in any round, should be capable of developing into a top player.

 

AB is the example of that. (Or Tom Brady. Or Harrison in his DPoY prime.) AB didn't start as a top player; it took him about two years of intense focus to get there.

I think it means that there are qualities like field vision, information processing, off-season dedication, and luck that aren't easily measured before the draft, that make a difference in how good the player does in the pros. (Or how much a player will improve when it is a full-time job, instead of part-time while at college.)

 

Well, I see the relevance more in the issue of the quality of the draft then who we could have had in hindsight. You can look at every draft and find someone that we should have picked rather than the person we did. The only way you would truly know how something is going to work out is by that chain of events actually happening. You can speculate, which you are, but it doesn't make it any more factual. This is why I find the draft more relevant than who we could have had. The results of the draft are tangible where as who we could have had and how they would have done for us is not.

 

I wasn't really eluding to the quality of Bud's play in my post. It was more about opinions.

 

The Steelers have their reasons why they didn't choose to move up. The way the Steelers do things has proven to be successful.

For whatever reasons the Steelers thought Dupree was the better option. Maybe the Steelers didn't believe that Jones was a good fit for the defense? Maybe other reasons? Who knows? It's also very likely that the Steelers wouldn't had pursued Haden if Jones turned out to be a good player for them.

Hindsight is something. Every team in the league wished they could had drafted X, Y, or Z players. I am sure the Steelers have quite a few players that other teams wished they had drafted. We can't go back in time so we just have to accept the Steelers team as it is today and hope for the best.

 

Bottom line is: in the Tomlin/Colbert era.... Steelers have drafted excellent on the offensive side of the ball. On the defensive side.... poorly.

 

There are tons of examples of guys and gals for that matter playing in every sport above their talent level because of hard work and determination. Of course you have to have a baseline but there are tons of athletes that have done more with less. I'm just gonna mention one we are all familiar with.....Hines Ward and like he used to say" hard work beats talent ...when talent doesn't work hard...and it's not that Bud is devoid of talent he is not only a good athlete he is elite. He's working with a baseline much higher than a lot of players...

 

Coaching? Maybe a philosophy that they can do more with less at a certain position or a miscalculation of players being able to be developed to fit a certain scheme. I find it hard to believe we can only scout offensive players. I think it's not putting players in a position to succeed on defense.

 

Well maybe the overall quality of players they had the opportunity to draft just wasn't very good? The team drafted some good players on the defensive side of the ball. It hasn't been all bad. Just as the defense hasn't been as bad as some like to believe.

The rule changes are having a huge impact on defenses league wide. There really isn't a consistently dominating defense in the league today. Those days are pretty much over.

 

People like to blame coaching for everything. That's simply not the case. They put the defensive players in position to succeed within the defense. Why don't we put the blame where it really belongs. On the league for putting more and more emphasis on offensive football. Some of you fail to see what is really going in the league today.

 

Agreed. It's done a lot of good but it may have cost us a Super Bowl or two, as well.

 

Flagfest for all the defenses in the NFL this year.

 

So there are no examples of putting players in a position that isn't best suited for them? How about using LBs to cover TEs? As much as you say people like to blame the coaches for everything....you seem to think they never shoulder any blame. I'm betting it's somewhere in the middle. Coaches are supposed to try and scheme to cover up for players deficiencies. We have seen plenty of examples of failure in that department. Great coaches can soften the blow of lesser talented players ala Belichick.
I'm well aware of what's going on in the league and I can also admit that the D has been making some nice strides recently. We have talent on D and it's up to the players and the coaches to optimize what we have...

 

I never said there were not any examples. It's usually more than just one factor. It's not only or simply coaching. I believe most of the issues with any team boil down to execution. Where does execution fall into your thought process?

Sometimes not having "good enough" players is the issue. Coaches attempt to make up for the lack of talent in various ways. Often times coaches can't do anything about not having enough talent or talent that doesn't mesh well together.

Sometimes the other teams deserve some credit.

Keep in mind that all defenses in the league have similar issues.

BB having Brady covers up a lot of issues that the Pats had over the years. Even the great BB had his share of issues. Since you decided to bring up BB I decided to compare Pitt and NE defensive stats.

Not much separates the two.

2017
NE 18.5 ppg, 366 total ypg, 251 Pyds/g, 114 Ryds/g.
PITT 19.3 ppg, 306 total ypg, 201 Pass yds/g, 105 rush yds/g

2018
NE 23.1 ppg, 382 total ypg, 277 pass yds/g, 105 rush yds/g
PITT 24.6 ppg, 359 total ypg, 265 pass yds/g, 94.4 rush yds/g

Even the mighty Jags and Vikes defenses from a year ago are leaking badly this season. Those team's defense had their issues in the post season in 2017. Those teams have a lot more invested in their defenses than the Steelers.

Just a little perspective. The coaches are doing the best they can to optimize the talent they have. The coaches proved that they can address the issues. Most of the issues usually boil down to execution. People who don't seem to recognize that by now maybe they never will.

 

I didn't say it was simply coaching. I said it probably is a little of both. Just because coaches are doing the best they can doesn't mean they are doing a great job. Of course execution is a major factor but sometimes the gameplan or scheme is flawed. Look at our offense for example. We are notoriously bad in the first quarter is that simply because we fail to execute every week or is it trying to execute a failed plan? Like I said it's probably both. If the plan is flawed how do you expect the players to execute when at a disadvantage?

Now as far as stats go .....meh. They never tell the whole story. Every year in the beginning of the season everyone writes off NE and say they don't have a good enough D to win. Like clockwork though by the end of the season they are playing at a playoff caliber level with the same personnel that people were writing off. Do they all just miraculously get better or is it more likely that they adjust their D to what they do well?
That's scheme adjustment and putting players in a position to succeed. I don't see them giving up 45 points to a team and home in the playoffs and especially to a team that struggled scoring at all the week before.
The loss to JAX was just as much on the coaches as the players. You can also look at how our own D has been playing better. They cleaned up the communications and made the D simpler and the players on D have responded. The same players that were getting destroyed earlier. We are starting to get some guys back that are allowing us to play more sub package and the results look promising so far. Using players like Burnett and Fort are covering up the deficiencies that were evident when asking Bostic and VW to try and do the same thing. Asking the same of players that are incapable of providing the same results is a coaching issue not poor execution by the players.

 

Maybe drafting in the mid to late twenties every year, has something to do with the quality of the defensive players selected.

 

So you are saying drafting less on offense would have won us a Super Bowl?

 

If Dobbs or Rudolph become the next franchise caliber QB....I will think more positive about Tomlin/Colbert.

 

It hasn't hurt the offense. When was the last time we drafted an offensive player in the first.....DeCastro in 2012.

 

"Notoriously bad" is a blanket statement that can be disputed or discredited when looking at the facts. If I had to guess one reason why the offense had some slow starts it was due to the way Ben performed.

Do you by chance know the plan? We can see the poor execution.

Stats are meh? Ok. I just wanted to show you a comparison of the Steelers defensive rankings vs the Pat's defensive rankings. Pretty similar right? I guess Tomlin and his coaches have done something right to breath the same air as BB and Co in NE. The main difference is BB has a guy named Tom Brady. That's been a huge advantage for NE over the years.

Brady made up for a lot NE's deficiencies. Both Atl and Seattle had opportunities to defeat NE in the Superbowl. Those teams failed to execute vs NE when they had opportunities to win those games. The Eagles executed when they needed to make a play to win vs NE.


Another thing, I believe that the Steelers have probably played in a tougher division than the Pats over the years.

What happened the week before doesn't matter. What happened all season doesn't matter when teams face off vs one another. Rankings don't matter when teams face off one another.

The loss to the Jags falls mostly on the players. Wins and losses fall mostly at the feet of the players. Players play the games.

Any time a team turns the ball over like the Steelers did will find themselves in an up hill battle. That's exactly what happened vs the Jags. The Steelers were behind 21 to 0 mostly because of turnovers.

The Steelers defense gave up 38 points and not 45. The Jags defense scored 7 points off a turnover. It's difficult for any team to win a game being negative 2 in the turnover category regardless of the final scores of the game. On paper the Jags defense was better than the Steelers and that Jags D gave up 42 points. What's the Jags defense excuse for a horrible performance? Turnovers were the difference in the out come of the playoff game vs the Jags.

As far as I can tell VW and Bostic continue to play. Sometimes for coaches it's trial and error. Sometimes players need to get more comfortable playing with one another as a unit. Whatever the case it's usually a combination of factors.

A good defense can give up 10 points one week and 30 points the next week. That's the league.

 

Do you know it's poor execution or could it be a playcall that had no chance due to the defensive alignment?. So if they just continually run the ball into a 8 man front is it poor execution that it doesn't work? They are one of the worst or the worst team in 1st quarter points. That's a fact .I'd say that's notoriously bad.Well we're definitely not gonna see eye to eye on this . Seattle and Atlanta didn't execute? Ha! Seattle lost on maybe the worst coaching decision in the history of the SB and Atlantas playcalling cost them the game as well...so Wilsons INt was on him because he didn't execute or a terrible decision to put the ball in the air in the first place when they were gashing NE on the ground. Obviously he threw the pass but the OC didn't put him in the best position to succeed. ......sorry it does happen and it sometimes happens to us.
There are good game plans and bad game plans. There are good play calls and bad play calls.There is good execution and poor execution......