If you want to know why the Steelers haven't been successful in the playoffs

Alright, I calmed down. I just thought you were trying to make sense.

 

They went to two super bowls after he left. Did you not watch any games from 1997 to 2004? And we flunked out in 2006.

 

Thanks for proving my point! Love it! Apparently you watched the games, but you didn't really grasp what was happening. Let me dumb it down:

Cowher built a great team that went to 2 SBs after Cowher retired. The Tomlin suck-effect didn't negatively ruin 2008 so Cowher's team and Lebeau won the SB.

After 2008, the Tomlin suck-effect disease spread more and Cowher's team lost the 2010 SB, and fell apart completely after that.

Basically it took Tomlin 3 years or so to destroy what Cowher had built.

 

Jesus man you have no idea how the league works. The success the team had was during Ben’s first contract. Do some reading and understand that teams always take a downward turn when they get strapped with a second QB contract (KC, GB, Cinci.). There is a salary cap in the NFL which limits how much you can pay players yearly. When Cowher had Ben as well as Tomlin did for his first five years they were able to retain talent and get free agents. His contract started to erode the team after 2011. It happens to all teams because of the size of QB contracts. Read some articles and look at overthecap.com, you’ll pick up a lot about how things work and how dead money works. We kept Ben too long because he became less effective and injured way too often while he was still making a large salary, but this team usually stands by their guy. Consider all of this stuff when you think about what is going on with the team. If you take the shallow approach to the teams issues and “scream fire the coach” “I miss Bill” you’ll find that will not solve things. We are in re build mode and it will take some time.

 

I loved Ben when he was in his prime but the last few years he played I have some issues.

In the preseason the few times they let him play I thought holy crap he has nothing on the ball where is the zip. Two games into the season he is done . I don t think he was healthy to start with . The next two years he was maybe 60% of what he used to be and still eating up 40 mil towards the cap. Ben getting paid too much and lots of very poor drafts have seriously weakened our roster depth.

Maybe it was the luxury of Ben being on his first contract but when I look back on the roster from those years its un real you see the starter and see his replacement waiting and getting a few snaps each game. We lost lots of great players but another one was already on the team.

I think to really build depth you have to be more ruthless and when a 5 th yr player asks for the keys to the vault you wish him luck and show him the door.
The Steelers not sure if its the coach the GM or the owner sometimes stick with their vets too long.

As for this playoff I would love for the Steelers to do something completely unexpected . Start the first defensive series as a 4 -3 we only have one decent inside LB anyways. Heyward ,Benton, Ogunjobi ,Leal might look pretty good out there.

That's one of the things that Cowher has over Tomlin was the un expected , like the game against the Colts where they cut it loose with the passing game when the Colts expected smash mouth football .

 

Ben was a shell of his former self the last three years he played. I loved Ben as a player but the Steelers held onto him about two years too long. In doing so, Mason Rudolph’s development was hindered as he never got the opportunity to prove that he could be the successor to Ben and the Steelers next franchise quarterback. I’ll always believe that Tomlin and the Steelers organizationally have botched Rudolph’s growth and development as an NFL quarterback. When he leaves in the off-season the Steelers will be in quarterback purgatory for the next decade plus as I now have serious reservations about Pickett’s ability to become that guy.

 

It`s true Ben was up and down in the playoffs. The two Super Bowls won with him, fortunately he was great when we needed it in those playoff runs. In the Super Bowl win over the Seahawks, it seemed to me Cowher was playing conservative as we had control of that game and not much was asked of Ben. With the game on the line vs Cards, Ben got the late TD drive done. Lost one against the Packers.

Obviously, with 3 Super Bowl appearances, he must have been doing something right regardless of the stats, but yes, it could have been better.

 

I’m happy they even made the playoffs. They were slated to be a 7 win team before the season started.

 

We saw what happened to the Browns last night by TURNING the ball over.

 

of course you never do.

 

he is the reason we won the super bowl as well.

what have we won with all the drafted players tomlin has helped draft?

 

Another Ben bashing thread. Not wasting my time reading 4 pages.

 

I updated some of your stats up above for context so the comparison is the same. These are career playoff stats of Big Ben and Terry Bradshaw regardless of head coach.

Ben Roethlisberger career stats in the playoffs:

23 starts
498 completions 788 attempts 5972 yards
63.2% completion rate
36 TDs
28 interceptions
8 fumbles
31 turnovers
86.7 passer rating
6 multi-interception games
Offense averaged 25.043 points per game


Terry Bradshaw career stats in the playoffs:

19 starts 14-5 record
261 completions 456 attempts 3833 yards
57.2% completion rate
30 TDs
26 interceptions
10 fumbles
36 turnovers
83.0 rating
8 multi-interception games
Offense averaged 24.789 points per game



I think you will find that the performance of the defenses in the playoffs is the determining factor of why one quarterback had more playoff success, and also determined the success rate of their coaches.

Average points of Steelers opponents in Ben Roethlisberger's entire playoff career: 25.347 points per game (23 games)

Average points of Steelers opponents in Ben Roethlisberger's playoff career under Mike Tomlin: 27.235 points per game (17 games)

Average points of Steelers opponents in Terry Bradshaw's playoff career: 17.157 points per game (19 games)

 

You gotta be able to score points now. Defense wins championships still holds to a degree but in a slightly different way. Hard to hold teams to low teens points anymore but you can't do what the Steelers have done in the last few playoff games and just get torched.

 

Wrong, I blamed Tomlin for sticking with Trubisky too long .

 

Those weren't my stats some guy on twitter provided those, he singled out just Ben's playoff stats under Tomlin.

 

I know. I saw the link. I just wanted to explain what I was doing.

 

Great points...when was the last time the defense played above average in a playoff game??? A long time...As the Polamalu 's and Harrisons got old, the next wave of defenders underachieved ( Cam, tuitt, ect) ...At times the offense was explosive, but the defense could not hold up, even sometimes not against the lesser teams in the playoffs

 

The coaching hasn't been up to par either. Some really bad schemes that offenses figured out and punished. I'm hoping that Austin and Tomlin finally have a scheme that is complementary to the talent of the roster and can matchup with modern offensive concepts. Adding a cover corner like Porter really helps, but with the injuries to Watt, the ILBs, and safeties it may be hard to blame them if they don't hold up.

Let's hope they can find a way to get it done tomorrow.

 

With Minkah and Kazee back maybe get Walker off the field on third downs.

 

Let's look at Cowher's last 3 seasons.
In 2004, the team went 15-1, and had the top defense in the league. Despite being the #1 AFC seed, they didn't reach the SB.

Next year, team had 4 more losses (11-5), and the defense dropped to #3. They were the last seed in the playoffs. They were also extraordinarily lucky health-wise: every offensive and defensive starter for the first game of the season also started in the SB (except for FB Dan Kreider).

The year after that, 3 more losses (8-8), and the defense dropped to #11. Missed the playoffs.

So the team Cowher built was one that was steadily declining over 3 years, and won the SB when the team was lucky enough to be the healthiest they've ever been over the last 20 years.

 

If we are doing Bradshaw comparisons, here is some fun history.

The team was good enough to win SBs in the 74 and 75 seasons.

For the 76 season, they had a historically great defense. Opposing teams average less than 10 points a game. Out of 14 games, 5 shutouts and 3 more without the other team scoring a TD.
They lost in the conference playoff game. Bradshaw and the offense floundered without Franco and Rocky, who were out with injuries. (Ben almost got the team past Denver in the 2015 season, despite being down two RBs, the #1 WR, and having a bad shoulder.)

For the 77 season, the team lost the division playoff game, when Bradshaw threw 3 INTs.

I'm as frustrated as many fans about Ben being erratic in the playoffs, and the team not being healthy late in most seasons.
But Bradshaw wasn't perfect either.

 

There’s been a good bit of debate on this board about who the greatest Steelers quarterback is and to me it’s a close race but comes down to one thing, performance in Super Bowls. Terry was $$$ at the biggest moments on the biggest stage. Aside for one magical drive (which was awesome), Ben was very pedestrian in Super Bowls. But we’re fortunate as fans over the last half century to get to witness two of the best ever who happened to play for the Steelers.

 

The blame starts with AR2 AR2 is too cheap to put a winning product on the field.