defense getting young in a hurry

I hate that hoke has gone down and the same with smith, but this will force us to address the nose tackle position in the draft. when you look at it this years draft will add alot of youth. hoke, smith, hampton, and farrior could be gone and their replacements will be drafted. the linebackers will get young with the play of worilds and sylvester. the secondary will get younger because we will have to draft a saftey. and the dline turns into one of the youngest positions on the team.

 

Hoke and Smith's careers are almost assuredly over. I am not sure Sylvester is starting material. He has gotten run over and seems lost during regular plays. he is a stud on ST though. Don't forget our two promising CBs, Brown and Allen

 

I don't see why this is something to get excited about. Until this season this was a position we never had to worry about and was of the strongest at starter and back up. Now they are both very questionable.

I'll take older and all pro any day over young and not as good and inexperienced. Remember, we still have to find a long term back-up QB, one or maybe two guards, a middle LB, and some DB's. I know we supposedly have a decent pass defense this year, but I'm still not sold on it. The AFC teams keep drafting young and fast talent at WR. Like it or not Flacco seems to be getting better, at least against us and the bungles are stepping up.

 

Definitely not "happy" about it.
But I am glad we have the depth that we do, to replace them.
Every team in the league has areas of weakness, and I can`t think of one of them, that can replace their "starting" talent, with better players than we can.
Yes, we definitely could use help on the oline, and in the defensive backfield...
But overall, as a team, most other teams can`t replace their "superstars", like we can.
The positions, where we don`t have an "outstanding" player to begin with, we really aren`t losing a whole lot, when their backup comes in, anyhow....and we are used to "covering for our weaknesses", and getting to the playoffs, if not the Bowl, anyhow...Year after year after year...
Can yinz name me a more complete team, at every position, and their backups, than the Stillers?!?
Green Bay did a good job last year, and are carrying on this year, but what about the rest?
Pats? Saints? Giants? Eagles?(with all they paid... hahaha), Jets?, Niners? Texans? Bungles? Who else is hot this year that I forgot?.....
I will stick with the way we do it in the `Burgh, thank you very much!!!
(p.s., and yeah, dammit, "oldschool", yer right... the Ravens are doing it to.... but that`s only cause they copied off us, and Newsome remembers what it was like to play against us)...

 

Can I add a reliable kicker to your list?

 

Heyward, McLendon, Hood
Worilds, Timmons, Sylvester, Woodley
C Brown?, C Allen? Mundy, to-be-determined or to-be-drafted Safety?

IMO, we do need to see the rookies & young ones perform first.
Some are promising, but none -other than Timmons & Woodley- are proven commodities.

If I get the message, you're optimistic (so do I), and hopefully most of our aging-D problems can be solved with in-house players. They need reps to be evaluated and with a bit of luck, you're right.

Besides any performance issue, I'll miss Farrior, Hampton, A Smith and even Foote. So many years...

 

A look at 2013...

DL: Hood - McLendon/(draft pick) - Heyward
LB: Woodley - Timmons - (draft pick) - Harrison/Worilds ......Carter #3 or #4 depending on Harrison
CB: Taylor - Brown - Allen - Lewis/(draft pick)
S: Polamalu - (draft pick)

The big news here is that I have both Brown and Allen penciled in as successful picks and starters. The underlined draft picks are likely musts... we must replace Farrior and Clark. Sylvester and Mundy could be good stop-gaps, but I'm not convinced either of them should be starting. McLendon is still a question mark, but right now I like him a lot. That pick can be a later round than the ILB and S. CB is also still a question mark, but if Brown and Allen both turn out like we hope and think, we'll be in great shape.

 

I would like to see more on game action on alot of these guys before

I can determine if they are true Steelers. I want to see more of Brown, Allen ,Sylvester,Heyward
Carter, Ivy.Worilds Lets see if they are truly ready for Varsity action? And not Jv's.Once again
OG,NT, ILB, saftey must be our top priority whether it be in the draft or FA.

 

Our kicker is fine....I am a lot more worried about our D than a kicker...mnay guys out there can kick a 40 yard FG with good accuracy

 

I just don't think we have a backup linebacker just waiting for his turn.Harrison was ready as a backup. hampton,smith,and even hoke were all impact players.I dont see that from the current backups.The youngers cant be any worst then what we have now.

 

I have been noticing a lot of posts similar to this. defva, I'm not singling you out here, just using this quote as an example of a trend I see. If I were reading this board without any knowledge of the team or their current record I would think the Steelers were a mediocre or poor team. Sometimes we all need to step back and look around the league before we make statements like this. It certainly could be worse than we already have. Ask a Jags fan, or a Browns fan, or a Colts fan, or a Dolphins fan, or a Seahwks fan, or a Cheifs fan, or a Titans fan, or a Panthers fan, or a fan of about 90% of the league. The Pittsburgh Steelers nearly won the Superbowl last year, are in the playoffs almost every year and are always a threat to win any game against any opponent at any time. I appreciate the desire to improve and get caught up in this myself sometimes, but lets not forget how fortunate we are to be Steeler fans.

 

I'm not trying to argue here, just discuss...

Yes, as Steelers fans we have a higher bar than most teams fans. But, that's a given, do we have to state a disclaimer on every post that we are lucky to be fans of this team and happy with organization? I think that is a given, so we move on to the topic, right?

I try not to use the worst example to make my case. Especially in sports! We are trying to win the Superbowl here. I hate coming close and picking at the bottom of the draft as much as I hate getting bounced before the playoffs, but at least there is some consolation in a decent draft position to numb the pain. Not winning the SB and picking deep sucks. Especially when you know good ahead of time, just not good enough. So, with that in mind we need to figure out not just how to compete with the best, but rise above the top 5 teams. Usually we are there and in position to make those slight changes.

 

I completely understand that we set a higher bar than most. Like I said I also get caught up in this sometimes. I just notice that sometimes the criticisms of the organization start to outweigh the compliments. I don't expect any MB to be full of nothing but praise, but I think that we all can get hung up on the negative too much.

 

But, sometimes the errors just seem so obvious to fix. I know it isn't always easy, but what seem to be them ignoring problems is perplexing.

 

Giving a follow up to this topic:

McLendon was rushing McCoy when he had a chance (0.5 sacks).
Worilds played a great game today: (2 sacks)
Gay is making his case (last 3 or 4 games with crucial INTs. Not giving the starting CB job for 2012 to him, but he's improving)
Mundy has made some plays, and I guess today he had his 2nd pick called back this year (actually he has 1 that counted -KC- and 2 called back -NE & CLE-)
Cortez Allen played a bit, but McCoy didn't target his receiver (which could mean that it was well covered).
C Brown has excelled on ST, and will possibly be on the mix for next year's Nickel CB

With LeBeau using 4 CB & 1 S on Nickel (instead of the traditional 3 CB & 2 S) against 4 & 5 WR sets, our young CBs can have some reps this year.

Some observations:
Difficult to envision Clark as our Starting FS next year. Worilds is -as of right now- an above average OLB that can still develop.
With Hood injured, Heyward will probably have a shot at showing what he's capable of (I wasn't aware he's the son of the late Craig Heyward, RB of the Saints).