Ok Rooney Wake Up

Explain why Shanny the Younger went 6-10 last season then? Tomlin won how many games with Duck and Mason?

 

In San Francisco, Shanahan has his team playing for the #1 seed in the NFC with half of his team out for most of the season, including a backup QB for a stretch.

I get what you're saying, but there is talent on the Steelers roster. Mike Tomlin has also had a very large say in which players are on the roster and who they removed from the roster.

Pickens and Tomlin's problems with him was very well known and public. Pickens was traded for far below his value because of that, and it was Mike Tomlin that couldn't work with him. Pickens is now a Pro Bowl player and is having a monster year with the Cowboys.

Mike Tomlin wanted DK Metcalf. Tomlin thought Pickens was a problem, but they now have Metcalf who is not as good as Pickens AND Metcalf now has a bigger discipline infraction against him at the worst time possible than Pickens ever did. He didn't want to pay Pickens, but he had no problem wanting Metcalf and paying him over $30 million per. Tomlin doesn't get credit for getting Pickens replacement, paying him a fortune, and then watching him go off the rails to cost the team at nearly 30 times the salary.

Kevin Dotson was in Mike Tomlin's doghouse. He kept him off the field and the team traded him. Dotson now plays at a Pro Bowl or All Pro level in the last two seasons with the Rams. The Steelers got a 4th and a 5th round pick for Dotson. The Rams got Dotson and a 5th and a 6th round picks from the Steelers. That's highway robbery and a complete failure by the coaching staff. That was all Mike Tomlin's decision to move on from him. Dotson wasn't and isn't a malcontent. By all accounts he's a good dude and an excellent football player that borders on dominant. The Rams now have a dominant running game and offense. Dotson is a very large part of that and their best offensive lineman.

Those two players alone were in Mike Tomlin's hands and played on the weakest units on the team, yet he couldn't make it work and had them sent away with minimal return in trades. Mike Tomlin sending away 2 Pro Bowl/All Pro players that were on rookie deals is damning.

It is also Mike Tomlin that is in love with over-the-hill, veteran quarterbacks. He doesn't know how to develop a young quarterback, and he has pushed to sign the veterans that have failed the last few seasons under his coaching. Rodgers has played pretty well this season in stretches, but we all know that at 42 years old, there is nowhere to go but down after this season. He is not the future of this team.

Tomlin doesn't get points for having a weak roster when he is the primary reason the roster is weak in several areas. Adding a Pro Bowl/All Pro WR and a Pro Bowl/All Pro OL to this roster would certainly elevate it to elite, and he had both of them in the building and cheap. Tomlin didn't want them.

Khan and his staff have drafted well since he has taken over, and the team has some really good young talent. You could argue that it is Mike Tomlin's misuse of, under evaluation of, and inability to develop young talent that has hurt the Steelers and is the primary cause of the current struggles.

 

An outlier, much like Tomlin's last competitive season as a true contender.

Look at their body of work the past 10 years. Which one has a true Super Bowl contender over that time (several times) and which one hasn't?

It's a rhetorical question, but if you feel like trying to answer, knock yourself out.

 

Crazy the 49ers have a chance to be in the first seed with a depleted team!

 

Saddest for an all Pittsburgh sport person cause the Steelers are far better then the Pirates and Penguins. As far away that the Steelers are the other two are light years behind.

Pittsburgh sports is down the tubes and I see no way back due to the almighty dollar.

 

I think that you are assigning Tomlin powers I am not certain he has. Everyone assumes Tomlin didn't want Pickens. Not sure that has ever been actually verified. I think the Rooney's weren't going to pay him. That drove the decision, but I don't know any more than you.

Dotson is not a needle mover. The OL has been far from an issue.

Mike Tomlin's biggest sin was staying with Matt Canada.

The vet QB thing is due to a lack of a better option on the table. The Steelers let Colbert draft Pickett to sew up his legacy. Colbert got the evaluation wrong. Then Tomlin and company stayed with Canada too long. The only positive is that they got off Pickett and didn't waste draft resources on another flawed QB.

Until they solve the QB issue, the ceiling is 9 wins. That's it. No one in the NFL is winning a ton of games with similar caliber QB play. I might give you Shanny the Younger with Purdy. But I can not believe I am typing this....Purdy is better than anyone Steelers have had at the position since Ben. And the rest of that reoster is dripping talent.

Steelers are just not a well constructed roster. That is an organizational directive. They have been mandated to be competitive every season. No teardown and rebuild. So the roster pieces don't align age wise and there are still pieces that were drafted for the old franchise QB trying for one last ride attempting to fit with an actual reworking of the offense to something new. It is a bit of a mess. I see more ownership in that than the coaching staff.

 

Don't get me wrong, the Steelers need to move on from Tomlin. Every person in every job has a shelf life and Tomlin's and the Steelers' has expired.

But...to say he hasn't been a good coach makes no sense to me. The guy is 10th all time in wins as a NFL HC with a winning % over .600. That is not an accident. The league is pretty brutal and if he were truly awful as some of you think there's no way he racks up the record he has. He should go, but he's a quality coach. I think the same thing about Harbaugh in Baltimore. The guy's a good coach, but it's time to move on.

As for our next coach or coaches that we coulda, shoulda, woulda, anyone who thinks the ARII would have hired Vrabel clearly doesn't know how the Rooneys operate. The next HC will most likely be an up and coming defensive co-ordinator or assisstant in his 30's with no prior HC experience. Someone who will be HC for 15+ years. That's Noll, Cowher, Tomlin, and whoever's next. That's not Vrabl or someone like him. I'd be very surprised if the next HC doesn't fit that profile. Think Shane Bowen, Matt Daniels, or Chris Shula.

 

Give Shanny the Steelers roster over the same period and he is maybe a .500 coach.

 

Tomlin is this teams CEILING he has proven it time and time and time again.

Most overrated HC of all-time, his playoff reocrd is absolutely awful. He wins a playoff game about once every 5 years...all the power and time he has had at what has he done with it?

Turned The Steelers into the league's most mediocre, while also going nowehere team, the master of annual disaster.

He's had at least 5-6 years more thasn he would hnave got anwhere else and that's being uber generous to him.

This team cannot progress with him holding it back. Every season is the same. If you're happy with that, great.

 

The 49ers have a good chance to be at home the rest of the season. The Superbowl is on their home field in San Francisco.

 

I am more than happy to watch meaningful football through the entire regular season.

I do not think the Steelers have the talent to win more than a handful of games. I think they are playing above their heads with house money.

This is where I disagree with most on here and other Steelers fan discussion spaces. I do not think the Steelers have the requisite talent to win playoff games. I am shocked that they have been making playoff games and not picking in the top 10 of the draft since Ben left. I think with most head coaches this team is the Browns.

 

There is truth in what you're saying. I don't think there is a coach in the league who is better at making chicken salad out of chicken s**t. He excels at it. But he is partly responsible for having the chicken s**t roster to begin with. So there is the problem year after year Tomlin finds a way to scratch out a winning season only to get wiped out in the playoffs. I think he would do well to move on to a real crappy franchise like the Titans. He would revitalize a bad team like that and would get them to win 9 games and be celebrated for doing it.

 

we've won a playoff game in 4 of 19 years.... That isn't that impressive. We haven't won a playoff game in 9 seasons. Also not good. There really isn't any defending it anymore.

 

That's probably accurate. The Steeler's have exceeded their Vegas preseason win total 14 of 19 seasons under Tomlin. They clearly overperform vs general public sentiment (that's opposed to Steeler fans sentiment) on a regular basis.

 

If you do not agree with this, please feel free to disregard.

This is where I think Tomlin falls short - Steelers fan expectations. Steelers fans seem to think they are backing an annual SB contender. No idea where this comes from. I often wonder if local sports coverage in Pittsburgh is setting unrealistic expectations? I do not know. But when you read "non-partisan" takes on the Steelers chances, they are usually not considered a contender (even in Ben's prime they were rarely the favorites) and recently have been picked to be a losing team.

The difference between what I see as fan expectations on the internet and what outside observers have is such a big gap. No idea why.

 

PUT ON A LITTLE BIT OF MAKEUP

 

I think the opposite is true, look at his choices for co-ordinators over the years since he got carried by DLB and his defense...

He's actually created nothing of his own, he's been carried first by Cowher's team and the Polamalu, Hampton, Harrison era defense, then Big Ben carried him for years and then for the last 6-7 years he's been carried by TJ Watt and latterly also Chris Boswell's heroics.

He hasn't built a contender under his own steam - now he's run out of people to carry him...look at the results can't even get win a playoff game and an annual collapse, this year he's looking at collapso #2.

 

The Tomlin coping is ridiculous, he'd have been fired 5-6 times already on any other team. His record given the latitude and power he's had has been appalling. How can you achieve so little in 19 seasons?

 

Are their coaches that are not carried by their star players?

The NFL is a star driven league. You either have them and win or you do not and you lose.

 

19 years and built nothing, you can see what someone like AR brings to the table with play-calling, BB - top defensive mind -what does Tomlin bring to the table exactly?

Nothing. All these years as a HC in the NFL and there's nothing he's noted for, offensieve guru? nope, defensive guru? nope - He can't even manage the clock...

But if you're happy with never-ending mediocrity and annual collapses then Tomlin is your man.

 

I'll start off with acknowledging that Tomlin is a very good coach who is overachieving with the roster post Ben. I won't say the Steelers needed a couple of two to four win seasons and tank to rebuild the roster, but relying on geriatric players in the secondary just to maintain his .500+ streak is also silly. I would've rathered the organization have embraced full rebuild when Ben retired and could've stomached a couple of six and seven win seasons, and even overachieved somewhere along the way. This franchise is no closer to a SB than it was 365 days ago, so what are we doing as far as organizational planning? I see yourself admitting that the roster construction sucks; therefore, you have to admit that Tomlin has a major hand in roster development as far back as late January at the Sr. Bowl, each year.

Unless Tomlin is willing to embrace a rebuild, then Tomlin can walk to NY or Tennessee as far as I'm concerned. Tomlin himself says that this is a results oriented business and if he doesn't get a playoff win this year, we're talking bout nine years without a playoff win. That's clearly a lack of results and that's no fault of his own because of poor roster construction and poor coaching staff construction. So with everything said, what makes me think that Tomlin will completely reinvent himself and put together a top notch innovative coaching staff and embraces a rebuild?

 

The unrivaled genius BB that is getting worked in the ACC? That guy?

In all seriousness, BB is a defensive mastermind. No doubt.

Take a look at his non-Tom Brady seasons. How does he look now?

 

I can agree with that.

I do think that the lack of a rebuild is an ownership mandate not necessarily a Tomlin only decision. It is an organizational philosophy you can see in every decision post the hiring of Noll.

 

What’s sad is this is probably how he actually thinks.