What are your expectations this year for the Steelers defense?

You gave Tomlin too much credit on thing he can't even control,like the last play against the ravens last season

 

High

 

That dumb call by Haley on 4th and short didn't help, let's run wide against a good fast defense what could go wrong .

 

Well, he missed so deal with it that's football .

 

On at least four of those turnovers by the Patriots the Steelers forced them by making plays, oh please stop making excuses for Lamar and the Ravens he has losses against Pickett.

 

Ben against Jacksonville in 2017 7 turnovers, I'm sure you will come up with some more excuses .

 

I never defended the regular season game he had vs Jaguars in 2017....

 

It was such a ugly game.Both team did not deserve to win that game.The steelers were outplayed and outcoached and the pats could not protect the ball

 

I think this is the thing about coaches in general. They get too much credit and blame when they can't really control anything.

All coaches do is till the soil. The seeds have to grow.

Harrison didn't get that pick-6 because Tomlin told him to. Just like Ben didn't make that tackle because Cowher told him to.

Ben didn't throw the pick-6 in the GB SB because Tomlin told him to. And Pouncey didn't have the worst snap of his life because Tomlin told him to.

Having a good coach is important. But coaches aren't as important as the key players on the team. Particularly the QB.

 

The QB is always the most important thing for a team but coaching matter big time too.This is important having good scheme,put the players in good situation,etc....Like remember when Jared Goff was so awful under Jeff Fisher in his rookie season,he was like a all-time draft bust.In year 2 under McVay,he was one of the best QB in the nfl

If coaching was not that important,they would not have 80-100 millions contract

 

But, but, but... McVay is O for forever against Popcorn. Meanwhile, McVay has the Rams competing for Super Bowls (winning one) since he started as HC there... while Tomlin was one and done every time Steelers made playoffs.

 

I don't disagree that coaches are important. And I never said they were "not that important".

I was just saying that their importance is often over-rated (for good things and bad things). Because they are less important than the key players on the team.

Note: This is something that you apparently agreed with in the post I replied to when talking about people crediting Tomlin for things. I agree with you there. And am also pointing out that this is also true when people blame Tomlin for things. He was a good (but not great IMO) coach. But the team's success and failure under Tomlin was driven much more by Ben than it was by Tomlin.

I also don't think it's all that surprising that a guy who's gone on to be an average to above average QB (under different coaches) was bad as a rookie and better in his 2nd year.

McVay certainly helped. Because he is a good coach.

But my guess is that his impact is over-rated.

Rams are back to being the new hotness after leading the league in scoring last year.

But it's also worth remembering that they have been outscored by the Steelers in two of the last four years (2024, and 2022).

And it's not because our offenses were good in those years.

One of these years was 2022. When Matt Canada was running the offense and our QBs were Kenny and Mitch.

I'm sure that you'd agree that McVay wasn't suddenly worse than Matt Canada at designing offenses in 2022.

 

It's not uncommon to see a QB be better in their second season compared to their rookie season, but Goff had a historically bad rookie season, almost as bad that Ryan Leaf.

Every team can have a down year after a lot of success, and 2022 was one of those for the Rams and 2025 for the Chiefs. Remember in 2024, the Rams had so many injuries to start the season, a big reason why they were 1-4, but they won the division, won a playoff game, and were the only team to give the Eagles a scare in the 2024 playoffs. The Steelers had a collapse that year.

The Rams also developed Kevin Dotson much better than the Steelers.

Sometimes a coach has no control over a play who can swing the season in the other direction, for better or for worse, but over an entire season, their impact can be massive.

 

When I read the bold part, I think it says that you believe that the players are more important than the coaches. Especially in individual games or across single seasons. Which I agree with. There's no universe in which Canada was a better "OC" than McVay even though we scored more points than they did in 2022.

And that when you look over the long arc of a career, you'll see that good coaches have better results than bad coaches. Which I also agree with. I think this is the result of good coaches generally creating favorable conditions for players to succeed.

My guess is that McVay (who I think is a good coach) will have career success that is comparable to Tomlin's. Because I believe they are both good coaches. My guess is that McVay will also not end up being a great coach. But I could be wrong.

And if he does end up being remembered as a great coach, it will likely be because he ends up having a generational QB on his team. This is basically what happened to Reid. A consistently good coach. Who then found the best QB of a generation (who still has a chance to be remembered as the GOAT). Just like Cower doesn't get into the hall without Ben. And Tomlin likely doesn't have anywhere near as much success without Ben.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Stafford retires. I wonder how many years he has left (currently 38)?

People talk **** about Goff (in part because McVay kind of threw him under the bus when the Rams couldn't do anything offensively when they lost the SB to the Pats), but he's thrown for ~ 4,500 yards in each of the last 4 years (4/5 years in Det) and 2/5 years with the Rams. Why do you think McVay thought he couldn't win with him? He's a really good QB.

 

When you have a historically bad rookie season like Goff did, it's not easy to bounce back, but McVay helped him a lot. Goff is a very good QB, but he was on pace of getting destroyed by Jeff Fisher, who was a completely outdated HC at that point in his career.

Goff had a very good career in Detroit, but he also had Ben Johnson as OC in three of those years. In 2025, without Johnson, the Lions' offense had very good numbers, but they had problems against good defenses, which wasn't the case when they had Johnson as their OC and the lions did not make the playoffs because of that