The Price We Pay to Win 2 Superbowls

The front office made a conscientious decision to keep a Super Bowl winning team together and make another run. They were successful in that we made it to another one, but now we're paying the price. Unfortunately the way it's set up success also hurts teams in the long run. We had a almost a decade as an upper echelon team leaving us with scraps for draft picks each and every round.

 

Well that certainly was polite of them!

Seriously though I do agree. A measure of what we are seeing is the results of our continued success and the that we pressed for a third super bowl during the no cap year. That last part hurt us more than anything now because we're constantly up against the cap and fighting for any amount of free money it seems. On the other hand you have to say the cap has even good for the nfl because teams really do rise and fall much quicker these days it seems.

 

I guess the 2 INT's that Ben threw helped us out, or Ben completely ignoring a wide open Heath late in the game and instead throwing it to Mike Wallace who was being smothered. Yeah, lets keep blaming Mendenhall when our QB let us down when it mattered the most.

 

Well, I'm with Shaner on this one!

 

Me too.

 

Overall a fair trade....2 SB and really should have been 3. There's a long line of teams that would have taken our last decade.

 

The NFL has changed--or is in the midst of changing. Gone are the days in which you put together a dominating team. I doubt we will see a "dynasty" ever again, certainly not any time soon. We are moving more toward youth and the schemes needed to accommodate players who will be starting right out of college. We will see more college coaches having success in the NFL. We will see more read-option, more athletic QBs. We will see more turnover in rosters.

So now you need to things: an ability to draft very well and the right head coach to motivate and teach young players.

You can now go from being a bad team to a contender over night. Look at the Seahawks. Look at the 49ers. Heck, look at the Ravens. Look at the Colts. Look at the Bengals. Look at the Redskins.

The team that "looks" the best weeks 1-17 is not necessarily the team to beat anymore. I would say that the "best" team in the NFL rarely wins the Super Bowl anymore. There is so much parity (and so much now decided by the refs--see the Jets-Bucs game yesterday) that almost every team is a good/bad break away from a title shot.

 

Yes I agree about glad we won 2 and got to a 3rd Superbowl but then again we have been good for so long I have become spoiled of our own success and want it to continue. Mediocre is not the Steeler way, at least lately, last 10 years or so. One down year was followed by a strong year. I think this year a lot of us are scared that last year is continuing into this year. One game a season does not make but again there is so much to fix. Tomlin and staff definitely have their work cut out for them.

 

It's times like these that I wish I had saved the post Delzjc made on the old board.

Essentially, he pointed out that even in winning seasons, we have for the last decade or so played down to the wire. When luck goes our way - a tip ball, a mis-tackle, the right calls made at the right time - then we were great. When the same plays go another way, we aren't.

I think last season was an exception, because it was lacklustre in a way I hadn't seen since Cowher's last season. And I'm certainly not saying that Sunday was all "bad luck" - there was terrible execution.

But we also have to remember this: there are no huge gaps between the best and worst in the NFL anymore. So those moments - a fumble, a tip ball, the wrong player in the huddle, taking a sack rather than throwing, throwing rather than taking a sack - all of these moments count far more than in previous decades.

Remember, after all of that debacle, we were still one score away from tying.

 

didn't hurt the Patriots ... they've been drafting late since ... idk ... 2004?

 

If coach Bill knew how to draft, he'd have more than 3 SB with Brady. Good coach, poor talent evaluator...

 

After the Denver game in 2011, I posted on this board that I felt the loss spelled the end of an era. I wrote then that the next time the Steelers would be a Super Bowl contender, it would be with a different cast of characters.
Some people jumped down my throat, saying that the Steelers would be in the running every year. As the smoke clears from Sunday's debacle, I stand by what I wrote then.

I see this team in the past 2 years as following the pattern of its legendary 70s forebears did in the 1980's. Like those teams, this one won some Super Bowls, got older, saw players get hurt, decline, depart- and have mediocre drafts due to the low position brought by success. It's unfortunate, and it happens, and it is extremely frustrating to watch this current team- just as it was to watch the Steelers in 85-86, for example.

I did like what the team did today to pick up the pieces, and this team will be playing better by the end of the year. No where to go but up.

 

How much of this do you think is salary cap related? I think the problem with winning the Super Bowl is you then have to lock up your qb for tons of money and you have to lock up your best defensive player for big money and then other guys want the big money and it's sort of an avalanche ya know? Doesn't it seem like most teams now get licked by the cap when they win the Super Bowl? I mean in these days there's no WAY you keep Lambert, Ham, Blount, Shell, Greene, Holmes, White, Greenwood, Webster, Bradshaw, Harris, Swann, Stallworth, because you KNOW teams would have KILLED for just ONE of those guys and we had them ALL. Don't you think this is also worth considering?

 

I think your right on the money. I just hope I am not dead before I see the greatest franchise on the planet in another Superbowl.

 

No analogy is perfect, blountforce, but I just wrote about the patterns I'm seeing and what the current team reminds me of. History doesn't really repeat itself as much as you see trends recycle. Although they weren't key players- the Steelers in 1976-77 did rid themselves of some really good players - Glen Edwards, Jimmy Allen, Jim Clack, Dave Brown, Frank Lewis- for largely financial reasons. They could have used all of those guys in 1980 once age and injuries hit, because all of them were very good starters for their new teams then.

Good point though- the current cap is perhaps a reason why this Steelers dynasty won "only" 2 Super Bowls where their predecessors won 4. Either way, I feel Dynasty II is done. However, the cap works both ways, and is now a reason for the parity in the league. It taketh away, but perhaps one day soon it will giveth again.

 

I totally agree. It's one of the biggest double edged swords in sports really. I agreed with your previous post too. I was just saying the cap is something else to consider. Can you imagine how over the cap we would be trying to keep talent of that caliber THESE day??? LOL.

 

It would have been interesting then, and the cap is just another one of a million reasons why the NFL was so much more fun in the 1970s than it is today. It would not have just been the Steelers then though. Looking at the 70s, the league was dominated by a handful of teams- Steelers, Raiders, Dolphins, Cowboys, Vikings, Rams, Redskins, while most others were also-rans for the entire decade. The cap would have derailed those other great franchises as well.

 

I know it's just one game, but Chip Kelly might be the latest college coach to look like a genius.

 

Yeah I definitely missed out on the best decade in the NFL ever.

 

I think this is one of those gimmicky offenses that will look good for a year or so and then once people get some tape on it and guys like DL get to really evaluate it it will slow down. It looks good tonight though. The Skins D are doing it some favors though.