Everything That Was Bad Tonight Falls On The Coach... TOMLIN

Le'Veon Bell got injured and was ruled out for the season half way into the season. One of the most injured teams in the league every year. One of the most injured positions in the league. They did absolutely nothing to find a back-up running back for DWill. There was plenty of veterans that would protect the ball when you needed them the most like Steven Jackson, Pierre Thomas, etc. They had 2.5 months to find a reliable back-up running back and get him into the offense. INSTEAD we limped into the playoffs with a question mark at the rb position and 2 years in a row they cost us a playoff game. THIS FALLS ON THE COACH! Anything Toussaint does falls on Tomlin.

No punt returner... How hard is it to find somebody to fair catch or block and let the ball go into the endzone?

Our punter blows... Why did they trade Brad Wing?

Boykin looked great tonight and apparently wasn't good enough to play all season.

Cutting Ventrone was horrible.

For somebody that loves taking the ball to start. Why wouldn't you take the wind at your back to start? Their whole gameplan revolved around the 1st quarter. Took all their big shots, settled for field goals, and gave up horrible field position that resulted in 6 points for Denver on that decision alone. Wind seemed to have no factor late in the game or 4th quarter.

Look, I like Tomlin but he's a horrible coach.

 

any refuse to let his kicker make a 50 yard field goal attempt

 

Again, when is it Tomlin job to bring in players

 

I guess he's saying he likes him as a person, but not as a coach...

 

Yeah? I think he's a good person. I'm glad he's our coach but if I want this team to win #7 I need to keep my bias out of it. If I am looking at him as a "coach" and the coaching decisions he makes... He's horrible. He's nothing more then a players coach.

Obviously not his job to go out there and sign them but who's job is it to relay the message?... Hey! I think we need to try and go out and get a back-up rb for DWill in case he gets injured. Hey! We need a punt returner, last name not Jones. Hey! We need a punter that doesn't blow.

 

Schizophrenia is a real beeyotch, ain't it?

 

I guess you are cool with losing our 2nd playoff game in a row because of a back-up running back. We are one of the only teams in the league that doesn't have 3 running backs getting touches throughout the whole year.

 

Honestly for this game I think Tomlin did a great job. With all the injuries to the team and with the best WR in the game today out for your team, it could have really mentally affected the team. I think he fired the guys up, seemed more vocal in this game and they could have won this game if not for a bad break on the fumble.

 

Two other things jumps out at me on this loss in regards to coaching that has been repeatable for a few years now.

We played way two soft on defense for many of Denver's pass plays. Did not catch the name but on one play Denver had a 2nd or 3rd and 10 and the d-back was 11 yards off of Sanders. 11 yards! Take a tape measure and string out 33 feet. That is half my house! When you have that much room to catch the ball and pass it there is zero pressure on the offense. Quarterback knows the d-back can't jump the route. Also lets the receiver build up running momentum after the catch to make cuts or stiff arm like Sanders did one play.

Peyton threw a few ducks and not giving him so much room might have made him overthrow and create a few more wobblers which then makes it easier to jump the route or have a few more drops.

I would have thought that seeing all these rookies and 2nd/3rd/4th string qb's torch us for 300+ yards playing the soft zone we would of learned. I know Peyton is a vet but we all know he does not have the crisp passes that he did 3 years ago. I think he would of thrown 2-3 extra wobblers if we would of not given him such easy targets. The other thing soft zone does is kill field position. When you give all those easy yards up the other team is always on your side of the field. We do a good job of making them kick field goals but if we do stop them before a field goal it is always around the 50 or our 35 so guess where the punt ends up. I would love to see a stat on the teams in the NFL that are the worst on getting off the field on 3rd and five and longer. I would bet we are in the worst 3 to 5 teams in the entire NFL.

The second part that upset me was that we had way to many 1st and 2nd down runs that went for 1-2 yards. It seemed we were 3rd and 7 or 8 the entire game. We had 19 rushes for 80 yards or so and 65 of them (give or take) were on the 2 end around plays. So we basically had 17 rushes for 15 yards when we hand off to a running back. I wish half of those would of been play action. We averaged 14 yards a pass.

Hate to say it but our game plan should of been like the Patriots. Use one of the first two downs for play action or short safe passes. We were averaging 5-7 or more yards on those. Much easier to convert a 3rd and 2 or 3. Defense then cant't forget their lanes and all out rush.

The fumble was big as we did have momentum at the time but it was on their side of the field and they had the ball the entire game around that yardage as starting field position.

Sorry for the long post but I had to vent. I have to be honest that I thought the game was going to tougher for us than it was. We had a very good chance to win that game.

 

As much as I've ridden MT about his lack of tactical ability - this one isn't on him at all. It was a tough game, without 2 of our biggest stars, on the road against the # 1 seed (and # 1 pass D). We kept it close and unfortunately one play made the difference. Not going to fault him for this game.

 

Denver won the toss and deferred, the Steelers had no choice in the matter. I thought Colbert made the personnel decisions

 

Tomlin did darn well this season considering the injuries, especially in the playoffs. Go back and watch the 1976 AFC Championship against the Raiders when Franco and Rocky were both out. The offense couldn't do jack with Reggie Harrison in at RB. I guess anything Harrison did fell on Chuck Noll for not somehow finding a good 3rd string RB that wasn't already taken right before the playoffs started?

 

Just a heads up. Here"s another "I hate Tomlin thread" that was started earlier.
http://thesteelersfans.com/forums/threads/thank-you-tomlin-you-moron.13901/

 

Well to a point you are correct but you can't blame missed tackles on the coach, that is basic football and we had a lot of missed tackles today which gave the Broncos good field position. However they were not playing that good and our D held them most of the game or it could have really been a wipe out for us.

 

I know so that means Tomlin chose the wind direction. According to the gameday thread having the wind at our backs in the 4th would be crucial but Peyton with his noodle arm had his best drive of the game against the wind. The wind was only a factor in the 1st half really so choosing to go with it to start probably changes the outcome of this game.

Colbert is the GM. Tomlin makes roster decisions. You think Colbert went out and got Vick and Jacoby Jones on his own?

Why are you bringing up 1976? I'm talking about losing the 2nd playoff game in 2 years because of back-up running backs. You can keep blaming injuries but I blame the coach who had 2.5 months to get somebody ready in case DWill got injured and apparently didn't do jack ****.

I love how when you are critical of Tomlin you automatically hate him.

 

But, didn't you hear how impressive he was in the meetings with Nantz and Simms with all his clever phrase-ology? That's what counts, right? As long as coach cliche is in charge, we'll continue to lose games we have no business losing, and continue wasting a HOF quarterback.

 

Sounds like Stephen Wright's "I was going to be a professional dancer but the music always threw me off! So then I thought I'd be a psychologist - but I really hate people!"

 

It was only windy when we had the ball!

 

The Steelers were +7.5 underdogs, they weren't expected to win anyway missing the best WR in the game in AB and starting a 3rd string RB.

 

Gentleman, my take away from this game is we need a dominate pass rusher.

 

Who cares? Everybody played good enough to win. They lost because of a back-up running back AGAIN figure out why and theirs your problem.

Really? 2nd playoff game in a row lost because of a back-up running back. I think it would be how important that position is.

 

No need to try and rehash this loss, they played a conservative game plan and the fumble late in the game was the big turning point, denvers offense was nothing to brag about, 5 field goals and a TD scored on the ground is nothing for them to hang their hat on with the pats coming to town, manning was a non factor, so lets write this game off as a feeble attempt to protect a 1 point lead.........

 

There are 2 ways to look at yesterday's game and the season as a whole:

Perspective #1 - Is your perspective. It is all the coaches fault that we underperformed this year. It is the coaches fault that we didn't have a secondary. Blah blah blah.

Perspective #2 - Maybe the team only got as far as it did because the coaches kept them together as a group. Isn't it possible that we could have been the Baltimore Ravens this year? Lose a couple of key guys and fall apart. We played this game with Ben hurt, missing our top 2 RBs, missing our #1 and probably the best WR in the game, missing our starting C, and missing our starting LT, but somehow until about 4 minutes left, we were actually WINNING the game.

Maybe it is Tomlin's fault that we lost this game, or maybe the fact that we were that close was do to his coaching. It is really hard to say which, but my guess is...he wasn't to blame.

 

We have a REALLY good back up running back...he got hurt, too - remember? Last week, our third stringers were the heroes of the game. I am not about to put this loss on one player and one play. Toussant played well in a tough situation. Even the best fumble. And I am certainly not going to blame Tomlin because our third string RB fumbled.