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Mike Tomlin Says Randy Fichtner Has Been ‘Fantastic’ This Year

Discussion in 'Steelers Talk' started by Hawaii 5-0, Dec 31, 2019.

  1. The Glory Days

    The Glory Days Well-Known Member

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    Wait, is that power play goals for or against? I thought we were giving up more ppg than that.
     
  2. DukeDukeDaDaDa

    DukeDukeDaDaDa Well-Known Member

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    But hey at least you can keep saying "3 coaches in 50 years" that's all that matters right? According to some people that arbitrary stat is the reason they won 6 SBs.
     
  3. DukeDukeDaDaDa

    DukeDukeDaDaDa Well-Known Member

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    Don't you understand that change is scary? The Rooneys don't like taking risks! Despite the success stories, the Tomlin defenders will always point to "But, but they could be like the Browns!" Like that's the only way it could go. A glass half empty bunch. I'm glad another Pittsburgh franchise wasn't afraid to make a change. Who knows where they would be if they didn't?
     
  4. Blast Furnace

    Blast Furnace Staff Member Mod Team

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    There's a lot to be said about stability in organizations. When you have constant turnover and constantly having to un-learn what you were just taught and learn the new coaching staffs ideas one how to win, it makes it difficult to ever establish a winning culture.

    I think the Steelers have developed a winning culture during the regular season but don't have the coaching to go further.
     
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  5. Kreighoff

    Kreighoff Well-Known Member

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    I expect we will need to replace Fitchner , Smith and maybe Butler as other teams will look to grab all these coaching geniuses, to add to the great coaching tree of Mike Tomlin.

    Sorry ran out of green ink.
     
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  6. DukeDukeDaDaDa

    DukeDukeDaDaDa Well-Known Member

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    Exactly. People say the regular season and playoffs are two different seasons. So having some success in the first never guarantees success in the latter, that is if you make the playoffs. Replacing a coach who's been here 12 years wouldn't be revolving door by any means. And unless you have a perennial playoff winning coach, 12 years is too long in pro sports to be with one team.
     
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  7. thesteeldeal

    thesteeldeal Well-Known Member

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    Yes stability is great but when that’s not enough, what do you do? If we are saying the coaching isn’t good enough to achieve the ultimate goal, what’s the point? It’s time to at least consider finding stability in another regime. Someone who is good enough in the playoffs. That would lead to stability....
     
  8. KnoxVegasSteel

    KnoxVegasSteel Well-Known Member

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    More evidence that Tomlin is in way over his head and needs to go.
     
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  9. turtle

    turtle

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    I'm going out on a limb here....fantastic wasn't the first word that popped into my head. "Fan Attacks" was the headline I was expecting.
     
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  10. Jay31

    Jay31 Well-Known Member

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    So some of y'all want Mike Tomlin to say that Randy Fitcher has been average, bad or horrible in public? Y'all got to be joking. Lmaooooooooooooooooooooo
     
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  11. Brews Crew

    Brews Crew Well-Known Member

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    I would like to thank the coach. Just when I started drinking the cool aide on him being a candidate for coach of the year, he said this and made me spit it out!
     
  12. JAD

    JAD Well-Known Member

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    I agree with others, Tomlin would make a great politician, but him and Fitchner are not good coaches. He could of changed the subject when ask about Fitchner, like a politician would but saying he was fantastic is over the top quite a bit. He must think we're all stupid.
     
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  13. MeanJoeBlue

    MeanJoeBlue Well-Known Member

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    My conspiracy theory (ie. no evidence for this):
    Ben likes Fitchner.
    If you wanted to get rid of RF, without the risk of upsetting the players, how would you do it?
    One way would be to praise the coach, and hope some other team offers him a better contract.

    Maybe the Browns are looking for a new head coach... :icon mrgreen:
     
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  14. Thigpen82

    Thigpen82 Bitter optimist

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    Ha, like when you write a glowing reference for the employee you just want rid of? I like the thinking...
     
  15. Hawaii 5-0

    Hawaii 5-0 Well-Known Member

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    [​IMG]
     
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  16. Steelrules

    Steelrules Well-Known Member

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    I may get flame for this, but how about Jason Garrett for OC? Ex-HCs tend to make good coordinators. He is also a QB friendly coach.
     
  17. The Glory Days

    The Glory Days Well-Known Member

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    The young Rooneys don't like it. The Chief had no problem with taking risks. He understood risk vs. reward. It's a shame his offspring didn't learn more from their dad.
     
  18. The Glory Days

    The Glory Days Well-Known Member

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    That would require Tomlin being intelligent and calculating instead of the unmitigated dolt I take him to be. I'm not ready to concede that. ;)
     
  19. TGH

    TGH Well-Known Member

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    Guys, did you see playoff football this weekend, 19-18 games. That's how we played ALL YEAR!!! Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers played playoff football for 16 games!
    Did you see Russell Wilson suck? Did you see Wentz go out with a concussion again?
    That's why you should not be harsh on Mason Rudolph and Tomlin etc., They played playoff level football!!
     
  20. The Glory Days

    The Glory Days Well-Known Member

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    :facepalm:

    Any chance we can get Don Shula to come out of retirement?
     
  21. DukeDukeDaDaDa

    DukeDukeDaDaDa Well-Known Member

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    I think he was being sarcastic but not entirely sure lol.
     
  22. DukeDukeDaDaDa

    DukeDukeDaDaDa Well-Known Member

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    Guys on the sports show had a point, how does this team not have a QB coach? In fact the Steelers have one of the smallest coaching staffs in the league. Couldn't be like I've always said that the Rooney's are cheap.
     
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  23. Roonatic

    Roonatic Well-Known Member

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    The flapping of a few fans gums?
     
  24. Roonatic

    Roonatic Well-Known Member

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    They have one, he is multitasking. Need to save for a new battery for the golf cart.
     
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  25. Hawaii 5-0

    Hawaii 5-0 Well-Known Member

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    Paul Zeise: Randy Fichtner doesn't deserve pass on Steelers' downfall

    PAUL ZEISE
    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
    JAN 2, 2020

    Randy Fichtner was absolutely crippled by the fact that the Steelers’ quarterback play was well below average this season. He absolutely should get some consideration when he is judged this season that he didn’t have Ben Roethlisberger for pretty much the entire season.

    Those things are factors in the way the Steelers offense performed. There is no question that there needs to be some weight placed on the fact that Fichtner wasn’t able to run the offense the Steelers had envisioned all summer.

    That being said, the bad quarterback play doesn’t give Ficthner a total pass — at least it shouldn’t. For one thing, remind me again who the quarterbacks coach is and has been? It’s Fichtner, and if Rudolph wasn’t ready to play after being under his watch for the last year, then that is on him.

    But let’s dig a little deeper into this offense. I saw the Steelers running the same stuff at the end of the year that they were trying to run at the start. I saw an offensive staff that did nothing to adjust to the quarterback play or become more creative with the run game.

    Devlin Hodges should have been rolling out more, running quarterback draws, and throwing screen passes and quick hitters that don’t require a big arm. He should have been running bootlegs and moving around in the pocket. He very rarely did any of that.

    It was as if Fichtner and company were determined to bang their heads against the wall and ask him to do things he isn’t physically gifted enough to do. I’m not saying the offense was destined to be a juggernaut, but they scored 30 points in their final three games for goodness sakes. That’s 10 points a game, which is a joke by any standard in the NFL.

    And please spare me this nonsense about how it is impossible to have a good running game without the threat of a passing game. That is the height of excuse making it doesn’t even pass the sniff test.

    Many teams over the years have figured out how to run the football without a good quarterback. Many offensive lines have figured out how to block well without a good quarterback. And many running backs have had success without a good quarterback to provide them help.

    I’ll even take this to an extreme — triple option teams have run wild over defenses for decades with no threat of a passing game. They did it despite teams knowing it is coming and despite the fact that teams don’t have to respect the pass.

    And do you know why they have success? Because they execute great blocking schemes that are fundamentally sound. And that was a big problem with the Steelers.

    I also keep hearing that it isn’t fair to Fichtner to expect him to change the offense and change the schemes in the middle of the season, that all this stuff is installed throughout the offseason.

    That’s laughable, too. I watched John Harbaugh last season go from one of the least mobile quarterbacks in the history of the NFL to Lamar Jackson midseason and change the entire way his team played offense. They changed their entire scheme and built an offense around the quarterback’s talents midseason and ended up winning a division.

    It can be done, but only if someone has the foresight and creativity to do it. Fichtner may or may not be a good offensive coordinator, but he definitely didn’t have a good year. He was like a deer in headlights when it came time to give the Steelers the best chance to succeed on offense.

    I know there were injuries, but the offensive line was mostly healthy the entire year. I know there was a myriad of running backs and receivers in and out of the lineup, but that’s on Fichtner and company, too, because he needed to pick the best players and stick with them.

    He didn’t help himself at all with all the lineup juggling and ridiculous personnel packages. He needed to simplify some things, play to the strengths of what he had, and he didn’t do any of it. The Steelers were 8-5 and staring at a playoff spot, and they fell flat on their faces in their final three games.

    And they did so because their offense was terrible and lacked vision, leadership and imagination. And that falls squarely on the shoulders of Fichtner.

    https://www.post-gazette.com/sports...andy-Fichtner-paul-zeise/stories/202001020148
     
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