Does the lack of a Pre Season Benefit the Steelers?

Thinking outside the box here. The Steelers are notorious slow starters. It seems like it takes the Steelers 4 games or so to get it all figured out. To me, I have always blamed it on the lack of time the starters spend together during the Pre Season.

So now that no team has had a Pre Season, does that equal the playing field?

 

No way to know... We base things off of what we've seen or are accustomed to. We ain't seen this starting point yet for any team. Hoping for a good jump off

 

I'm hoping the injection of Canada and Hillard has a positive impact on game planning. The reasons for the slow starts is that they prepare but don't really prepare. They don't look for mismatches, things to exploit, or points to attack. They do what they do. Through out Tomlin's time as head coach there have been maybe 5 games where they flipped the script and prepared for the team they were playing specifically. Just as in yearz past they know t he schedule how they aren't focused on the New York Giants right now and ways to attack that team i dont know.

 

We start slow relative to the other teams. I suspect will continue the same level of relative slowness.

 

Agree it always takes about 4 games for the Steelers to really get going. I don't see how not the playing the pre-season games is going to help them. If they were slow starters before while playing pre-season games they will be even slower starters for not playing pre-season. I think with Ben not playing last year will take him longer to get into game speed and get going.

 

It's not so much that I think not playing a Pre-season will help them. It's that other teams not playing a Pre-season will bring them down to our early season level.

For years Tomlin has used the pre season mainly for talent evaluation. Very little chemistry and cohesiveness can be built when the starters are never on the field together. Ben only plays a handful of snaps combined in all the games. I have always blamed that for the slow starts. Now that nobody gets a pre-season, it's a level playing field.

 

Not to mention that when he is evaluating talent they aren't looking at ways to change should player x goes down and player y must step in. Its always we don't seek to reinvent the wheel when at times yes you should.

 

Hey TuRnDoWnForWaTT


Thread (Question): “Does the lack of a Pre Season Benefit the Steelers?”

Answer: Absolutely not!


IMO, the lack of Pre-Season definitively contributes to the Steelers and their notorious “slow starts”. That is why last pre-season I advocated for the starters to play at least one quarter in every pre-season game. Not unreasonable IMO. Yeah, Yeah. I get it. The more subjectivity to injury. I have had it with this rhetoric. Oh well, that is with any sport and any athlete. It is about preparation.

With only sixteen regular season games each year, each one is so vital. How often have we been in the final countdown of the regular season when the “Play-Off Generator Machine” on ESPN gets cranked up? There we are going down memory lane about losses from the first quarter of the season. They all carry equal weight folks. I have had it. Then in the final quarter of the season, we are hypothesizing about what it will take for us to make the play-offs; sometimes with the need for help. Ugh! Unacceptable! Our starters need to play more than the traditional one quarter of the third pre-season game. Not enough IMO.


STEELWINDS AKA The East Side Kid

 

Yes it helps the Steelers. More than it hurts them considering their preseason philosophy.

 

No

 

The lack of a pre-season benefits the players first and the fans second. Once the NFL sees that the pre-season isn't needed, it will stay gone even post-COVID.

 

The lack of preseason helps us and other teams that don't have a lot of turnover..... Continuity and chemistry are more important than ever now and we have very few revolving door positions

 

Yes.

Because of no 1st round pick, and pretty much every draft pick buried on the depth chart we do not have any opening day starters.

 

NO.

 

Does beating the Giants prove this to be true? Or is it just coincidence not correlation?

Game planning, seems there are teams that started 6 months ago whereas the Steelers start 6 days before the game.

 

The rule of thumb used to be starters played 1 quarter in game 1, 1 half in game 2, into the 3rd in game 3, and then a series or 2 in game 4. Teams that still do this find more early season success IMO. I understand Tomlin attempting to avoid injuries, but had we had a preseason my guess is that a complete set of starters would have only played a few series together.

 

I was kinda leaning the other way. I think Ben will be anxious to prove a few things. And let's hope that Tomlin finally gets the point that being the players buddy isn't the way to run a football team, and realizes that we need to play hard for all 16 games this year.