Groundhog Day

The bigger question is why the Steelers fail to generate offense. Look at the offensive coaching staff the Steelers have assembled over the last few years.

Matt Canada was a college journeyman offensive coordinator before he got here. He was not in consideration for any other NFL positions. Yet somehow he gets hired to be the Steelers offensive coordinator. Tomlin fires him and gives the job to Eddie Faulkner, a guy who is so unqualified to the job he is doing that they need someone else to actually make the in game play calls.

Anyone remember Shaun Sarrett or Adrian Klemm? Tomlin followed up those two mistakes by hiring Pat Meyer, a guy who came in with a track record of having poor offensive lines.

You reap what you sew. When you consistently hire offensive staff that have either a poor NFL track record of success, or none at all, what do you expect?

 

Yeah the 1998 squad was tough to watch. There are some similarities there. I think the big difference in 98-00 was that Cowher was not afraid to make changes. Tim Lewis=fired, Ray Sherman=fired, Kevin Gilbride=fired. Cowher recognized when things were not working and then made changes. When he brought in staff, he brought in good staff, Mike Mularky, Dick Lebeau. It is different now. Tomlin hires guys he's comfortable with. You can't win that way.

 

The biggest difference between Cowher and Tomlin is like you said,the coaching staff around the head coach and as you also say, if an OC or DC were bad, they were not with us for too long under Tomlin as was the case with the disaster of Matt Canada and even Keith Butler.Our O-line coach was also very poor outside of the 5 years of Mike Munchak

Under Cowher, the Steelers generally didn't keep problems for too long, especially if they had much better options than that!

 

This is where the whole "coaching tree" debate comes in. Teams raided Cowher's staff over the years because everyone wanted to try and grab a piece of Cowher's way of doing things. It is a compliment to the systems he put in place.

Tomlin's case is exactly the opposite. Tomlin never seems to hire anyone any other team wants. Teams are not eager to buy into Tomlin's system of doing things because frankly, his system of doing things regularly seems like a disorganized mess.

 

I appreciate your diligence sticking up for Tomlin. The truth of the matter is the Cincinnati Bengals have just as many injuries and Jake Browning at QB yet they seem to be getting better every week. The Houston Texans are coming off a game where nearly their entire team was out, yet they pulled off a win to stay in the playoff hunt with Case Keenum at QB. Compare those teams to what is happening with the Steelers. Fans make excuses for Tomlin, while other teams keep finding ways to overcome adversity. It is like I keep saying. We have this conversation about Tomlin yearly.

 

Next man up mentality matters big time in the NFL....The Steelers don't have that right now

 

I would almost argue Jake Browning and Case Keenum both are better then any QB we currently have on staff...including Pickett. Browning for sure.

 

So here we are. I don't even need to know how the off-season shakes out. I predict Tomlin will be back. Minimal changes will be made. The 2024 Steelers will eek out a winning season and either barely miss the playoffs, or make it and get smacked. Rinse, spit, repeat.

 

History repeats itself...

Blow it up