I am very interested in how the Rooney's will view this season.

As a person who wanted BA gone or at least demoted I will step up and fire criticism at Haley. For all his talk about the best 11 guys will play never saw that materialize now he doesn't have final say over who gets a hat on game day but he clearly wasn't practicing what he preached. The much talked about playing to a particular players strengths again did not materialize. In my opinion Wallace will never be a number one receiver and should not routinely line up outside as one. He can't beat press coverage cleanly and his routes are sloppy. He should be a slot receiver period and use his speed to draw safety and LB coverage away from the line. It should be pick your poison cover Wallace and Miller over the middle and risk being out-manned at the LOS with the run game or stack the box and give up continual 15 plays to Miller and or huge chucks to Wallace on slant routes and the occasional streak right up the middle.

The running game , what can I say but Todd you blew it big time there I mean can they run left even once. Anytime they faced a 4-3 teams were daring them to run left leaving a huge gap between the DE and the DT, stacking the line and overloading to the right and yet they still ran that way. Over all intelligence and understanding of the gameplan for the entire team. I give this a D maybe an F. It is not just for a QB to recognize coverages and schemes everybody on offense should know what to do when they see the Tampa-2 or if the defense is in zone coverage. If the Oline knows that they are keying on the run then they can help to sell that hard fake in one direction that allows a back to cut against the grain(something that happened to the Steelers defense one to many times.

Player progression again a low grade maybe a D low C at best. Pope got demoted, Paulson who looked strong on some blocking was worthless on other plays and a non factor in the passing game. Basic fundamentals were lacking on many plays. Last but not least is the QB and Ben continues to be the double edged sword for the team. He is great at times and horrible at others. He wants more no huddle which means more control for him but then when he gets it he looks horrible at times as well. Latches on to one receiver, doesn't read the defense correctly, hesitates in making the short completion, confidence in his receivers/RB's to make the catch is low(and rightfully so this year) accuracy at times is suspect and he is not a big one for film study and learning the offenses ins and outs.

All that said I did see improvement in the areas That BA made me cringe in. Which was continuing to move the chains, controlling the clock, limiting mistakes(at least early on) High percentage low risk plays, commitment to getting the ball spread around so that Miller became a big factor in this years game. Utilization of the swing pass, RB screens and FB passing. All pluses in my book but his body of work with the Steelers to this point is inconclusive.

 

I think the bigger issue was that his marriage was falling apart due to his infidelity(ies?).

 

I disagree. While the O line is not talent laden, its not that bad...provided it can stay healthy.

The biggest factor in O line performance is continuity...lots of practice and playing time together in position. Even an Oline filled with scrubs and 1/2 talents can perform adequately if they remain healthy and get the chance to gel as a unit. Looking back to '10 the Steelers had a bunch of scrubs starting but were able to remain relatively healthy and won a SB. Remember BR's "who's laughing now O line?" comment on the podium? That group of hacks opened up running lanes for 4 games when Ben was out, then gave him adequate protection when he returned to amount to what would have been the 4th best passing O in the league.

Injuries (along the O line) have been this offenses undoing in each of the past 2 seasons, not the coordinators.

 

Ok so what you are saying is we will see the same season next year. I thought that Art told Tomlin last year that he wanted to more of a running game. That tells me that they need to find someone who can run the ball and gain a lot of yds/ carry. We do not have that now.

 

In the past, I would have said right away that the the Rooneys would make no changes. When Art II forced out an O coordinator after a 12-4 season, it showed that he might be a different breed than his elders. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

People are you happy with the DL play this year? Do you see any players in the fold other
than Mclendon thats capable of making an impact?(Who can get after the QB)
Ok how about LB, Foote ,Woodley, Harrison,What are we going to do here? Lets hope Spence
can come back and make an impact.(do you think other than Timmons anyone can rush the passer/)
Woirlds? Ok lets go onto cb, I actually like this position, I think the players are coming along fine. (CARNELL LAKE)
has made a big difference here)Ok safety, BIGQUESTION MARK HERE.
Tough Tough decisions are looming here.I think we can assume a safety will be projected high here.
I am interested in moving Ike to safety position?
OK OL, DD, Pouncey, Foster, Adams, all the rest are replaceable( the Steelers have poured alot of money
into the OL for years with no apparent upgrade in performance?) So long Kruger. who is our next OL coach?(Stengthand
conditoning coach comes into play here also, Get rid of the current one please)
OK rb's Mendy will not be back, and the rest of our RB's are not impact players. Who will be added to the roster?
Are you happy with our RB;s coach? Ok WR. I think Mike Wallace will be gone, Who do we bring in?
Are you happy with our WR coach?. Special teams are you happy with this? (As Dick Shiner above poster)
correctly pointed out, most of our back ups manning the positions are really not anything to brag about.
So in general with us being over or hell lets say even with our salary cap numbers, you don't think
the Steelers FO needs to be aggressive to stay with the GB, NE, Houston, SF,ATL, SEA, of the world?
Let alone teams in our division. Go thru the roster people along with the current coaching staff and ask
yourself, can the Steelers do better? I think they can, and also ask yourself about some of these questions
I have brought up and then can you honestly say that you don't think the Rooneys and thier FO
don't need to be busy? Do you enjoy watching this type of Steeler team?

 

Apparently you weren't paying attention because Haley was forced on this team by ARiI. That was in and of itself nothing short of a fiasco. Like a good little worker be Tomlin took one for the team, but this was 100% not his hire. You can point to injuries etc, but that isn't new. the offensive scheme Haley installed was a bad fit for the players on this team and the results showed that. Next year will be interesting because one of two things will happen. Either the scheme will be changed to fit our players or we will have yet another poor performance.

 

I think you have your Super Bowl year . . . misremembered.

 

Awesome point.

And . . . it reinforces my point about my dislike for Art's "meddling." You simply can't expect your head coach to flourish in his role when you undermine him publicly and force a coordinator on him that he (and the players) doesn't want.

And, for the hundredth time, Haley was brought in here, BY ART, for THE PURPOSE of going back to a run-first philosophy. Haha. How'd that work out?

One can't blame what they deem to be 'weak rbs' as the cause simce we've had great rushing attacks in the past with castoffs like Fast Willie, Zeroue, Pegram, Bam, McAfee, Leroy Thompson, etc.

 

Well if they wanted a "run first" philosophy and Art was the one pulling the strings it's hard for me to believe that he would've let Tomlin bench his backs and suspend one also. I'm just saying that I don't think Art is anywhere NEAR the level of Jerry Jones. Also Tomlin said publicly that he really wanted Todd Haley when he realized he was available. So I don't think this is some totalitarian move by Art or anything. I honestly think if Tomlin wouldn't have wanted him then he wouldn't be here. That's just my 2 cents though. I don't think there's any real way to know one way or the other.

 

Well, the only way we do know is that Art was plastered all over Sportscenter with microphones shoved in his face talking about what he wanted. Don't recall that image ever being played out with Dan. THAT is what concerns me the most about it. This organization has always stayed away from the media circus and handled things internally and with integrity. The way Art handled this led to publicly undermining and embarrassing and emasculating his head coach and then, apparently, forcing an unwanted employee (who would be in charge of the entire offensive playcalling) on him.

 

Merely a conspiracy theory: is it a coincidence Dan chose to leave his position in Ireland THIS season?

 

Tomlin never said such a thing. He came out and said all coordinators will be returning and then two days later said Arians had retired which clearly wasn't true. In order to diffuse the media from making it into a story he took one for the team;however, it was a very transparent move. I don't know if you've noticed, but Tomlin doesn't micromanage. He let Haley run the offense just as he did with Arians and DL with the defense. If you look at how Haley handled the running backs in KC you will see a scenario that mirrors what we saw with the 2012 Steelers. Which should illustrate clearly that this is a Haley maneuver and not Tomlin. Will Tomlin bench a player absolutely, but the revolving door is pure Haley. Off topic, but Haley running Redman east-west early on in the season was seriously freaking stupid. The man is a slow as molasses power back and needs to go north-south.

 

Ah ha, yes I do. Thats a problem being a steeler fan, Super Bowl years tend to run together...

 

The group which beat the Cardinals was certainly adequate since, as you point out, they won the SB that year. But I don't think it was anywhere near being a talented or "good" o-line. I've heard it commented that it was the worst offensive line to ever win a SB, and I find it very difficult to argue against that. It certainly wasn't dominant in either the run or pass game and was at most, adequate (and I think that's being kind). I don't mean to take anything away from them--they won the SB! But, they just weren't a good line.

Whether or not continuity is the reason for the struggles in recent years really remains to be seen, imo. Personally, I don't see the pedigree in our o-line roster to be a solid group, injuries or not. The only player that I think could be part of a good line is Pouncey. Though, I am excited about DD.

Now, it's true, teams don't need a dominant o-line to be championship-caliber. So, with more continuity perhaps this group would be serviceable enough to be such a team. I tend not to believe that since, individually, they just haven't shown me that they can consistently (not perfectly, of course) beat the man across from them. I grant that continuity is important, but I just don't think that any amount of it would transform this line into something good. I hope that they stay healthy next year and prove me wrong.

 

Yeah that 08 line was HORRIFFIC! Remember the game against Philly? Ben was almost decapitated! I think in that last drive it was just all Ben and Holmes. Actually I think that drive started with a penalty by Kemo didn't it? Someone held on the start of that drive. Ben actually commented on how bad the line had been called out when he gave his little speech on the podium. I think when this offense actually clicked this year it made the line look better than they were because Ben was getting rid of the ball so quickly. I think BA's offense would've made any line look bad because it just has to be hard to block for that long while plays develop. But for SOME of the time this year our line looked servicable. I'm still not satisfied either though Romans.

 

Tomlin said that everyone would be back before he knew the Rooney's weren't gonna renew BA's contract. Tomlin said this year in an interview that he was glad to see that Haley was available. I can't remember where I saw it but I think it was said during a game or something. I only watch NFL Network so I didn't know that Art II was on Sportscenter saying that. I just knew that he wanted to go back to more fundamental Steeler football which I fullly agree with and have no problem with. But I don't think Tomlin is just a puppet on a string. I think if there had been an OC with an even more old school mindset that the Rooney's would've been fine with that. I also think if Tomlin was really uncomfortable with Haley they wouldn't have insisted that he hire him anyway. Just my opinion though. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Ok after reading the previous two pages before this page
are we in agreement that the Steelers FO should be working their
asses off, and have huge decisions in front of them? LOL.

 

Ok let's leave all the coaches and players out of this and concentrate on getting at least one or two conditioning coaches. This team seems to get injured in about week 4-5 and then they are out for several games.

 

WTF Do you think Tomlin is going too say? A surefire way to create major drama would be for Tomlin to say I'm really disappointed in this move. Also what would lead Tomlin to believe that an OC with an offensive line decimated by injuries but still managed to go 12-4 in consecutive years, 2 super bowls etc wouldn't be back? Not too mention doing so without Ben for 7 games in those 2 years.

Do you really think Tomlin doesn't know that we don't have the personnel to run the dinosaur of an offense that you're clamoring for? I'm sure Tomlin fooled himself into believing that his speedster wr's would suddenly be able to block and our lead footed o-line would suddenly be able to make it to the 2nd level, pick up blitzes etc. We've got an average at best offensive line,mediocre running backs, and speedy little receivers. That isn't the recipe for a smashmouth 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense. The hiring of Haley was nothing more than ArtII doing his best George Steinbrenner imitation.