Question: Is it all about winning Lombardis or not?

Why am I here? To discuss the Steelers with fellow Steelers fans.
I’m not against people expressing their displeasure with the team at all. If you’ve paid attention to my posts you’ll see that I’m not a big fan of Tomlin myself and I actually have some of the same concerns that you have. I just don’t post those concerns in every thread over and over.

 

But.....you clearly do something to irritate people on a regular basis, thus the reason people reference you in such negative light. So you see.....we all have our differences, You just have a habit of pointing out peoples flaws where I point out the Steelers flaws. Do you see where I am taking this?

And....do you really think you are going to change me or anyone else on this board?

 

with 13 games to go and just a rookie te healthy you want to see if mason is the future. He has shown capable so far and we need the run game to help. A te and a run game are two things that help a young qb. A good blocking te helps the young stable of rbs and a struggling o-line as well. All this for a fifth rd. pick isn't that high a price.

Also a good chance to sign him I believe. He is from ohio. Much closer to home then Seattle. With McDonald as injury prone as he is, this is a good value. Money wise he doesn't cost a lot either.

It's not all about Ben either. Many think we can win with mason and so do the Steelers imo. We are two games back with our whole division yet to play. Way too many games left to give up on the season. We invested a lot for this year, including getting rid of two people. I watched vannett play every week in college, he is better then james. We will use him more and different then Seattle did I believe.

 

Maybe the team can win with Rudolph, but I don't see how people can logically believe that the team's chances of success didn't diminish when they lost Roethlisberger.

I'm not worried about the money angle. He is a free agent after the season. I'm worried about spending a fifth rounder on what is very likely to be a lost season.

 

It's about Lombardies. EVERYONE is evaluated on whether they are performing on contract, a 4-year contract, to give us a chance to win Lombardi. It may happen that we don't win a Lombardi on a contract, but if they give us a chance, make playoffs consistently, then they may get a second contract to keep it going and try.
But if they do not perform like that on the first contract, then they got go and make room for someone new.
So it is about wins, but not for the sake of wins, but for making the playoffs and competing for the Lombardi.

And now, we are in a Rudolph 4-year window.

 

Sure they probably diminished a little but maybe not as much as many think so it's yet to be determined what the kid is capable of. Maybe if it wasn't so early in the season it would be a different story but we have heavily invested in this season so a te for a 5th is needed.

I still think Nick would like to stay closer to home to play so taking that chance may be worth it. Remember McDonald was not a top tier te when we got him. Vannett is pretty similar in skill set. I really like the move. of course I wanted us to draft him, and mack as well. They both made their way here and I'm happy about it. Definate upgrade of a number two with starting capabilities.

 

The McDonald trade is not a good comparison. That was in the preseason and the Steelers expected to contend. This is an 0-3 team that lost its Hall of Fame quarterback.

You and many others are reading way too much into the Seattle game, in which Rudolph played well after Roethlisberger had struggled. Roethlisberger was trying to play through what turned out to be a season-ending injury and his usual slow start to the season. He was the reason this team had a puncher's chance despite question marks at receiver and a defense that people expected to be better, but they had to prove it.

The offensive line is clearly diminished. They aren't blocking well for the run or pass right now. Nobody has come close to stepping up as the No. 2 receiver and Smith-Schuster is not at last year's level. The defense hasn't been good yet. Yes, they made some big plays early against the 49ers, but they were also the beneficiaries of some gifts from an offense that moved the ball on them with relative ease all day. You really think this team is ready to rip off a 9-4 or 10-3 run the rest of the way?

 

yes I think they are capable of doing this. Especially with fitz and vannett added and helping solidify both sides of the ball as the season rolls on. As the experience gets meshed together week after week the cream will start rising to the top. Minus the rams and ravens, this schedule isn't that difficult.

 

Mac, you know you are not going to convince him otherwise right? I'm actually impressed your intelligence hasn't been called into question yet. Strides are being made. By the way, I for one agree with you. Hell, it is the NFL, anything is possible. Who would have thought we would have ran the table on our way to Superbowl XL considering at one point our record was 7-5?

 

Baby Jesus please… All I wants a win

 

one week at a time. We have too much talent to not start winning games. Nobody said this was going to be easy. We need to start Monday night. I'm married for 30 years, I'm used to my intelligence being questioned daily.

 

I hate to agree with ex-scribe, but in this instance I gotta.

Objectively looking at things it's not even a question that the chances of this season being a success, by whatever metric you want to use, are on life support.

Besides the 0-3 start, we went from having unarguably, hands down, no question about it, the best QB in the AFC North to arguably the worst and undeniably the most unproven. That alone has knocked down the prospects of the season dramatically. Call me crazy, but you can't lose a HoF QB, replace him with a second year QB who came into the season with 0 career attempts and say that we're still in good shape.

In addition I hope that Fitzpatrick and Vannett don't "solidify" the offense and defense because both sides of the ball are consistently ranked 25th or lower in nearly every important statistic. Solidifying that would not be good. I'm being facetious here, cause I know what you're trying to say, but solidify is the best that we can hope for when the reality is we need players that are transformative. Unfortunately, that's hard to do as a safety and impossible as a backup TE. Maybe if Bud Dupree suddenly turned into Lawrence Taylor.

I will say the schedule should ease up a bit, so that's in our favor, but that's about it.

 

Really love the optimism I've read in this thread and hope it's spot on but being a negative nelly I just do not see what some of you see. 32 teams in NFL and I see this as a bottom 10 team. No way in hell do I see this team rallying under Tomlin.

edit: hope to hell come December this can be stuck in my face.

 

I can see Popcorn rallying to .500, unless the players are tuning him out.