Sando vs Williamson on the Steelers

ESPN Insider had this debate, "Do the Steelers face a rebuild?" Many of you may not have insider, so I have included some details. Enjoy.



Question #1: Is there a case against Tomlin?

Williamson seemed to think so. he says, "Tomlin was the youngest head coach in the league when the Steelers hired him." he goes on to say, "He was energetic, young and the players' buddy. He came to a team loaded with great locker-room guys -- Jerome Bettis, Alan Faneca, Aaron Smith and others. My problem with Tomlin is, the first year or two, he was a terrible game-day coach. He wasted timeouts and messed up when to go for it on fourth down and when to try long field goals. That was accepted because he was new to the job, but he hasn't gotten any better. And the locker room has changed."

Note: he messed up with Bettis here.

Sando countered by stating Tomlin's record since 2007, which is the sixth highest win % since then.

Williams went on to say, "the Steelers play down to their competition. That is a terrible sign to me and reflective of the coaching. When Cowher was in Pittsburgh, the game was over by halftime against those bad teams....You can look at Cowher's lifetime stats. The Steelers lost one game in his tenure in which they led after three quarters. Tomlin loses those games on a consistent basis." (OUCH!!!) Later Williams says Tomlin and the Steelers, "find ways to lose and don't develop talent as well as they used to; Cowher was great at that. They would always bring in a corner in the middle rounds, you'd forget about the guy for two years and then, all of a sudden, he would turn into Ike Taylor. That isn't happening enough now."

Question #2: How far are the Steelers from contending again?

Accoring to Sando, the Steelers may be in the same boat as the Vikings, whatever that means. Williamson actually thinks the Steelers are close to contending, mostly because of Ben. He also likes Bell.

Question #3: What is the outlook?

Sando says that the bengals are stacked and much further along in terms of developing their young talent. Williamson suggests that when the Steelers get an earlier picks in next spring's draft, they'll do something with them. He says, "This is not a total rebuild. If everything goes right this offseason, I think the Steelers could contend in the AFC North as soon as next season. Unlike many of the poor teams, they do have a quarterback. But ultimately, this looks more like a two-year rebuild to me."

 

If it were up to a large contingent of people on this board they wouldn't.

 

I agree, the Steelers have a quarterback. That's not their problem.

 

FYI be careful about posting full text (compared to your own summary) from subscription sites to free sites...I've seen that create problems for the website owners/etc before.

Anyways....they do make some good points that many of us have been talking about here.

 

I can't even take this discussion seriously at all. ~Willamson~ "He came to a team loaded with great locker-room guys -- Jerome Bettis, Alan Faneca, Aaron Smith and others." Depending how you read into this, this guy has no clue whatsoever. Bettis was gone already and Faneca turned into a OL diva that year.

 

Nah they wont mess with TTF he'll karate chopem

 

I thought about this...and have since checked the ESPN/Disney site. Indeed, they do not want such material redistributed. So if TTF needs to remove the thread, he will. But at least some will have had a chance to read the content.

 

Actually, I have decided to be proactive and remove most of the text.