Steelers stuck in neutral

He is spot on about Ike Taylor.

 

Yeah, I just dont agree with you at all about Ike. If I have to see him get toasted one more time and then pat himself on the top of the head afterward, I may throw something through the TV. Ike had his time in the sun. A couple of seasons ago, he was amazing against AJ Green. If Ike is our starting CB this year, we will get burnt game after game (unless he gets safety help). His best days are behind him and thats ok. It happens to everyone.

 

I understand his point about starting off slow and progressing as the year goes on, but if we aren't 5-2 after the first 7 weeks, we could be in trouble. After the Bye week, every team we play was a playoff team last year. My guess is we will be 7-4 at the Bye Week and going 2-3 or 3-2 the final 5 weeks of the year gets us in the playoffs.

 

no pressure on the qb equates to ike not being able to cover. all I know is 3 draft picks were not able to take his job. that is a safeties job too, to help over the top, but that was lacking too. how is it all on ike again?

 

The part about Ike was the most ridiculous part. Ike's best days are behind him for sure, but a lot of people have gone too far. Ike's numbers were terrible this year, but much of that came in two games (Johnson for 179 yards and Gordon for 237). And heck, I think he even did a good job on each of those guys for half the game. He just went through these incredibly rough patches. And he's always been an inconsistent player. For what it's worth, Johnson put up 329 against Dallas, and Gordon put up 261 the very next week against Jacksonville.

There is room for change for him. He never got the credit he deserved for following the #1 receiver around the field all game long. Now, he's getting blame for not being able to hang with them anymore, and the solution to you and this article seems to be to cut him from the team altogether, or at best demote him to #4. I think BF and I are just kinda like, "Wait, what about #2 or #3?"

Let's imagine he was gone (which is what the article suggests we do). What would happen? Gay becomes #2 (which is a big problem in its own right)... Who is #3? Brice McCain, who couldn't cut it as a backup in Houston? Antwon Blake, an UDFA special teamer who has never really covered anyone in the NFL? Shamarko Thomas, a safety? Shaquille Richardson, a 5th round rookie? And what about #4? Dear God, now we have to put two of those names on the field. Our #3 is practically a starter, so that's a big deal. And with 2 of the top 3 players (Allen/Shamarko) having considerable injury histories, the #4 is also a big deal. What if Allen goes down again like last year? Is Shamarko Thomas our starting CB, and William Gay is covering the #1s?

Now throw Ike back into the equation. You have an incredibly healthy, incredibly experienced veteran leader, who - last we saw - could still play decent ball as long as it wasn't against the very best receivers in football (by the way, how does William Gay play against those guys? The answer is, "He would be as bad as Ike or worse, and it's always been that way." Should we cut him too?). Ike's presence makes our starting lineup (Cortez #1, Ike #2, Gay #3) fit into natural positions, and puts our depth guys back deep into the lineup, where they belong. Contrary to the author, we are lucky he accepted the pay cut and returned to us, and the fans should be happy about it. I also find it hilarious that he calls this move our biggest gamble. Keeping Ike is a measure of safety. It's the complete opposite of a gamble. Dropping him and then rolling with the bubble players behind him - now that would be a gamble.

I guess you could argue that we should have just cut Ike before the draft, and then taken Dennard or Verrett, and plugged one of them into the starting lineup. The obvious issue with that is we lose Shazier and reach for a need, but beyond that, would either of those guys even have been able to play better than Ike in 2014? I doubt it. But then again, the guy who wrote this article probably knows more about draft value than I do. Here's another chestnut of his: "Shazier is fast and smart, but is any inside linebacker worth grabbing that high...?" Yeah folks. The inside linebacker position is pretty useless these days. Can you think of a single one, either from the old days or new, that'd be worth the 15th overall pick?

 

This article seems like nothing more than the authors poor pitiful attempts to get in some pop culture references and a few tired old quips. Traumatized by What's love got to do with it? Excuse me 90's Chris Berman called and he wants his joke back. Head on a spike from Pittsburgh to Westeros. Yeah the Game of Thrones reference redeems your whole article, nope it doesn't bad bad writing.

 

All that and he doesn't know how to use parentheses!

He writes for the New York Times.

 

stuck in neutral coming down the tracks of the incline off of mt. Washington maybe, with a full head of steam baby. :rockin:

 

"and the fans are siding with management in its unending battle to marginalize the importance of labor."

I'm having a hard time taking anyone seriously who throws out a statement like this.

 

Yeah, I just ignored it rather than try and tackle it. I figured it was a different realm of stupid, so I just stuck to football.

 

Could have gotten a linebacker "nearly as good as Shazier" later in the draft? Yeah, RIGHT!

 

Haha, I missed that sentence the first time, because I was so blinded by stupidity by the one before it.

 

Snack, I'm confused as to how a complete lack of caring on the part of our FO equates to a player being above average. Yes we are in a situation where we have ZERO depth at CB.

Ike's lack of ball skills has been killing us. We have been at the bottom of the league in terms of turnovers and INT's in particular.

 

I'm confused by this sentence. What exactly are you asking?

 

Same here, what are you saying? Are you saying that the FO hasn't cared about getting corner depth or investing higher draft picks in corners? They've drafted one every year that hasn't panned out. The corner everyone is raving about (Sherman) was a fifth round pick.

 

Always have been a staunch supporter of Ike and indeed glad he is a Steeler. His best days are behind him and he has performed above average all through his career here in the Burgh.

I am going to give Ike a pass for last year because of aforementioned reasons HS provided also because he played injured. Let's see what he can do coming back fully healthy and having altered his off season
program.

Bman

 

If that's what he's asking, all I can do is ask him to reread what I already wrote. I never said Ike played above average last year. But I'll take him over (Shamarko/Blake/McCain/Richardson) in 2014. To suggest that he's fallen to the point where he's a bubble player is asinine, and frankly, not based on reality. Probably just based on emotion.

 

the real problem is we don't have that guy to take over. yet. allen, well we just don't know. can he be the top dog? he's not signed after this year. we haven't seen him take over the spot yet. gay can be a spot starter but he's not going to be a 1 or 2. he's a slot cover corner. so is McCain and blake. so even talking about ike compared to blake or McCain or gay is not really apples to apples.

Richardson I do like but we just don't know yet. I'm not sure he will ever be a #1 guy. a 2 very possibly. allen and Richardson are the future at this time for that position. if we don't see enough of them this year, ike just may be back again. I'm ok with that. I think he will bounce back this year, but age is a factor and it's a long season.

smith and green are the only others. if they make some strides in this camp it could shake up a lot of things and give some reassurance to that area of the defense. at a minimum, I see two corners on the PS. I wouldn't rule out a late FA pickup when the cuts come if we don't see results. we are thin at starters if we have an injury. if that's stuck in neutral then I'm fine with it as long as we see progress.

we have to quit cutting these corners. how have they gotten drafted only to be cut before camp is out?

I will say I think all of our corners are going to be hungry and want to show what they are made of. even ike. allen. blake. McCain after last year. of course the rook. gay is coming off a good season and will have to live up to some competition this year too. that should keep him hungry as well. green and smith should be if they want a job. put these guys against a bunch of hungry wr's trying for a job and this camp is going to be a blast and have whomever we keep battle tested and ready to go. that's a good thing.

 

I think we have talked about this before Mac whether or not the draft strategy is that they put highly talented players in the defensive front seven and thus allowing for average players at the corners. The secondary could look like the best to take the field if the front seven are collapsing the pocket, sacking the QB repeatedly and forcing bad decisions. However I think we have experienced some slightly above average players in the front seven as they transition from older to younger guys and that pressure isn't constant and there as it has been in years passed and it is exposing the lack of solid drafting at Corner. At least that is my two cents on things. Again would those two huge games from Calvin Johnson and Gordan been quite as glaring if they had gotten consistent pressure on the QB's or would Ike have looked as bad if they had?

 

we are still not as strong as when ike was in his heyday in the front 7. we should be better than last year. ike isn't the problem but he's not the ike of old either. while it's easy to see just with the number of tackles the DB's had to make last year, they took over a lot of the run support. ike always was good at that. we need to take some of that off the db's shoulders and let them do what they do best cover. a lot less hesitation if they don't have to run support as much. we should be quite solid overall, just a lot of new parts.