they fired Arians too late

i know we all have been calling for Arians to get fired for years and now that hes finally gone, the defense cant stop anyone and now we all want DL gone.

Haleys offense has looked pretty good. he has Ben using all his wr's and not always looking for the big play. the offense has improved each week and i would say that with all the weapons they have they can probably score with anyone. just think what this offense could be like if they get even a decent run game going.

now the problem is on the defensive side of the ball which for years has been their strong point.

i know Haley wasnt available a couple years ago, but someone was. Ben got too comfortable with Arians and it hurt the team. im as big a fan of Bens as there is. i believe he is a top 5 qb in this league without a doubt and if he sticks to Haleys offensive plan he could end up with better numbers than any qb in the league this year.

this offense seems very controlled and doesnt seem to have a high risk. thats exactly what they should of had for the last few years. if you look at Brady, Manning and even Rogers, they run an offense that is based on getting the ball into their playmakers hands and letting them do their thing.
Arians offense was lets see how many big plays we can make by throwing the ball down the field 50 yards on every other play.

i doth think Ben has tried a deep pass yet and if he has it has been many. he is taking what the defense is giving him and making those quick passes and letting his playmakers make plays.

i think Arian was fired 3 years too late. now the defense it too old to compete with the offenses in todays game. they have no playmakers of defense.

 

But even if they would've fired BA 3 years ago that wouldn't mean that Haley would've wound up here. As a matter of fact, he almost certainly would not have. Don't get me wrong. I wanted BA gone more than anyone. I am even a member of a website called "firebrucearians.com". So that should let you know my feelings about the guy. I love Todd Haley for whatever reason. I just think that eventually he's gonna explode and we're all gonna love it. I don't think it's gonna be like when Ben done something stupid and walked back over to BA and never got reprimanded. I think Haley will get in his grill if he starts trying to get cute.

 

Blame the front office for the lack of defensive depth, not the OC.

 

Prepare to be bashed!! Arians is the cause of all that is wrong with this organization.

It's SO amusing to me to read the armchair qb's on message boards. Especially when they all pile on in favor of a particular issue. For all the Larry Foote bashing in year's past, Larry Foote might have been the biggest surprise for our football team last season. He stepped in for Farrior and played pretty well. People bashed William Gay over and over and over . . . meanwhile, he's playing some pretty damn solid football down at the Steelers Goodwill. A lot of people wanted Dennis Dixon over Leftwich or Batch. That was incomprehensible to me. How could nobody see how bad Dixon was?! Because he looked like Tim Tebow for one night in Baltimore? Some idiots still think we should give Limas Sweed a shot! Aye-yi-yi!! But the whole 'Fire Arians' thing was absolutely ridiculous. Ben is Ben. The best coordinator for Ben is a guy that Ben likes and let's him do his thing. We flourish under Ben's no-huddle offense. We struggle without it. People wanting some arrogant jackwad to get in Ben's face suggesting that is what "Ben needs" . . . that's just comical to me. And here we sit . . . at 1-2.

Right now, the Fire Arians clowns are knocking each over to sign a petition to have a statue of Todd Haley erected next to The Chief's statue outside of the Heinz Field gates. Todd Haley can LITERALLY do no wrong right now.

LET'S FORGET that our offense is currently 16th in the NFL right now in YPG.
LET'S FORGET that our offense is currently 22nd in the NFL right now in Yards Per Play.
LET'S FORGET that 'Ben being Ben' and running around, scrambling around, shedding defenders, improvising, and making plays is the only reason WE LEAD THE LEAGUE in 3rd down conversions -- digging ourselves out of the mess our poor playcalling, poor execution, and excessive penalties (poor discipline is the result of bad coaching everywhere else in the league outside of THIS YEAR'S offense coordinator in Pittsburgh -- Tomlin gets that blame, I'm sure; we're currently the 3rd highest penalized offense in the NFL -- only 26th in penalties on defense).
LET'S FORGET that we have the sixth-most imbalanced offense (pass attempts per game vs rush attempts per game) in the league (40 pass attempts vs 25 rush attempts per game?) despite not really playing from large deficits like most of the teams more imbalanced than us.
LET'S FORGET that the five teams with more imbalanced offenses than us combine for a 5-15 record in games not involving us (a .250 winning pct for those scoring at home).
AND LET'S DEFINITELY IGNORE the fact that the Indianapolis Colts, with a rookie quarterback, coming off of an abysmal 2-14 season, currently have a HIGHER-RANKED OFFENSE UNDER BRUCE ARIANS THAN WE DO UNDER TODD HALEY. As a matter of fact . . .
. . . the Colts were ranked 30th in the NFL in total offense last year (and are currently ranked 14th) while the Steelers were ranked 12th in total offense last year (and have dropped to 16th).
And, for those scoring at home . . . The 2011 Kansas City Chiefs, coached by the son of God a year ago, were 27th in total offense. Now that the golden child has left Missouri to scream into the earholes of our fine young men, the Chiefs are currently the TOP RANKED OFFENSE IN THE ENTIRE NFL.

Pretty silly to look at stats after only a few weeks.
But it's ludicrous to think Todd Haley is ANY sort of a major upgrade over Bruce Arians.

But let's please not allow facts to get in the way of a good lynching.

As you were . . .

 

I would like to know how much pocket passing Ben is doing under Haley as opposed to BA. It seems like his scrambling has been drastically cut under Haley. I didn't have a problem with BA passing. I just had a problem with his lack of any reason for his situational play calling. Now that we have Haley we are utilizing Heath and that is something BA would not do. I think Heath will be in the pro bowl this year and he never would have done so under BA. Our problem is not the offense. It is the defense. Under BA our problem was the offense and that's just the reality of the situation. I will acknowledge that I am an "arm chair" qb and that there are MANY on this board. And ALL boards for that matter. But I DON'T think the Rooney's are "arm chair" qb's and THEY are the ones that sent BA packing and I think THAT speaks volumes for what they thought about the guy. But don't get me wrong. If Haley doesn't produce I think he will suffer the same fate. Once someone asked Mike Tomlin if he felt that he had great job security working for the Steelers because they keep coaches around. He said "well the reason they kept those guys so long was because they won". I think that's a great thing to say about the Rooney's. They are loyal but not to a fault.

 

BTW I enjoyed the stats you showed too.

 

Nobody argues stats. They just ignore them.

They'll get buried in a sea of Tomlin-bashing and Haley-praising threads.

I put up a list of 10 (very strong) counter-arguments to why Arians shouldn't get fired last off-season and . . . crickets. Seriously, not a single response. I did get a couple of emails saying how good it was and some posters I knew from other boards praised it, but nobody had the balls to back it up in print over here for fear of . . . I don't know . . . being scorned by their peers?

And, regarding your 'Art Rooney wanted BA gone' comment . . .

LET'S NOT FORGET . . . he did that so we could get back to RUNNING THE FOOTBALL.

An area where we are currently 30th in the NFL (and 22nd in attempts per game).

Who's with me?!?! HA-LEY!! HA-LEY!! HA-LEY!!

"But I love that he yells at Ben's face!!"

 

Tell me who is old. Foote?, he looks better than the young guys. So, who is old?

 

@Feel

I think you make some very good points and observations. Personally, however, the reason I was happy to see Arians go was because of one key stat--scoring. Under Arians, we always seemed to be able to move the ball fairly well, but scoring touchdowns was the problem. So far this year, I feel much more confident about scoring touchdowns--Haley's red zone offense seems far better to me than Arians'. Our points per game are up over last year's and I think that's encouraging. We'll have to see how the rest of the year goes, though.

 

That's a good argument. I'll buy that.

One of my arguments in support of Arians' red-zone offense last year, however, was that we didn't really have a team, in my opinion, with skill sets to have success in the red zone. I thought it was more of a challenge with personnel than playcalling. Our line was horrendous and got no push so it wasn't like we were going to run the ball in. And, more times than not, with Mendenhall in the backfield you had pretty much the worst short-yardage back in the league so there you had Mendy running behind a horrible line so you can scratch any running td's. And Ben is most effective in space when he's running around until our receivers break their routes and find a way to get open. He's not exactly a timing quarterback. He's not throwing back shoulder darts like Rodgers does to Jordy and Jennings. He's not throwing quick slants like Peyton and Brady. And we don't have a 'jump ball' receiver in the red zone like Calvin Johnson or even Jimmy Graham. And Heath has seen the end zone a few times already this year but is that because Haley designed some play to get Heath open or because Ben is finally looking for him?

Personally, I think our red zone struggles in '11 were more a result of a deficiency in personnel than our playcalling down there. I mean, seriously, one or two strange calls by an OC, fine. But an entire season? There's a tipping point, I think, when you need to starting holding the player's execution accountable.

Let's also not forget the defenses we played in '11 (everybody was so quick to overlook): we were the #1 defense in the league in scoring. Our offense went up against the #2 (San Francisco), #3 (Baltimore - twice), #4 (Houston), #5 (Clev - twice), #7 (Seattle), #8 (Tennessee), #9 (Cincinnati - twice), #11 (Jacksonville) . . . that's 11 of our 16 games against the top 10 scoring defenses in the league after us. We also played #12 (Kansas City), #15 (New England), #17 (Arizona), #26 (St Louis), and #28 (Indianapolis).

That's 11 of our 16 games against the top 10 scoring defenses in the league (excluding us).
And 13 of our 16 games were against defenses all ranked in the top half of the league in scoring defense.

And we wonder why we struggled to score?

I guess Arians is as easy a target as any.

 

Let's give the guy an entire year and judge his body of work then. I advocated for Todd Haley very early on and I thought that the two guys that would benefit the most by having him as the OC would be Ben and Heath. As you pointed out, TE, both of those guys are off to terrific starts this year. Ben's QB rating is an impressive 109.2 and he just seems to be playing much more disciplined this year than he has in years' past. And getting Heath involved in the gameplan, especially the redzone (what a novel concept) has worked really well so far. It just amazes me that BA held Heath to two TDs last year and he should have been THE major redzone threat for the Steelers. Now there have been some disappointments with the offense so far, the running game and the offensive (really offensive) line being of major concern, but let's give Haley an opportunity over the course of an entire season and see what happens. Getting Mendenhall back will certainly help too. So far I like what I'm seeing out of Haley and I think he is a definite upgrade over BA.

 

Yeah, lets compare 3 games in to an entire season, how did we do last year in offense? Oh yeah, about 20th?

12th. If you're gonna argue the stats I present, at least quote them accurately.

But yeah, BA was a heck of an OC :thumbsup: How about redzone? You're the stat nerd, go look that up.

You look 'em up if that's the point you want to make. I made my points. Or, rely on speculation and LET'S IGNORE the 'stat nerd' numbers/i.e. ACTUAL RESULTS. Why that stat isn't very important to me is based on the level of competition we played last year. I'll reiterate: 11 of our 16 games last year were against the top 10 defenses in the league. 13 of our 16 games were against the top half of the defenses in the league. It was a brutal schedule. Are we gonna score more against Oakland or Baltimore? Hmm . . . If you don't like 'stat nerd' numbers like that then I'll just assume you tune out all of the pregame shows and everything ESPN has to offer because that's all those shows give us. Numbers. Inside the Numbers.

So far, this year, we've played some pretty mediocre defenses (and depleted at that -- did Revis play? How about the majority of Oakland's secondary?). Obviously it's early, but I don't think much is gonna change along the lines of the rankings in scoring defense by the Jets (18th), the Broncos (21st), or the Raiders (26th). Heck, playing against us IMPROVED the scoring defense numbers for the Broncos (as both of their season opponents have scored more against them than we have), and the Bills scored more on the Jets than we did and the Dolphins scored more on the Raiders than we did. By all accounts, those are pretty mediocre offenses.

This offense is operating much more efficient under Haley . . .

The statistics dispute that.

and Ben is playing better. You mentioned Bens scrambling and making things happen, well yeah, duh, because Haley said he has no intention of taking away the best part of Bens game.

Haha!! Priceless! Ben avoiding sacks and scrambling around is part of Haley's master plan?!?! Haha!! Haley is ALLOWING Ben to scramble when pressure breaks down? That's nice of him. Genius, actually. Move over, Belichek!

But what he has done is improved the rest of Bens game and why he is ranked as the #2 QB with a 109.2 rating, theres a stat for you, you should love that.

Todd Haley is the reason Ben is playing well? Brilliant!!!!!!! Scoot over, Bill Walsh!! I suppose Tomlin is to blame for our running game being 30th in the NFL and 31st in average yards per carry? I'll reiterate, according to Art Rooney, we removed Arians so we could get back to our roots and run the football. Instead, we jump for joy when Ben's rating hits 109.2 (who is the stat nerd?) and our tight end catches 4 touchdown passes while our team goes 1-2 and we pass the ball fifteen more times a game than we run it which history has proven to be a general rule of disaster in the NFL.

Want another stat? Heath has 4 TD this season, do you know how many under BA? 2 for the whole f**k**** year! How do you like that stat?

How do I like it? I'm completely impartial to it. We have 1 rushing touchdown in three games. I'm not sure why this fan base is so hellbent on our tight end being the focal point of our offense. It's kinda strange, to be honest. This is a fan base that has historically DEMANDED that we RUN THE FOOTBALL and when our running game is off to one of its worst starts since the merger, people are praising our offensive coordinator because our tight end is catching touchdowns for our 1-2 team. It staggers the mind, to be honest.

I was completely against Haley coming here, ask any of the regular posters but I can admit and see that Haley is doing a good job as an OC. And so far, none of my fears about fights on the sidelines between him and Ben have materialized.

Haley is doing a good job? Defined by what? Heath Miller's 4 td catches?

Do you think I don't know that it's ludicrous to measure results after only three games? Of course I'm aware of that. I brought it up. I didn't start this thread, I responded to the lunacy that people still continue to bash Arians and praise Haley while, going into the end of the first month of the season, Arians has his new team's offensive production (with a rookie quarterback) greatly improved, while our offense has slid down in the rankings, and the team our new coordinator left (which was awful last year) currently boasts the top offense in the NFL.

I'm just sayin' . . .

 

I agree with everything you just said, except . . . I don't know how anyone can confidently state that Haley is "a definite upgrade" over BA. The numbers aren't there.

It's like replacing a third baseman you don't like with a third baseman you want and then saying, "Yeah, I told you the new guy (who is hitting .245) is a definite upgrade over the old guy (who hit .278 a year ago) because, uh . . . he's hitting .256 with runners in scoring position and the old guy only hit .243. It's not important the other aspect of the third-baseman's game, fielding, is atrocious, as he's 29th out of 30 third basemen in the league in fielding percentage."

For what it's worth, I hope Haley goes down as the greatest offensive coordinator in the history of professional football. But for anyone, at this point, to start hyping him based on what we've seen so far . . . the results aren't there.

 

We currently have the 5th best pass defense in the league and the 7th best overall defense. Fact.

Yardage stats are nearly useless.

Our offense is ranked #12 in scoring and only getting better, while being tied for 8th in TD's scored. I see minute differences in Ben's play this year, things that he never did in years past (check down to RB instead of throwing deep, throwing the ball away instead of taking sacks, taking the intermediate TE option rather than trying to stuff the ball into a 3-on-1 scenario) that lead me to beleive that Haley may have a positive impact on our offense. Some things aren't changing, such as horrendous OL play and bad clock mgmt, but we have all season to work those kinks out.

BA is doing a commendable job with a rookie QB in Indy, but I like the look of our offense now and a change was needed. Wasn't a Haley fan, so not all over his jock, but I'm glad BA is in Indy.

 

I'm glad to have Haley here. But I will admit that during the Broncos game there were some things that we done on offense that had me scratching my head. But I guess in retrospect it makes sense. We came out running and running and running. But when we finally saw that wasn't working we started throwing. That is actually a positive trait for Haley as far as I'm concerned. He wasn't like Arians and being stubborn. He saw that it wasn't working with the personnel that we had and he went to the passing game and he's been there every since. Maybe when Mendy gets back I think we might try to run again. But since the o line is so banged up I don't even know if we will do it then. The fact is that our offense is much more competent under Haley and it is our D and special teams that is saling us down the river.

 

Figures you'd place more importance on yards then points, we were ranked 21st in scoring and 12th in yards, how about you quote things that matter, hmm? And the brutal defenses we faced? Both the Ravens and Bengals finished ahead of us and they played the same teams, and the Bengals did it with a rookie QB.

I'm not surprised that you fail to see how an OC can improve a QB's game, play calling has nothing to do with how a QB will perform :roll: And I never said Haley was designing plays for Ben to scramble, I said he isn't going to try and remove that part of his game, you know, by throwing the ball away Or were you not aware that just about every QB does that when plays break down?

You said it's ludicrous to measure results after only three games yet that's exactly what you did You're good at this buddy :thumbsup:[/quote:1o113pce]

That's it?

Do I place more importance on yards thAn points? No, the National Football League does. It's how THEY do their rankings. But what what do they know? (for what it's worth, I agree with you on this subject -- I never understood why yards were the measuring stick for an offense's success when it comes to the league rankings. i recall us always being in the middle of the pack on offense during many 11-5, 12-4, etc years during the Cowher era and thinking, "well, duh! if your defense rocks and you're always playing with a short field, you're not gonna be racking up tons of yards. scoring should be more important.")

Ben plays better when he calls his own plays. I don't know that ANYBODY would dispute that.

I haven't noticed anything in playcalling that has led to an increase in Ben's performance. That's a hypothesis. I know you aren't into facts, numbers, etc, and prefer leaning towards specualtion and rhetoric but you simply can't say because Ben's passer rating is high it's BECAUSE of Todd Haley's playcalling. Why aren't you on Randy Fitchener's jock? He's the qb coach. Haley is the guy in charge of directing our ENTIRE anemic offense. Not just the passing game. Our running game blows and our ENTIRE offense isn't moving the ball against some mediocre defenses with depleted secondarys.

Who would ever suggest that Haley would tell Ben to stop scrambling and start throwing the ball away? Haley gets props for that?

I'm aware that most completely immobile qb's throw the ball away when a play breaks down. I'm also aware that ZERO highly mobile qb's (see: Ben) throw the ball away when a play breaks down. Again, I fail to see how Haley gets props for ALLOWING Ben to scramble.

I merely posted the stats to show how dumb people can be getting excited about a guy who has been largely mediocre.

 

I'll just go with some simple stats to make a simple case that Haley is a hell of a lot better than Arians.

There is very little to go on, just three games into the Haley era. So I'll give the best comparison I can, the last three games Arians coached with a healthy Ben in 2011 (at Chiefs, vs Bengals, vs Browns) and Haley's first three games this year. Everything is pretty much the same on offense, except Haley doesn't have mendenhall. Here are the numbers:

Offensive pts per game:
Haley 25.66, Arians 18.33

First downs:
Haley 64, Arians 60

Yards:
Haley 1048, Arians 1001

Sacks:
Haley 9, Arians 6

Interceptions:
Haley 1, Arians 2

I do not yet have time of possession stats, but I would guess the team's TOP #s are better under Haley, too. Some caviats to these stats: 2 of Haley's first 3 games were on the road; Arians' numbers are based on 2 home games out of 3. But the biggest # is that under Haley, the Steelers average a TD more per game, while seemingly keeping the ball LONGER, than Bruce's O did in three games last season.

Not a perfect comparison, but the best we have at the moment.

 

We're killing it on TOP. That's one of the things I love about this offense. Now when we get a D that can make stops and put this offense back out there to eat up more clock we are gonna be very good. However that's a big "WHEN".

 

FAR from a perfect comparison would be more accurate. Like comparing apples to watermelons.

Hate to abandon my tunnel vision but didn't we go 3-0 during that stretch? Trying not to look at numbers and focus on the game itself here. Doesn't the ebb and flow of a game, playcalling etc, change when you're up four td's like we were in that Cincy game? Don't you pretty much 'call the dogs off' offensively when the game is out of hand like that (28-7 at the half)? Are frigid December games like the prime time games at Kansas City and at home against Cleveland generally more low scoring than September games in Colorado and California?

Wasn't our lone touchdown in that Chiefs game a td to our . . . tight end (Weslye Saunders)? How'd that happen, Arians? Didn't Mewelde Moore lose a fumble in that game at the Kansas City 2-yard line? Damnit Arians!! Didn't Ben throw a pass that was picked off at the Kansas City 14-yard line? (In my best "Newman!" impression) Arians!!

Didn't Heath Miller, the greatest tight end in NFL history (according to the 432-page player evaluations conducted during the offseason and available on this message board), lose a fumble at the eight-yard line in that Cleveland game? But he held on to the ball in Oakland? Haley is a genius! Didn't Hines later lose a fumble at the 15-yard line? Damn Arians and his horrendous red zone playcalling!!!!!! Isn't that the game Ben pretty much broke his foot and played the final 2 1/2 quarters on one foot? Didn't Ben also have a pass picked off in this game, intended for Miller (can you believe it?), at the Cleveland 15? Damnit, Arians! Just curious to know if we're talking about the same game.

And didn't we compile over twice the rushing yards in those three games (391 to 195) than the three under Haley? Wasn't the PRIMARY reason Art Rooney replaced Arians with Haley so that we could get back to our tradition of running the football? Hate to try to break out of my 'tunnel vision' again but coming from someone who has actually SEEN A GAME IN PERSON this year, I can tell you that Haley's formations (at least in the Jets game) were a worse 'tell' than John Malkovic's penchant for licking Oreo's at the poker table in 'Rounders'. In the stands I was calling out whether we were running or passing based on our formation. As I mentioned on this board after that game, every time we replaced Wallace and Brown with Cotchery and Sanders, it was a running play. Not so 'brilliant' in my myopic eyes. Hitting rewind on our little DVR's only reveals so much. Tunnel vision indeed.

Nice effort at providing stats though. I appreciate the effort. I think you did a better job of illustrating (and validating my belief about) how much more important player execution is (3 fumbles and 2 interceptions lost inside the 15-yard line in 3 games?!) than playcalling. Thanks!

 

Do you not think that the Rooney's were looking at Arians complete body of work instead of a few cherry picked games? In my opinion the best game Arians called here was against the Pats. We sliced them up like crazy. But during that game we lost Lamarr and we were never the same really after that.

 

Our organization's philosophical goal as shared by the team President: "I think Mike and I certainly agreed coming off the (2011) season that we need to run the ball more consistently to get to where we want to get to," Rooney told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday. "So that's part of the thinking in the offseason: We need to figure out how to get better running the football."

Is that being carried out by the man hired by this organization to complete this task? Yes or No?

Current results:
*30th in the league in rushing performance.
*31st in the league in yards per carry.
*35:20 pass:run ratio
*1-2 record.
*The only teams in this league with a more imbalanced offense at this moment are a combined 5-15. The organization understands this philosophy is crucial to our success.

But Ben's passer rating . . . But Heath has 4 touchdowns . . . Stat nerd! . . . But numbers don't matter, you have to know how to have a feel for the game otherwise you're dumb . . .

In the end, we're only measured by our results.