What are Reasonable Expectations for Mike McCarthy in year one with the Steelers?

I hope it will not be a another 9-10 wins season with a wild card blowout loss again....If the steelers finish at 11-6 or better,great but I will be fine if they have a losing record like in 2003 if it help in the future to find a future young franchise QB...Don't work too hard to be above .500 like this is the case since 2021,this is bad for the team

I will not judge what McCarthy will do in year 1.His year 1 in Green Bay was nothing special and it was awful in Dallas.But the year 2 to 5 will be way more important.I expect Rodgers to be back but I hope this is not be the case.He has nothing left in the tank

 

He damn sure should be judged his first year. He is a veteran coach with quite a few fancy pieces in place and a FA that brought in more and 12 draft picks too

I expect nothing less than a Grudenesque Tampa 02 season and result

 

Who threw 4 interceptions against the Browns?

 

Plenty of teams found their franchise QB without having a losing record.
Baltimore
Green Bay
Buffalo
Kansas City

 

So why couldn't Tomlin do it?

You didn't demand that from him.

 

Tomlin couldn’t find a franchise qb if he was in a room full of qbs

 

And also 4TD's, over 500 yards, set the NFL record for completions in a game and racked up 37 points on the scoreboard.

 

Those are garbage time stats I think they were down 28-7 at one point.

 

Obviously not all Ben's fault. The D was terrible in that game.

But with 50 hurt in that game, we absolutely needed a fast start to take their running game away.

Instead, we got the classic slow start. So they got a big lead and we had to play catch up.

No pick-6 in this one. But 7 did have a fumble that went for a TD.

That DTD was more than the margin of victory (3 pts).

The truth is that Jags team was a horrible matchup for us. They dominated us (and owned Ben) in the regular season and the playoff.

But got some yards and points when they were in prevent. But if you look at those two games together, their defense (which was very good) dominated us basically every possession where the game was within 10 points.

Playoff game: https://www.espn.com/nfl/game/_/gameId/400999181/jaguars-steelers

Drives when we were down by 10 or less:

• 3 plays. 8 yards
• 3 plays. -1 yard. INT
• 6 plays, 42 yards. Punt
• We did get a TD with 1:44 when we were down by 10 (10 plays 75 yards). But again, they were just trying to kill the clock here with a 2 score lead when we got the ball with 1:44 left on the clock.

Again, going into this game, we knew we needed a fast start by the offense because without 50 we didn't have a good run defense. But Ben tended to not do much in 1st halfs in the playoffs after the GB game IIRC. In our first 5 possessions, we had one TD and two turnovers (one went the other way for a DTD).


Regular season game: https://www.espn.com/nfl/matchup/_/gameId/400951655

Drives when we were down by 10 or less:

• 7 plays 61 yards FG!
• 11 plays 42 yards. INT
• 4 plays 20 yards. PUNT
• 6 plays 45 yards FG.
• 4 plays 73 yards FG.
• 2 plays, -1 yard. INT (DTD) That put us down by 11.

In this game, we didn't even get the charity prevent.

• Next drive we were down by 11, but 6 plays 9 yards INT.
• Down by 11 again. 9 plays 20 yards PUNT
• Down by 14. 5 plays 13 yards INT.
• Down by 14. 7 plays 54 yards INT.
• 3 plays 9 yards GAME OVER

I think the chance of me seeing a QB in the black and gold that is as good or better than Ben in my lifetime is ~ 0%. But when he was bad, he was very bad. You can look at other QBs from that era that will be 1st ballot HoF QBs. Ben's INT% is higher than all of them in the playoffs. And the increase from the regular season to the playoffs is also higher than all of them.

Ben was a high variance player. It's what made him special. I don't think I'll ever see a QB that can do the magic Ben was able to do on the field. But I don't think we'll see another exceptional QB at his level that has as many stinkers in the playoffs has he has either.

I think I posted this about Tomlin when he retired, but I wonder if there's another coach in NFL history that has the number of total DTDs (for + against) in the playoffs as he did. Seems like every playoff game or two, we'd get a DTD or they would.

 

Yep.

Like the Jags playoff game. But worse.

Even when he was a shell of himself in that Browns game, he could still carve up prevent. But he lost accuracy on medium and deep passes. So we turned it over anytime it was close.

Pouncey having what has to be in competition for the worst snap in NFL history as the first play of the game (IIRC) also just wrecked the team's psyche IMO. Ben or Connor needed to get that ball out of the back of the endzone IMO. But it's a lot easier for me to say that on the couch than IRL.

 

I hear you and you make a good point. IMO though, as each Cowher player left the team became a little worse. As soon as it was all Tomlin players it was hopeless. The Steelers had no identity under Tomlin. To me it appeared to be all schoolyard football.

 

For the Jaguars playoffs game,look at the playcalling at the start, they was incredibly conservative.

First drive: two screen passes, including one on third down, and 8(6 yards gain and a punt after that) when the Steelers were already down 7-0. Second drive: two runs in the middle, and that put the Steelers on third down and 11. Of course, there was an interception after that, but I can't blame Ben for being on third down and long. It wasn't the recipe for a fast start, but as I said before, getting off to a fast start has never been important for Tomlin!

When they were down 28-21... the third drive, maybe, but on the fourth drive, the Steelers had made three straigth runs before going on fourth down, so it's hard to blame that on Ben again for the lack of urgency by the steelers

 

Tomlin choose Kenny Pickett and some washed QB after that

 

You can google this

 

Tomlin retired

You can’t quit whining about him now