Why... are we the type of team we are?

Vision and plans only go until the contact starts. Draft they type of players you want, design the type of plays you want. If this were Tomlin's second year as a coach, then yes I agree with the previous statement. But it is not. Surely Tomlin has learned to develop his vision and plan over the course of 7 years. But the "contact" also includes realities. First, Tomlin was a bang up coach his first 4 years. He hasn't suddenly forgotten how to coach, rather players contracts have consumed more of the salary cap while they have become older and less productive. Second, Dick Lebeau was and is here. He has been great as a D coordinator for us. But had he retired 3 years ago, you would see Tomlin's stamp on this defense. Until he does retire, you won't. Third, I would say the weakest part of this team over the last 5 years is drafting. Santonio Holmes is gone. The 2008 draft is gone. Ziggy Hood is no longer a starter. Pouncey is injured (not a miss, just part of the equation). Heyward is finally a starter. DeCastro has missed many games due to injury (again, not a miss but part of the equation). Jones is promising, but he's not pro bowl material yet, perhaps if like Troy he wasn't a starter his rookie year we would just be seeing his strengths versus his weaknesses. Perhaps if Tomlin were a coordinator for several more years before becoming a head coach, he would have learned to evaluate talent better.

 

He took the job and kept the coaching staff intact. What that tells us is either A) He was smart to keep the core together; B) He had no idea what he wanted to do and just took the easy way out: keep things the same.

In either case, we're now far removed from Cowher and this team is atrocious. A lot of criticism is leveled at the lack of "identity" the team has. Identity comes from the head coach and the habits that are developed in practice. The only habits the Steelers have been learning: 1. How to miss blocks and assignments; 2. How to drop the ball; 3. How to turn the ball over; 4. How to mismanage the clock; 5. How to take drive-killing penalties; 6. How to give the QB all day to throw; 7. How to give up big plays to start a game.

 

We are hard to watch, not to good of football being played by us for the last 2 to 3 years.You watch the Packers,Denver,Seattle,SF
these teams are exciting to watch and bring heart and desire to their games. I am tired of the coaching philosophy in PGH. I think I will step aside for awhile
until they start looking like a REAL football team.

 

IMO the cases you list were money related ... in the case of Dwyer, it was to save the $1.3mil he was going to get. In the case of Gay, Foote, and Speath, we thought they were worth X amount, and someone else thought they were worth a bit more. As far as if it Colbert or Tomlin that makes the call ... your guess is as good as mine. LOL

 

Yeah that's what I was saying.

 

I think one issue is that NFL rules are going away from excessive physical contact. I'm not arguing whether this is either good or bad, in any sense. Rather, it is clear that Steeler Football has largely been about physically intimidating the opponent. This is especially true when you talk about Steelers defense. Unfortunately, the new NFL rules severely restrict this type of play. Now, teams do not fear getting their bells rung when they play the Steelers. The intimidation factor is subsiding. And, the longer the Steelers play poorly, the more that factor will diminish.

Additionally, the Steelers offense has not been consistent (actually outright poor) in the red zone, for years, now (since Arians last couple seasons with the Steelers). Further, they can't move the ball well, at all. Some of this is due to the No-Line (it's not an O-Line until they start blocking again) which has been poor for about the same length of time as the red zone inefficiency.

Special teams has always been a toss-up, but isn't so bad that it's killing the team.

Kicking is mostly solid.

The defense is no longer explosive. Troy is explosive. Woodley should be explosive, but is not. The defense does a good enough job holding teams back, but it no longer shuts teams down.

I'm not great at front office evaluation, but I do know there is a serious cap issue. There doesn't seem to be a lot of money to make sweeping changes, right now.

This being said, I believe the offense is going to have to figure out a way to put up 30+ points/game. Ben has been talking that sh*t for the last 2-3 seasons. I haven't seen it, yet. Not consistently, anyway. Half the time, the No-Line is getting him mauled. The other half he's making some good throws, mis-reads, and throwing INTs (basically being a great quarterback). But it's just not enough. And somebody on that offense needs to step the f*ck up and energize everyone else to do what they need to do. And I don't mean to win the game. I mean they need somebody who's keeping them amped to win EVERY DOWN.

And the head coach needs to find a way to inspire these players to be who we know they can be.

[video=youtube;m_iKg7nutNY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY[/video]

 

[video=youtube_share;qlMTl7xqyek]http://youtu.be/qlMTl7xqyek[/video]

They can do it! Find the future!

 

We don't have the talent. Its the curse of success. We should have younger guys filling in and succeeding at multiple positions right now, but the young guys aren't good enough....

 

I really think the curse of success is not the way we seem to be going down but the way the Bungles seem to be going UP and the way the Rats went UP as well. Iron sharpens iron and our success forced their hand and they took the measures needed to compete with us. We've not seemed to take them seriously but I guarantee you if we spend some time at the bottom it will force our hand to fight back and not just be complacent and maybe in a few years we'll be back to the top.

 

I agree with this. The Bengals and Ravens got tired of being dominated by the Steelers. Do you remember when the Steelers used to sweep the division? I think they once did it in back-to-back years!

 

Yeah I mean look at the streak Ben had against the Browns and Bungles and Rats. Ben dominated them and they got sick of it and I think they didn't necessarily build to be competitive within the league. I think they built to be competitive against us which, by default, would make them competitive with the league.