Jason Cole of the National Football Post reports that the Steelers have expressed interest in Carolina Panthers assistant offensive line coach Ray Brown to replace Jack Bicknell Jr. The Steelers fired Bicknell yesterday, and appear to be moving quickly to find his replacement. It doesn’t surprise me that the team is interested in Brown, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they seek interviews with a couple other assistant coaches. Chris Morgan of the Redskins comes to mind.  I’d be surprised if the team hasn’t contacted recently fired Texans O-line coach John Benton.

The Panthers have declined to let Brown interview for the time being, but are expected to grant the Steelers permission when the playoffs are over. The interest in Brown implies that the team has not changed it’s offensive line philosophy, but that perhaps Bicknell wasn’t a good fit here, or that there were other unknown differences that led to Bicknell’s firing.

I say this because the Panthers run outside zone blocking quite often, so Ray Brown would be quite familiar with it.

Brown was an offensive linemen for 20 years before retiring, and has coached with the Bills, 49ers, and most recently the Carolina Panthers. He was the offensive line coach for the 49ers in 2010, and took the assistant offensive line coaching position for the Panthers in 2011. Brown was also Sean Kugler’s assistant at Buffalo, before taking the coaching position in San Francisco.

In what could be called somewhat of a surprise, the Steelers have announced that they have terminated offensive line coach Jack Bicknell Jr. Bicknell held the position for just about 11 months before being relieved of his duties. Mike Tomlin issued a brief statement about the firing on the team’s website.

“I have decided to go in a different direction with respect to the coaching of our offensive line,” said Tomlin. “I want to thank Jack for his contributions during the 2013 season, and I wish him well in the future.”

It should come as no surprise that the team fired a member of the coaching staff. It seemed highly unlikely that the team wouldn’t part ways with an assistant or two, but which coaches were difficult to predict. One can only speculate as to why Bicknell was let go. He was brought in to replace Sean Kugler, and to install the outside zone blocking scheme, which was touted as the cure to the ailing run game of 2012. After Maurkice Pouncey suffered from friendly fire during week one, the stretch scheme took a back seat, and was rarely seen again throughout the season.

While Bicknell has gotten a lot of credit from some media and fans for the line’s turnaround during the second half of the season, certain important factors are overlooked. After playing ‘musical tackles’ in the early part of the season, the team used Mike Adams as a blocking tight end, which served to cover some of the line’s weaknesses. Furthermore, the progression and success of the no huddle offense was a big key to Ben Roethlisberger’s success in the second half of the season.

There are some conflicting reports that Bicknell saw a decrease in coaching responsibilities throughout the season. Jerry Dulac writes, “In fact, for most of the second half of the season, offensive assistant Shaun Sarrett was doing a lot of the instruction and daily handling of the offensive line – duties normally performed by the offensive line coach.” This isn’t exactly true, as it’s not unheard of for assistant coaches to preform those duties, though, every Steelers fan’s favorite national reporter echoes that sentiment.

https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/419219489675165696

However, Mark Kaboly and Dejan Kovacevic report the contrary.

https://twitter.com/MarkKaboly_Trib/status/419227223980122112

https://twitter.com/Dejan_Kovacevic/status/419231002968330240

Clear as mud, right? We may never know why they chose to fire him, though who the Steelers hire to replace him may shed some more light on it. Was it a change in philosophy, or was Bicknell just not a good fit here? The former we’ll soon know, the latter we may never know.

The Steelers have signed two more to reserve/futures contracts today- punter Brad Wing and long snapper Bryce Davis.  Wing is an Australian born punter who went undrafted out of LSU after having a tumultuous college career. He had a big leg, but was arrested for battery, and was suspended during the Chick-Fil-A Bowl for undisclosed reasons (though reports at the time indicated drugs were the reason). If you’re in to Wonderlic scores, his was a 26, which is above average.

He was signed by the Eagles last spring, but was cut at the end of training camp. He’s worked out for teams like the Chiefs and Broncos in the past couple months, but no one has signed him. He’ll be a good camp leg that might surprise everyone.

Davis is a 6’3″, 245 long snapper out of Central Oklahoma. He was signed to the Bengals practice squad after being cut by them after training camp last year, and spent the 2013 season as a free agent. The Bengals used him as a tight end a couple times in preseason last year.