Yesterday Steeler Nation was abuzz with rumblings that the Redskins wanted to interview Steelers special teams coach Danny Smith for their head coach opening. As I reported yesterday, the reports may or may not have been true at all. The team never requested an interview.
Fact or fiction, the Redskins have announced they have reached a 5 year deal with Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden. So, Danny Smith remains in Pittsburgh for now…and probably for a while.
Stories are being spun out about Ben Roethlisberger not getting extended this year, or possibly even next, after Art Rooney II met with reporters yesterday. Here’s what Mr. Rooney had to say about the possibility of extending Ben this off-season:
“It’s not set in stone. We’ve done it in the past on a couple of occasions, but it’s not necessarily something that’s automatic. I believe we’ll get something done when it’s appropriate for both sides. I think Ben knows that it’s our intention to have him here beyond his current contract, whenever we get [an extension] done.” He added, “The only thing I would say about Ben and his situation is I certainly expect that at some point we will do a contract, whether it’s this season, or after next season, or after the season after that, but I think Ben will be playing here beyond the current contract.”
That’s it. Pretty innocuous, right? I’m not sure how national reporters or even Steelers bloggers are coming to the conclusion that he won’t be extended based on that. It should come as no surprise that Mr. Rooney’s interview responses are going to be guarded and non-committal. What would he have to gain from publicly divulging the organization’s specific contract intentions?
The fact of the matter is that the Steelers don’t have a whole lot of options frankly. The 2014 salary cap situation is such that a big part of the Steelers off season plans are likely going to center, in part, around extending Big Ben to reduce his 2014 salary cap hit. By extending Ben Roethlisberger during this off-season, the Steelers could easily reduce his 2014 cap hit of $18,895,000 by 4 or 5 million dollars. Furthermore, Art II flat out said, “We’ve got to have Ben retire as a Steeler…there’s no doubt about that.”
As with most things, nothing in the NFL is certain, but I would be pretty surprised if they don’t announce that they’ve agreed on an extension with him in the coming months.
Tarik El-Bashir of Comcast sports reports that the Redskins are interested in interviewing Steelers special teams coach Danny Smith for their head coach vacancy.
https://twitter.com/TarikCSN/status/420997563563925504
It’s almost hard to keep track of all the candidates the Redskins are interviewing. I think Smith would make the 7th on the list at last count. The Steelers have not confirmed this yet, so this may or may not be true. Remember, reports surfaced last week that Bill Cowher was a candidate, too.
Assuming this is true, Smith would seem to be somewhat of a longshot compared to some of the other candidates. Danny Smith was hired by the Steelers last winter as the new special teams coach. Before that, he was the Redskins special teams coach from 2004- 2012. It has been said before that Smith was well liked by owner Dan Snyder while he was a coach there, but he has no head coaching experience.
Aside from signing the four players to reserve/futures deals earlier, the Steelers hosted several players for workouts. The team has guys in for workouts on a weekly basis during the season, but more so, every team is busy doing this right now, in an effort to build the depth on their roster and get towards the 90 man off season maximum.
DE Chancey Aghayere, LB Alonzo Tweedy, DE Aston Whiteside, DT Chas Alecxih, and CB Kevin Rutland were all in for workouts recently, on top of the 4 they ended up signing.
ProFootballFocus has released the selections for their All Pro team. Antonio Brown and Chicago’s Brandon Marshall are the two wide receivers that have made the grade. This comes only a few days after being named 2nd team All Pro.
Here’s what they had to say about the selection-
It wasn’t easy leaving out players like Josh Gordon, Demaryius Thomas and A.J. Green (to name three), but we’re happy with what we’re left with. It’s rare that a receivers blocking plays much part in our decision making, but when you can complement 1,295 yards and 12 touchdowns with a +17.0 run blocking grade (the next highest was +6.2) you get a true every-down wide receiver weapon in Marshall. Brown would finish the year our top-ranked pure receiving wide-out, but might consider him lucky that a player like Calvin Johnson missed so much time over the season.
Brown earned the highest receiving score of all wide outs this year from PFF.
On top of the Reserve/Futures signings I posted this morning, the Steelers have also signed RB Miguel Maysonet and WR Lanear Sampson to reserve/futures contracts.
RB Miguel Maysonet was an UDFA out of Stony Brook who has bounced around on various practice squads this year. He’s a guy who I touted to pick up as an UDFA last spring, as I thought he would be a great candidate to excel in a ZBS. He is 5’9″, 209 lbs and ran a 4.6 40 at his pro day. Some draft scouts compared him to Alfred Morris.
WR Lanear Sampson was signed by the Colts as an UDFA out of Baylor. He’s 5’11”, 204 lbs and ran a 4.40 40 yard dash. He was cut by the Colts when they made their final roster selections, but was later added to the Cowboys practice squad. He’s very fast, but some scouts noted he’ll need coaching in his routes.
While the team hasn’t officially announced it yet, Ed Bouchette reports that the Steelers have signed LB Dan Molls and DB Devin Smith to reserve/futures contracts. Molls confirms it on his Twitter account.
Molls is a 6’0, 238 lb ILB who signed with the Chargers last spring as an UDFA out of Toledo, but didn’t make their final roster. Molls was touted as a run stopper in college, and was the nation’s leading tackler in 2012 with 166.
Devin Smith was originally signed by the Cowboys as an UDFA and later signed with the Steelers during training camp. The team added him to the practice squad at times throughout the 2013 season. He’s considered a solid special teamer. You can see his coming’s and going’s here: http://thesteelersfans.com/?s=Devin+Smith
It’s that time of year. The playoffs are underway. College football is wrapping up. Rumors are flying about Bill Cowher’s possible return to coaching. The latest rumors have the former Steelers coach as a candidate for the Washington Redskins head coach vacancy. The Washington Post reported that Cowher has already met with Redskins owner Dan Snyder twice about the position.
Coach Cowher put that rumor, and any others floating about, to bed yesterday on his CBS pregame show. About the rumors Cowher said, “I never met with anyone. No one has called me. I am flattered when that happens, but I have no intention of coaching. I really like the job I have now.”
It seems that for now, we’ll have to ignore his real estate purchases…at least until next year.
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.