Former Steelers Players doing well

I’m still pissed we let Mike Hilton walk. Especially to another team in our division.

 

I didn’t see where he defended Tomlin, rather, he disputed your premise that players are leaving and having a complete turnaround at their next team. You are using this to question coaching and development of players.

Without doing much research, I have never felt that players leave us and turn around and light the world on fire (admittedly this is anecdotal).

I think the offensive line and play calling have to get better….no question.

 

This
Saved Me having to write it.

 

No doubt I’m conjecturing but I don’t believe in coincidences either. It is telling that these players are doing well elsewhere and players we brought in are not playing as well as they did on their previous team. To suggest our problems are only the offensive line and play calling is short sighted. We have problems in the defensive side as well. To me with being one of the highest paid defenses it us inexcusable at this point. The buck definitely stops with Tomlin at this point.

 

I get that. He doesn't fit your premise, but somebody else brought him into the discussion.

 

I started calling for Tomlin to be fired after the 2018 season. I'm just saying that your premise doesn't hold up. You are focused mostly on journeymen, guys who have been both good and bad in other places, too.

 

I was gonna make a post about the same subject after reading this before I saw this thread.

https://steelersdepot.com/2023/10/the-rams-have-turned-kevin-dotson-into-one-of-the-nfls-top-guards/

Dotson was a fool in Pgh and goes on to excel as a Ram. Coaching? You betcha it's in question in Pgh.

 

Could it be that Art Rooney JR. is over his head. I or non of us on this forum see very little progression. It is like watching Congress pass a bill. Personally I would like to see him step aside and bring someone in that will accept the responsibility of running a franchise, a decision maker.

 

Wallace was solid for the Steelers last year, too. He is an inconsistent player, which is why he was available relatively cheap in the first place.

I think there are things we don't know about behind the scenes with Dotson. He certainly made way too many mental errors. Again, I don't trust PFF at all. Maybe he is better. Maybe seeing the team that drafted him move on gave him the kick in the ass he needed.

Regarding Brown, he was an All-Pro for the Seahawks, so it is hard to argue that he went through some great decline after leaving. His sack numbers went down because of the role and type of defense they had in Seattle, but that doesn't mean his play declined.

I'm not sure what the heck is gong on with Seamalu. It may be time to question Meyer. The line came together and played extremely well by the end of last season, but this is the second year in a row they were terrible early on, both times with key veteran free agents struggling to adapt. Daniels had a similar problem last season. That's not good.

 

Agree. The organization operates on what has happened well into the past. Every time you hear something to the effect that 'the Steelers don't do this or that during the season' or 'the Steelers never fire anyone during the season', or similar things the Steelers do or don't do, that may be one of the issues why we're in stagnation mode. The organization operates within a 6 inch think titanium box and thinking outside of it rarely if ever happens. JMO>

 

I believe Patrick Peterson is doing a lot better then Levi Wallace??? Patrick Peterson has played decent this season. I don't think he has been torched that many times?

 

Are you inferring Rooney is like Biden? If so I kind of agree.

 

I think we’re saying the same thing here with your point of view being a little more grounded as a result if less emotion. I still believe there is some culpability on Tomlins part that a lot of people want to gloss over.

I am really intrigued on why people are giving Tomlin a pass on the run defense and on his continued poor choice of coordinators. How can a guy who appears to be highly intelligent and a self proclaimed football junky who is highly respected in the league struggle continually to get top level coordinators? Something doesn’t add up.

I wonder if he is highly esteemed by other coaches or is it more of a narrative in the media because he is so clever in press conferences and he is always a great sound bite so the media loves him. He obviously is very popular amongst players in the league but it would be interesting to know how he is really perceived amongst the coaches in the league the try X’s and O’s Guys.

 

Fair point.

 

Losing Cam Heyward hurts, especially in the run game. What hurts more is that our offense is completely inept. There have been several games where we haven’t had 100 yards of offense in a half, let alone a couple first downs.

When you give the opposing offense that many chances, there are going to be breakdowns on defense.

 

I hope you are being sarcastic here. Even Peterson knows he is playing bad. He is willing to accept a demotion without defending his play. In fairness to him he was brought in here to be moved around and play safety and slot and we have played him primarily on the perimeter. He is too old now to play the perimeter it us unfair of us to put him in that position but for some reason we live making players do things that don’t fit their strengths.

Examples:

Mason Cole outside Zone Run Block

Minkah playing in the Box - opposing offenses live not having to worry about Minkah playing deep middle

Najee outside Zone Run

How about putting our big TE in motion and using him as a lead blocker around the edge or lining him out wide and put him in motion and buildup a head of steam to seal off the edge on a outside run. There is no innovation with the blocking. The TE just lines up like an extra tackle and at times he has been out leveraged and beaten but we don’t do anything to perhaps help these guys. It is just really bad coaching. It’s one thing for it to happen in one game but it’s continuos and tear after year. To me with it being a long term issue the problem has to lie with Tomlin because he either doesn’t have the knowledge to see it or he sees it and doesn’t change it. Either way it is an issue.

 

I hear what you’re saying but those excuses have been played out far too many times already. The issue with stopping the run existed even with Cam in there.

it’s the style of defense we play and what we ask our defensive lineman to do. Cam didn’t get all the sacks early on in his careeer because we weren’t asking him to gap penetrate. We were asking him to play like Aaron Smith and gap contain and play laterally and tie up multiple blockers. That’s why are middle linebackers played so well under Lebeau. We got away from that under Tomlin. We had a little bit of the gap contain when we had Tuitt and Heyward in the field at the same time but it wasn’t designed that way. Those two were just so big and talented that they both often drew double teams which freed up the linebackers to play down hill and stop the run. I can assure you though Tuitt and Heyward first responsibility was to get to the QB in that scheme.

Now with our offense being so inept and it starts with poor run blocking and play design more than anything it puts our offense in a third and long situation which is the worst position to continually put a young developing QB into. But we continue to do it. Then we fall behind in games and that as a result takes our pass rush out of the game because teams don’t have to play catch up and throw the ball on us.

 

Funny, I thought this post was going to be all about our former WRs, JuJu, Washington and Claypool.

Again, Each one of these players was an early draft pick by the Steelers. I always thought the media said how good this team is about drafting WRs???

 

You think Scribe is a Tomlin defender? That's funny right there. Need to go wipe the laughter tears from my eyes.

 

Every team has a list like this, both good and bad. I don't see any egregious mistakes here. There were certainly a few recent cap casualty FAs I didn't want to lose like Hilton and Hargrave but we've added some decent players. Two major things stick out with this team: 1) the drafting from 2018-20 was horrible (DJ and Highsmith are about it) and 2) the coaching staff sucks. Neither of those are new items though.

 

Given how well former players are doing, this is essentially a coaching problem. Yes, you cannot shoehorn a singular player as the gameplan barring extreme circumstances, such as Troy Polamalu. However, a Coaches Job is to construct a gameplan based around the talents of the players that they do have to not only maximize their skillsets but minimize their deficiencies.



Kevin Dotson is a prime example of what happens when a talented player heads to the incorrect system. Given how well he has played, it should be surprising no one that he is doing as well as he is. Same goes for Ahkello, Steven Nelson and Arthur Maulet but to a lesser extent. All of these players have some level of talent but were sadly placed in a system that simply does not maximize their value. For that matter, the same woes are popping up again in Patrick Peterson; someone who should be moving around as intended rather than sticking him in one spot. Instead of placing a promising young Rookie in Joey Porter Jr out to see what they have, Tomlin and Austin both elect to choose the Veteran for it is the "safe" option.... except it has not been.


In short?! This is not just merely a Coaching problem. This can now be classified as a player evaluation problem; not in the vein that the players themselves lack talent but are playing in unwinnable situations.... such as Kendrick Green. Hell, Kendrick Green can be argued as both Kevin Colberts and Mike Tomlins greatest misevaluation ever. Many of us know that Canada will go bye bye at the conclusion of the season. However.....


.... Tomlin's Contract expires at the conclusion of the 2024 Season. How much time does he have remaining?! Time will tell...

 

Tomlin will be here as long as he wants unless there is a sudden change in ownership. I say this with 100% certainty. He should have been gone 5 years ago along with his entire coaching staff.

 

Personally, I am not so convinced. Normally, Tomlin gets his extension done ahead of time. However, he will not see one this season; something I find quite odd. To my knowledge, I don't believe this has ever happened between AR II and Tomlin. Mind you that the Steelers have not won a Playoff Game since 2016; the ones that they have participated in the subsequent years would result in some of the most ugly losses not just in Tomlin's tenure but also Steelers History.



I would imagine that, in it of itself, is gnawing at AR II at this point.

 

Juju has had good seasons. He has to be in the right system and he is a number two. Claypool has the talent it is his attitude. Washington I feel never had a fair shot. Then the injury bug hit and now he is basically a journeyman.

 

Of course you would.

But on that note let's veer away from the topic of politics, please.