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

I agree

 

So fragile.

 

Good post.

There are people who say Ben isn't great... these people are nuts and are hard to take seriously. Of course Ben was great, he just wasn't the GREATEST... and that's okay. He won us two superbowls and got us to another, as well as brought us a ton of victories along the way. Ben IMO, is one of the 10-15 greatest QB's to ever play. He wasn't perfect, and had his struggles (as well as some vaild criticisms), but he was great.

Tomlin has valid criticisms too, but there are also valid arguments that he was great too. I don't necessarily think he was, but there's an argument that he was (at least a great regular season coach). He brought us a SB win, a lot of wins, and never having to feel the pain of a horrific season. Perfect? Far from it. But I don't buy the "Tomlin sucks" argument either. Its definitely somewhere in between.

 

expectations? same as every year, super bowl win.

 

yeah.. teams are never the same. New year, new team.

I didn’t read the whole thread but it looks like people are mad that some blame Ben for some of our losses. Dude had some stinkers in his career and we made of the alias of Bad Ben because some days he just didn’t look right.

It happens The man is not a God.

 

McCarthy had three straight seasons with a top-five scoring offense prior to 2024.

He did this without a top 8 NFL QB that was overpaid and choked the Dallas cap.

Unfortunately he had Jerry Jones as the Owner / GM.

Jones is the reason the great Jimmy Johsnon quit.

 

Honest answer whether coach or QB, judge on individual contribution to wins or loses.Just as I dont put the Jax loss on Ben, I dont credit him pretty much at all for his first win.

Going back to the Zona SB, Ben has EXACTY THE SAME PERFORMANCE and Zona scores on his first pick, Santonio score at the end is meaningless.

But that game where we scored 20 offensive points is treated as a masterpiece because of ONE DRIVE despite an error that could have ended us.

Ben throws MULTIPLE SCORES with receivers just as closely covered and he is a bum?

Tomlin had that team prepared to score on any turnover and I give him WAY MORE credit than most for that win. Troy credited that directly to Tomlins preparation.

Even WITH THE JH PICK, if we dont score it is halftime, we likely lose at game we won by 4. If that happens and the game played out the same, Ben gets no love because of factors COMPLETELY OUT OF HIS CONTROL.

Bens Jax performance literally mirrors TBs second SB win against the Cowboys. Strip fumble TD, and a pick. Furious close of excellence. Difference? BRADSHAWS DEFENSE DID NOT ALLOW A FRANCHISE RECORD POINTS.

Jackie Smith just makes a catch and we might have lost.

But Bradshaw was SB MVP scoring 35? I got no beef with that, hewas awesome. Just like Ben who broke TBs record for postseason TD passes with the exact same turnovers.

 

Ben has absolutely had stinkers. One was a SB win. Dude was garbage against the Jets TWICE in VICTORIES.

You can call out others for obsolving Ben of blame unreservedly but this guy's defending ONE GAME WHERE HE ABSOLUTELY DID ENOUGH TO OVERCOME EARLY ERRORS had the defense not had THE WORST STEELER PERFORMNCE in recall is not about never making him accountable.

Just as Ben's defense let him down against Jax, that defense carried him in many victories despite his trash play.

 

In SB versus the Falcons, Brady threw a pick 6 and Pats had a fumble too. If the Pats score the same 35 in a furious comback attempt but the Falcons score 17 4th quarter points, they lose going away.

Great QBs engineer comebacks BECAUSE they overcome mistakes or slow starts.

You cannot do that if the other team scores at will.

 

And if not for Brady's lucky play where he forces the ball into coverage, it gets knocked into the air and lands on the legs of a defender to allow Edelman to "catch" the ball....they most likely never even sniff that comeback. That was sheer unadulterated **** luck on that play, yet we have to listen to people talk about it like Brady could do the impossible and it was all skill. The play should have never happened and it is nothing but a lucky bounce and a fluke play that gave them a chance to score and come back in that game. The comeback also happened because the Patriot's defense held the Falcons offense in check so they could catch them.

As you said, you can't catch a team if your defense allows the other team to score every time they have the ball.

 

Some fans seem to forget that the Jags had a top 5 scoring offense that season. Poopoo Bortles all you want but they made it work. And the Steelers defense wasn't on the field for one score. Eliminate that mistake and it's the difference in the score.

Another poster said it right. It's about matchups and the Jags that season were a bad matchup for the Steelers.

 

Nice post.

Things slipped away from both of them at the end of their careers (which is probably why they both retired).

I think it's because Tomlin got too much control / too big an ego. He was best when he was young and had good coordinators that he let them coordinate. I didn't really want to see it at the time, but someone on another board pointed out to me that even Butler had said that he didn't let him do much. Then I think we hired Austin to just do what Tomlin wanted. I think the tension between LeBeau (and somewhat Butler) and Tomlin was good. But I think Tomlin eventually took full control of the D and it got stagnant. Except when we hired Flores, who Tomlin seemed to allow to do some new things. Back to stagnation after he left.

With Ben, I think he lost accuracy in mid and deep passes later in his career. Probably from somewhere around when AB made the "bad wifi" comments. So when defenses were playing guys tighter / at the line he couldn't fit the ball in as well. And he lost his "super power" which was making teams pay dearly for playing up on defense because he'd extend a play and hit a bomb. I think this also explains how he continued to be very good when defenses were less aggressive / playing with bigger leads. I think this hurt more than Tomlin slipping because I think QBs are much more important than HCs.

I do wonder if they were also both victims of their own success in the end. With each successive contract, Ben took up more and more of the cap. Which made the team around him worse. That's tough for a high variance QB because it means you have to throw more and more. Which is going to lead to more and more bad plays (especially since as players get older bad play frequency likely goes up and good play frequency goes down).

There's not salary cap on coaches, but Rooney isn't an owner who is going to spend as much as possible outside the cap to maximize success. So as Tomlin got more and more expensive with every contract, I think Rooney said something like "Since I'm paying you as the 3rd highest coach in the league, you'll have to do more with less (budget wise) re: coordinators". And Tomlin either (1) couldn't find good coordinators that could fit in the budget, (2) just couldn't find good coordinators, or (3) couldn't coach up those coordinators to get better...it's probably some combination of all three of these things.

 

Excellent post!

FWIW, I think only one of these two guys should be in the HoF.

I think Tomlin was a very good coach, but not a HoFer. I also don't think Cowher deserves to be in the Hall...I think he only got there because (1) there was a special class and (2) he works for one of the few companies who pay the NFL's bills and the coach on the other network was going in and CBS wanted that too. Like you said above, I don't think this means these guys weren't very good for the Steelers. I just think it means they were just below the HoF...same with Ward (which is too bad because I love what he did for the team).

I think Harrison is on the other side of that line (should be in the HoF for the pick-6). But I don't think the voters agree with me.

 

Harrison's problem with the HoF is that he wasn't a full time starter until he was 29. He doesn't have the career statistical data to justify it, even if he was a dominant force for 5 years. The "greatest play in Super Bowl history" as he calls it (I tend to agree), is definitely a huge plus for him.

 

Ben had a good case to be MVP against Arizona; we saw Brady and Eli win SB MVP without big stats.

 

If A. Brown makes it in then Harrison has a good case. Their seasons of excellence were about the same. (But I am skeptical Brown gets in... maybe as an oldster some day).

 

I agree with you that longevity is his problem.

Personally, I think that being the premier edge rusher for a fairly long period of time plus one of the greatest defensive plays in SB history should be enough.

But I think that the HoF committee doesn't see it the way I do. Also...I'm clearly biased.

 

IMO if it weren't for Midgeville, Ben would have a SB MVP.

Edit: I got the SA allegation timing wrong here. Midgeville allegations were from 2010 and this SB was in 2009. But the Lake Tahoe allegations were recent (happened in 2008). I remembered there was talk that he didn't get the MVP because of SA accusations. And in my head, I always default that to the 2nd incident.

 

I think Brown would have had a shot if he didn't go crazy. But now, the going crazy is probably all people will know about him.

I guess he was recently extradited from Dubai for a 2nd degree attempted murder charge? But maybe it gets dismissed?

You never know...Ray Lewis allegedly murdered a guy and he's in the Hall.

 

How so? SB XLV ? Ben should not have stayed out beyond curfew getting drunk. Like I've said many times It was at that moment when it was evident Tomlin could not manage a team or players and no super bowl would be won by him and team. The organization wasted 15 years staying with Tomlin. Oh well. Top it off with a QB who didn't put full effort in his game.

 

Thanks...got the dates wrong here. Midgeville was 2010 and XLIII was in 2009.

Instead of Midgeville, I should have said the initial allegations from Lake Tahoe in 2008.

I updated the other post noting that my original dates were wrong.

I don't think there was a clearly MVP in XLIII.

In that case, usually a tie goes to the QB. But with recent SA allegations, I think they actively went against Ben here.

Also...re: bold. The team did win a SB under Tomlin.

 

This past season basically met expectations, so yeah, I'd say they finished about where their talent was.

The fourth seed is a bit of a joke, right? I believe there was a fourth seed in the NFC that was under .500? Hardly playoff worthy.

My beef with Tomlin and his awful coaching, planning and HIRES is based on the past 15+ seasons, not just 2025. We have SEVERELY underacheived. A big part of that is horrible coordinators on BOTH sides of the ball. That is 100% on Tomlin. Then Tomlin meddles, making things worse. Our last good OC was Haley, thats a long time ago. Our last good DC was Lebeau and thats a long time ago. Thanks for nothing Tomlin, I could have hired better than that and I wouldn't have meddled.

Tomlin's acheivements are NOTHING to be touting. For most of those 15 seasons he had above average talent on the starting 22 and in 5-6 of those seasons, top 5 talent. Yet acheived MUCH less than was expected. He did have a couple of great regular seasons, to be expected with great talent, then garbage playoff results.

At this point, McCarthy could be awful and we'd still be in better shape 4 years from now than if we stuck with Tomlin.

I am not sure I can take "Tomlin willed them into the playoffs" as if this was a team completely bereft of talent. It would have morphed into, Tomlin willed them to 4 come-from-behind victories to reach 8 wins, always ignoring the fact the reasons they were behind in the first place was Tomlin and his bumbling goons of a coaching staff.

Tomlin had his moments for sure, but they're so far back in the rear view mirror they're a faint memory now and those under 16 can't recall Tomlin ever being a good coach.

 

While we were (very?) far from the 4th best team in the AFC in 2025, we were the 4th seed last season (because we won the North). So, if we go by playoff seeding (if we make the playoffs), I think it's pretty unlikely that we do as well as we did in 2025.



Re: Tomlin. Agree on hiring in particular. I do think there are years where we underachieved for sure. But I think we overachieved or met reasonable expectations at least since Ben got hurt.

Agree re: Haley. I'd probably argue that Butler was a good DC. Especially since he was hired with the specific mandate to increase sacks. And I think we lead the league in sacks most years he was DC. But IIRC, we certainly had some questionable pass defenses those years...kind of a break but don't bend style defense (again, if my memory doesn't suck...which is probably 50/50 here).

Re: Achieved much less than expected. Can you please provide a list of coaches who made it to two SBs and won at least one in 15 years? If you go through this exercise, I think you'll realize that this isn't something to sneeze at. Note that this is also true for anyone who says Ben underachieved. There are very few QBs who have gone to 3 SBs and won at least 2.

Re: McCarthy. This point can't be evaluated. But I think it will be interesting to see what happens this season with a similar roster and a different HC.

Re: "Willed". It probably wasn't the best word choice on my part. The truth is probably something like: Post Ben (maybe post-Ben's injury?) Tomlin had us playing a very unentertaining brand of football that allowed a team without good QB play to be in most games...even when the opponent was "better" on paper. Unfortunately, that same system meant we were playing similar games against bad teams and so we saw some really ugly losses. But on the whole we ended up ahead in the standings in the regular season. This strategy doesn't work against very good QBs...so we generally got destroyed in the playoffs.