Is the 2012 team officially being blown up?

Looks like we are re-building now. Earlier it looked like we may be re-tooling for a run but now I think this team is officially being blown up with a long up hill battle. I hate to be a pessimist but we may be seeing 2013 Bengals, Clowns, Steelers, Rats. Please tell me I'm wrong.

They are definitely going to have to draft well to fill holes.

I'm just not confident that we can get a grade B+ or better draft though.

 

I may be over reacting just by losing Keenan Lewis. He was just starting to come around. Harrison is going to hurt not seeing him on the field.

 

re-building???? You do that by bringing in young players and letting them play....Not by bringing back guys who you already let go because they weren't good enough to start before.....Our problem especially on defense is we REFUSE to start young players..I would bet Rolle and Mcfadden would beat out Foote on 30 other teams....

 

lewis hampton harrison wallace mendenhall colon mundy legursky w.allen ....left , troy woodley phisical ? heat miller injuried , spence possible retyre

maybe is not rebuilding but a big shake up

 

TE
You say injury's were our main problem last year....and 2 of our biggest injury's down the stretch were to OLB's and CB's which we didn't have the talent to overcome!
So far this off season we have cut one of our starting OLB's and lost our #2CB presumed to be replaced by the backups who filled in last year. BUT your not worried...
I don't understand the logic..

 

This the worst year I have seen with loosing players. I don't get what Art was saying that this is routine and just another year. What is it now 6 starters are gone! Does anybody else remember it being this bad with losing this many starters?

What seems to make it worse is we resign guys like Foote and bring back Gay. Although I'm okay with Gay as a back up or in the nickel as an extra back but never as a starting cornerback.

We should never been in this situation, seems like bad management to me!

 

Here's what makes me have some doubts about this team.

William Gay - Need I say more? The guy is a terrible CB period!
Worilds and Woodley - Both are huge question marks
The Oline - Huge question make yet again
RB's - We have no good RB's on the team
WR's - We don't have a true #1 WR, although this is a position that could come together depending on Plax, either way, it's still an area of weakness
Larry Foote - Mediocre at best
Troy - Can't stay healthy
Ike - Inconsistent. Can play at a high level at times, but very inconsistent.
Entire Dline - Right now this is one huge question mark as well
TE - We don't know if/when we're going to get Heath back. Our TE's behind Heath are terrible. We need to draft a TE in a bad way


Those are my concerns, and that is pretty much the entire team. Going into this season (and I realize the new league year just started, so things will change), our entire team is one big question mark. It's hard to feel confident about this team with that many question marks.

 

Last year the Steelers were 8-8 with all these same players who left for free agency so them leaving isn't that big of a deal. Only Wallace and Lewis are in their prime the team will be fine with a good draft.

 

I don't know why I'm here. TomlinEra writes everything I want to say before I get a chance.

I don't know how anybody views this offseason any different than years' past. We're gonna draft some guys who can help us, we're letting some high-priced distractions walk (Wallace/Mendy), we're not going to overspend on an unproven youngster who is commanding a fortune on the open market (Keenan), we're cutting some dead weight (Harrison, Colon -- although, I too would like to have given 92 one more year -- I think he has it in him), and we're going to sign an unremarkable free agent that is going to give us solid contribution for the next 5-7 years. And we'll keep moving along like we do every other year while a few Chicken Littles run around this barnyard screaming.

We should only be concerned if we pulled up a Brinks truck to the garage doors of Wallace and K Lewis. These guys aren't foolish. Khan, Colbert . . . they're doing their thing. They've earned our trust. Embrace it.

We're fine.

Edit: I will say that I am fine letting JH go, not because I don't think he's done, but because I think we need to give Worilds an opportunity to step and see what he can do.

 

Ditto on this too, of course.

I'm thrilled to have Gay back. I think he was a solid corner and is a guy who I can (somewhat) trust to step in for a bit if a starter goes down. Don't know why people hate him so much. This board tends to take a random observation, embrace it, run with it, and never let it go. Case in point . . .

Larry Foote! WHY does everyone hate this dude so much?! We lost A LOT when we lost Farrior. And Foote stepped in and was one of the lone bright spots on our '11 defense. He had a solid season last year, too. No, he's not Jack Lambert. Is that the problem? Not everybody on the defense is going to be a star. The nice thing about Foote is that he's not somebody you have to worry about. He's not a liability. He does his job and he does it well.

I didn't post the stat about Worilds, but I did read somewhere he nearly matched JH's sack total last season in just a portion of the playing time. I'm looking forward to seeing the next stud outside linebacker in this organization. It's his time now. Let's see what he's got.

I'm also looking forward to seeing what Woodley brings to the table this offseason. What has rubbed me the wrong way with him is that I read his FB page prior to games, he talks a big game, I get all amped, then we lay an egg and he posts the next day about how it's time to get back to work. I guess that's what rubs people the wrong way about Tomlin. Tired of hearing all the pomp and circumstance, just wanna see the W's. I look forward to both of 'em backing it up this year.

I think we should all be THRILLED about the direction we're headed with our o-line. If people are still complaining after we just drafted Pouncey, Decastro, Adams, Gilbert, and Beechum in the past three years, they'll never be happy.

One point I'm not sold on: Dwyer. I've yet to see anything that even remotely impresses me about him. Still waiting . . . Personally, I like Redman better (and I think I'm completely alone on that one).

I would like to see us add another wr. Not sure about heading into the season with the current group. Who knows what we're getting out of Plax?! I'm thrilled we re-signed him though! I look for AB to bounce back this season. Sanders too.

Nice observation about Troy playing well at the end of last season. He said he finally felt healthy for the first time in a long time. I'll be looking forward to seeing what he brings to the table this year. As long as he stays healthy, I think we could get a glimpse of some vintage Troy. If we don't, it'll be his last year in the B&G.

Ike . . . How to put this eloquently . . . Anybody complaining about Ike Taylor is a dipshlt and should be forced to watch tapes of Chad Scott and Dewayne Washington.

I think we're fine on the DL. Seem to be two-deep at about every spot on the front three. Don't know why there's concern there.

TE. Whatever. They'll bring someone in. I think it was Hack who suggested we bring Spaeth back. Not a bad idea. Wonder what happened with Saunders . . .

 

Squared

 

Heres the funny thing, the release of James Harrison harkens back to the Steelers of old. The ones who cut ties with a player a year too early rather than a year too late and let the next young guy step in and improve.

Jason Gildon? Gone. Replaced by Porter who showed signs of brilliance in limited playing time behind Gildon.

Joey Porter? Gone. Replaced by Harrison who showed signs of brilliance in limited playing time behind Porter. I remember back then that people were unsure of JH saying things about bouncing around from PS to PS and not making a roster until his lates 20s. How did that work out?

And now its Worilds turn to replace Harrison. Worlids has looked good in spot duty, but what does everyone say? Its only spot duty.

The irony is that people here get pissed because they say that the Steelers overpay for veterans with declining skills instead of investing in a youth movement, but when they finally rid themselves of such players, they're criticized for that too.

 

I never said they should have kept Harrison. I don't think too many people are saying that. Just because we have doubts about Worilds doesn't mean we think they should have kept Harrison. I have doubts about Worilds because he hasn't proven anything yet. He's played well in short stints, but that's it.

This really has nothing to do with wanting the Steelers to keep older players, and everything to do with not really improving a team that finished 8-8 last year. You can only blame so much on injuries.

 

Looked like it to me as well but the new pope has been ushered in

Did you know the Steelers have won a Super Bowl every time a new ... II was elected the 264th Pope, and the Steelers won Super Bowl XIII later that year.

LOL

 

I think there is plenty of blame to go around .. How many posts have we all seen that talked about the Steelers and their shortcomings in 2011 and now 2012? Some of those excuses have left and gone on to greener pastures cough cough Bruce Arians. Always the same BS about who is responsible but in the end its just really about a bunch of whiney ass *****es making too much money and us paying for their sorry asses.

Colbert, Tomlin and the entire staff need to be fired immediately and we need to find a way to fix this pitiful display of a team dynamic gone wrong. Ryan Clark is probably about the best thing we have on the entire team but there are times he needs to shut up as well.

Bman

 

counting heath out at the start of the season, we lost:
22 touchdowns.
169 receptions.
this is for 5 players heath,pope,wallace,rainey,mendenhall.

we kept 6 guys that netted us: 12 TD's. batch,dwyer,redman,sanders,brown,buress.

on defense we lost:
250 out of 965 tackles.
6 sacks.
3 forced fumbles.
the defensive count was 3 players. lewis, harrison,johnson.

heath will be back at some point but nobody knows when. game 2, game 6, game 8-10 before he's back to himself and gelled in with this new group. he had 8 of the 22 TD's. that was his most productive season. he will not see near 8 TD's in less games.

is this really a rosey picture? where do 22 TD's come from? how about over a quarter of our tackles? are draft picks or minimum vets going to make up this production?

 

The one thing I think we can count on with Heath is that whenever he does get back in there he'll still be his old self. I really believe that. The reason I do is because he's not the fastest guy anyway and it was his knee that was messed up. But he makes his living off his hands. Also I think Heath is such a consumate pro that he's gonna be ready when his time comes and I'll bet he's working his butt off just to get back out there.

 

I agree with a lot of you but Gay played well? Unless the change his number, name on jersey and other features he is a picked on / target from snap one day one period! He didn't play well in Zona regardless of the system

 

Have we improved our team with this purge? Do you really like
who they replaced the players leaving with the new players?

 

Losing Pope's 3 receptions for 9 yards is impossible to replace.
Heath is injured and while I doubt he will be ready by opening day you can't subtract a full season of production.
We lost one receiving td in mendy. oh noes the sky is falling.
Wallace is really the only big loss in terms of offensive production. However, it should be abundantly clear to everyone he had no intention of staying here unless we gave him an absurd contract.

Didn't you just post how Worilds will be fine as a replacement for Harrison? Now suddenly we're doomed.

Brandon Johnson? What did he have 6 tackles in 10 games? They'll never be able to replace him.

We lost Lewis who accounted for 56 tackles, 1 forced fumble and brought back Gay and his 45 tackles, 3 forced fumbles and 2 interceptions.

You're right the sky is falling.

 

They've purged a bunch of older, declining production veterans and guys who wanted absurd amounts of money and are going to replace them with young guys with a lot of potential who could offer similar production and a greatly reduced rate. To be specific, Colon out DeCastro in...Harrison out Worilds in...Wallace out Brown in...Lewis out Allen in. Are they sure things? Who knows and I guess we're about to find out. But the flip side to what you are railing against would have been to keep/sign these players at absurd salaries while keeping potential cheaper replacements behind them and wounding the team from a salary cap standpoint affecting the team down the road. Had they kept the people you are comfortable with, there would have been a large contingent of fans screaming about ruining the team by over paying for veterans and keeping young guys on the bench.

Is the team in transition? No doubt. But given the Steelers track record, Im going to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to evaluating players and their contributions relative to salary and when its time to cut ties. Im going to say that going forward, the Steelers will be fine. Sure they could dip for a short while but in the long run will be right in the mix.