Steelers and Sam Darnold

This might change now. Since MM is an offensive minded coach who at least has a history of working with (and maybe even improving the play of) good QBs.

But under Tomlin, I think this is true for average-ish QBs who think they could be average to above average.

But it probably was an attractive place for guys who felt they were below average, but looking for a season of looking close to average to get a contract.

I think the system we had would make good QBs look worse. But bad QBs look better.

 

I think it's a bunch of hogwash.
When Ben was here nobody was holding him back. The last person that held him back was Cowher, and those are Ben's words.
Ben with Cowher about 270 attempts per season.
Ben with Tomlin about 583 attempts a season.
Did they not want Trubisky, Fields, and Pickett throwing it all over the field?? Probably, but I don't blame them a bit.

 

Don't let @Steelersfan43 see this because he doesn't think Ben was a game manager early in his career.

 

But he was. He even said early when Tomlin came in as HC ,thats why He like Tomlin over Cowher, because Tomlin didn't try holding him back.

 

Nobody is assuming he makes the Steelers Super Bowl champions, so please don't start with that straw man. He does make them a better team in 2025, and more importantly, puts them in a far better position for 2026.

 

Yes, they should have known better. The Vikings clearly made a very stupid decision. For some of us, this isn't hindsight. I was saying they should have done it last year. If I can see it, then yes, the Steelers damn sure should have been able to see it.

 

There was a middle ground between throwing it 50-plus times, as they had Pickett do in his first start, and the ridiculously conservative approach they saddled him with after that. There is a good chance he wouldn't have panned out anyway, or at least that injuries would have buried him, but gutting the kid's confidence and taking away his aggressiveness was about as stupid an approach as they could have taken.

If you want to draft a quarterback in the first round, you need to be ready to take some lumps with him for a year or so. It's often going to happen. My bet is Tomlin wouldn't allow it.

 

A penguins hockey player’s wife said this when her husband got traded to Dallas

WTF

 

Pickett was a whiney wimp

Tomlin didn’t allow that

 

Tomlin put Pickett in a tough spot, benching him after he recovered from his injury, apparently he couldve handled it with more maturity but we dont know fully what went on behind the scenes.

 

The low pass attempts don't mean he was a game manager and just a passenger.The main reason his pass attempts were low was because the Steelers often had a lead in the second half, so it was Cowherball time to protect that lead.It's like saying Cowher had more confidence in Maddox when he had 28 and 36 pass attempts in his two starts in 2005... No, it was because of the scoreboard!

And you can't compare the NFL to 20 years ago, since the NFL has changed a lot, but the biggest problem with Tomlin's offense,he was way too safe... Too much dick and dunk, very few in the middle of the field, etc... Pass attempts were not a problem and the quality was a major problem.And the steelers have never been good a running the ball under Tomlin outside of a few years of Bell

 

It's not an easy answer. Ben was a game manager.....but he wasn't.

I get what you're saying. Cowher did try to make Ben a real game manager. He tried to really limit the pass attempts and lean on the running game, so most of the time Ben was just managing the game.

However, they schemed the offense and called plays so sometimes he would only have to read one side of the field, but Ben would often leave that structure that the coaches put there for him. He always seemed to rise above that with the way he would make plays when things broke down. They would give him a simple read for one half of the field, the primary would be covered, and instead of chucking the ball out of bounds and moving to the next play or punting like a real game manager would do, Ben would scramble around, extend the play, and find an open man. That's not a true game manager even though that's exactly what Cowher was trying to make him.

If he was just a game manager, Cowher would have pulled him off the field for running around and going outside the system to make those plays. It drove Cowher insane at times because he took sacks or would make mistakes, but the good plays far outweighed the bad so he had to leave him on the field.

In the end it was Ben doing more than was asked of him that put them over the top.

 

Do you realize Darnold signed with the Panthers first and the Vikings next? They were stupid and dumped him after playing well.

Now the Seahawks wanted him as their long term franchise QB, the Steelers did not. That was Danold's decision. It was our mistake.

So the Seahawks had a far better offer than the Steelers did as we lost on a prime QB player, who as I stated did very well by the key areas of wins vs. losses, TD passes thrown, and game winning drives over the past two years.


Dranold is not a top 3 QB in my opinion but is among the best 10 playing QB's playing 2026.

If you think he is not, make your case.

I will start with mine:

https://www.nfl.com/news/ranking-all-63-starting-quarterbacks-from-the-2025-nfl-season

 

We know they brought in competition the next year

We know he asked to be traded rather than compete

 

Did you forget about the offense with the Killer Bs the Steelers were one of the first teams to go for two points after TDs, so the offense wasn't always playing it safe.

 

My comment for Tomlin was about the last several years,not the entire time

 

Can you blame him with those scrub QBs they had post Ben.

 

My problem is, it went too far

 

Right now having traded Pickens was a great decision

We have a third round pick now rather than having nothing now

Joel the math is not that complicated

 

Which of these garbage QBs did you want passing more?

All of the post Ben QBs have the same issues outside of Steelers that’s get blamed on Tomlin.

Wilson
Rudolph
Fields
Pickett
Rodgers

All played WORSE outside of Steelers. All avoided aggressively attacking defenses outside of Pittsburgh as well.

You can’t force guys to not be physically limited. You just can work with their limitations.

 

Jets - stunk
Panthers - struggled
Niners - learned and liked the system
Vikings - flourished in same style system
Seahawks - flourished in same style system

Darnold puts up great numbers within an excellent offensive system for him. Outside of that system he’s had zero success.

it’s just like how I don’t think Purdy would be all that great outside of that system. Or how McDaniels Jedi-mind tricked Tua into being good that one season. Or how Tampa has created an environment that supports Baker.

Just because a guy is a system QB doesn’t mean the numbers can’t be good and the wins won’t come. It just means that QB can’t be plugged in anywhere and thrive.

 

This would make sense if the system were the only variable, but it wasn't. The Jets were ruining quarterbacks for a long time before Darnold got there, and they have continued to do it since.

Darnold gained experience in all those systems and was a far more mature quarterback the last two years. it isn't just the system. It is the player growing over time.

Mayfield is another example, though I think he would have been fine in Cleveland if the Browns hadn't been so stupid and gutted themselves to get Watson.

 

It's laughable some fans think Khan was going to sign Darnold to a $100 million contract after one good season .

 

The super bowl champion did that....

 

Player growth is a incredibly large part of NFL success. But I think that the NFL fans and pundits just don't acknowledge enough that all guys can not succeed in all ways of playing. Darnold and Mayfield are excellent examples of guys that can have a ton of NFL success but you can't just drop them into any situation and have it go well. Like Darnold wouldn't do well if he was asked to do what Allen does for the Bills or Mahomes for the Chiefs.

There's nothing wrong with being successful within the confines of a system. It just requires that everyone is willing to acknowledge what is necessary for a specific QB to succeed.