Did I see that he is the highest-rated guard in the NFL out there in LA? Feels like the Steelers are in desperate need of some coaching staff shakeups that go beyond Canada.
OT: Kevin Dotson
- Thread starter TheWerewolfFromTwilight
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The fans were all about Dotson early on, but the coaches seemed to temper their enthusiasm about him when speaking of him. It was odd.
Is Green grading out as average? That would be a huge concern if so. I'm shocked he's even in the league based on what I saw of him here. Meanwhile, our line marches on as being hot trash. Tough to not say that there are too many faulty tentacles at this point for it not to all point back to the head coach.
Yeah this is a bingo. Obviously it’s not just Canada. This is all on Rooney.
My position is this…
The Rooney rule gave Tomlin his chance. And it’s the Rooney’s who are killing Tomlin’s legacy (and the steeler one too) by not paying for good coaches and not hiring a full compliment of staff. Art Jr is doing more damage than good to his business by not paying his coaches and not paying for a full compliment of coaches. Unacceptable. And bad business.
I don't know who to blame for some of these coaching hires. Like are the Rooney's really this cheap, or is Tomlin this incompetent and/or insecure? Even an extra $2M or something on coaching hires (and I doubt they would even need to go that high) would feel like a drop in the ocean for a $4.6B franchise. Heck, Tomlin is making $12.5M.
I'm not an advocate of firing Tomlin. But the rest of the staff needs to turn over and Tomlin needs to stick to what he does best and that is motivating players running the program on a macro level. He needs to hire better or defer the hiring to Omar and Andy Weidl. And then stay out of the schemes and position coaching.
The salary cap has made professional football way more a game of coaching than it ever has been. Having good players who will run through a wall for their coach doesn't automatically mean success anymore.
The salary cap has made professional football way more a game of coaching than it ever has been. Having good players who will run through a wall for their coach doesn't automatically mean success anymore.
Tomlin got this far by having a completely unshakeable faith in himself. It's his gift and his curse. He's been provided with ample evidence that he's the man and that his way works. But at the same time, the game has changed significantly in the last 10 years (even in the last 3-5). It's no longer about "attitude" or "imposing your will." Unfortunately, his supreme self-confidence acts as a blinder and inhibits his ability to make fundamental changes to his process or even be introspective and acknowledge that there might be a problem at all. He's even lashing out at reporters asking legitimate questions, e.g., why can't we stop Nico Collins from looking like prime Randy Moss?
Tomlin's inability to look in the mirror and do things - hiring, personnel, scheme - which make him uncomfortable will be his downfall. I am of the belief that he's already done here, he just doesn't know it yet. He won't make another Conference Championship and may not win another playoff game. The current problems - refusal to hire dynamic coordinators and especially the refusal to start obviously talented rookies over his preferred veterans - are merely symptoms of a larger cancer that's killing the Steelers. Tomlin's ego.
Tomlin views the 2019 season as his masterpiece, in my opinion. I get the impression that he intervened heavily at some point early in the season when their record was 0-3 or 1-4, and the fact that he was able to piece 8-8 together with Rudolph and Hodges after that is something he holds more near and dear than even his Super Bowl season (because Ben and the players could basically call their own shots back then; Tomlin's role was more motivational than anything... LeBeau handled the defense). Once Ben left, he really wanted to put this newfound confidence to the test. We're still playing like we were that season.
... But he doesn't understand the ceiling that comes with that style of play.
... But he doesn't understand the ceiling that comes with that style of play.
I don’t know. I can’t get on board with the Tomlin ego thing. He has a boss with a pocket book. That boss should demand more. Instead the boss has a change purse and gets alligator arms when it comes time to pay the bill for real coordinators and a full compliment of coaches.
Remember when we had Mike Munchak as a friggin position coach and we replaced him with a glorified GA? We didn’t think much of it because we had an experienced OL. But little did we know that was a sign of the new steeler way.
I see very little evidence that the Rooneys are somehow to blame for who the Steelers employ as coordinators.
1) Tomlin is in the top 5 highest paid HCs in the NFL. If they pay well, why wouldn't they pay coordinators?
2) Canada had an expiring contract in 2022 and he was brought back for another year. The Rooneys didn't have to eat anything. Canada was gone. But he was brought back. Why? Certainly that would have been a GM and/or HC decision and not an owner decision.
3) Generally, the choice of coordinators rests with the GM and/or HC. Is there any evidence at all that the Rooneys somehow prevent Tomlin from hiring particular coordinators that he wants to hire? Tomlin somehow got Brian Flores, a former HC, as a special assistant last year. How did that happen if the Rooneys are so cheap?
4) Going back almost 15 years now, Tomlin has 1 former coordinator who became a head coach. Why? Is your contention that the Rooneys have prevented Tomlin from hiring good coaches for his entire career? Why would he stay and put up with that? Where's the evidence?
Rooney himself said that he made the decision on Canada for Kenny’s continuities sake. Turns out it was a gross miscalculation. And maybe Rooney has a pool of cash designated for the staff and Tomlin sucks up a large chunk of it…hence why they are known in the industry to be the worst paying organization for coordinators.
Ok so bringing Canada back had nothing to do with money then?
And if Tomlin's #5 overall salary eats up say 70% of the total budget (i.e., Tomlin gets $12.5M, each coordinator gets $1M ($3M), and the remaining coaches get $2M, then why can't Tomlin take a pay cut to $9M per year? That would keep him in the top 10 and give $3.5M to spare. With an extra $3.5M he could either hire: a) the most expensive coordinators in the NFL; or b) double or triple the number of non-coordinator assistant coaches on staff.
Again, there is no evidence that the poor coordinators is a result of the Rooneys being tightfisted. Even assuming they have a fixed coaching budget, if Tomlin took a reasonable pay cut - that reflected his current level of performance - they'd have no problem getting any coach or any number of coaches that Tomlin wanted. Let's face it, Tomlin runs the ship. Change isn't happening because Tomlin doesn't want it to happen. Is Rooney keeping Broderick Jones on the bench, too?
The Rooneys are "poor" by NFL owner standards so it would make sense they were cheap on hiring. They are pretty stingy with guaranteed money too, although the Watt deal may have ended that.
I'm with you though. The common theme over the last 3 offensive coordinators is the same head coach. The Steelers want to play this way. I think if Tomlin got fired he'd maybe humble himself a bit and win another title elsewhere, but in Pittsburgh we are just gonna see more of the same.
Green got a serious injury agaisnt the Steelers but he was playing OK for a few games. Small sample of course, but he showed no signs of competence here.
3.) Brian Flores was still getting paid under his fully guaranteed 5-year contract from the Dolphins. I'm guessing like most NFL contracts there was an offset for salaries from other teams. The Steelers probably got him for less than a stadium beer. That's likely the ONLY reason that Steelers got him.
edit: The payments due to him from that contract are apparently part of his lawsuit because the Dolphins sent him an NDA and stated that his remaining salary would not be paid unless he signed it.
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If the Rooneys were so concerned about penny-pinching, there's just no way Tomlin would still be here at $12.5M/year. They could get these results for 1/3 the cost. The average NFL OC/DC make around $1M/year, so position coaches are obviously less. That's peanuts in NFL money.
It would be like buying a Lamborghini and putting plastic hubcaps on it.
It would be like buying a Lamborghini and putting plastic hubcaps on it.
But the offset language benefits the Dolphins, not the Steelers. So if Flores were to make $5 million per year, and the Steelers offered him $200,000, then the Dolphins only have to pay $4.8M. But Flores makes $5 million either way.
My point with Flores was that he was a sudden and unbudgeted addition to the coaching staff. I agree with you that he likely didn't cost that much, but the Rooneys did have to pay for him nonetheless and chose to do so with almost zero hesitation. I think that means that they're not necessarily as cheap as they're portrayed here (paying Tomline top 5 money being the main proof of that, however).
I think the truth with Green lies somewhere in the middle. He's not that good of a player but the Houston scheme and CJ Stroud get the ball out pretty quickly and cleanly, and so the OL is asked to do way less. It's the same thing in Miami. Why is their OL suddenly amazing after years and years of being terrible? They're even using the same players! Former turnstiles Austin Jackson and Liam Eichenberg are suddenly great? Nah, I think it's just that the quick passing game minimizes their flaws.
Our offensive philosophy requires a ton of All Pros everywhere to look average. Smartly coached teams can make average players look great. We suck not because our players are bad, but because we ask them to do really hard things in comparison to their peers.
I don't know. I have some pretty cheap friends that will buy things, whether they need them or not, just because they can get a good deal on it.
Remember that play the Steelers would run to nauseam , and the one they never ever run now ?
The WR screen.
None of this was an issue with Bill Cowher.
The problem is MT has no network and/or has some bizarre thing to him that he finds it very difficult to hire someone without some connection to the 412 area code.
The Rooney's didn't make him pick a man who had ONE year of NFL exprerience (as an assitant with the Steelers) and was literally unemployed for a year when the first hired him, who never had anything more than average passing game during his turns at OC in college as their OC.
The Rooney's didn't make him hire Tom Bradley as a DB coach, again, someone who had never coached a second in the NFL.
Not to slag on Austin as a Pitt guy, and he actually had the resume for his job. But, he was not successful in his stints as a DC.
MT won his SB with coaches Cowher had hired - the great Dick Lebeau and Arians.
Cowher had a "tree" of his coaches who got HC jobs - For as long as he has been the Steelers coach, no hire he has made has been a head coach.
When Cowher made mistakes, he moved on from them.
Beyond that ... if MT is the GREAT leader he is made out to be, if he would be hired in a heartbeat somewhere else (which is in fact very likely) if the Rooney's are cheaping him, he LONG ago should have went to them and gotten more $, including giving them an ultimatum and leaving it needed.
Otherwise, he is just going along with it.
I don't think the Rooney's are holding Tomlin back. If Tomlin really had a problem with the coaching staff and he was being forced to use certain guys, he could easily get his contract bought out and go someplace else. He's a genius, right? Ben threw his weight around to get OC's he wanted so there is no reason to think Tomlin couldn't. Just think the further Tomlin has gotten from what he inherited when he arrived, the worse he's done.
It's kind of depressing to think the last 11 years of Ben's career resulted in 3 playoff wins. And the Bengals all but handed us one of those, and I think we were only a real championship threat one time (2017-18; lost in our first playoff game).
I mean he won 10 playoff games and played in 3 Super Bowls in his first 7 years. Always felt like you had one of the best in the game (perhaps even the history of the game), and then you look up and 11 years go by with almost nothing to show for it. This franchise has been really mismanaged for a while now.
I mean he won 10 playoff games and played in 3 Super Bowls in his first 7 years. Always felt like you had one of the best in the game (perhaps even the history of the game), and then you look up and 11 years go by with almost nothing to show for it. This franchise has been really mismanaged for a while now.
I’m simply one who thinks the buck stops with the boss. Rooney should be telling Tomlin that he needs to bring in a top flight staff because this 9-8 bullcrap isn’t going to cut it any longer. But sadly, 9-8 is the new standard and Rooney seems to be happy.
Yeah. The Rooney's aren't without fault. The club is successful by NFL regular season standards but three playoff wins in a dozen years is pretty awful. Cleveland might pass the Steelers up in playoff wins this winter and that should be terrifying to the franchise.
They miss Munchak.
Coaching is absolutely an issue and Dotson is one example.
He was a small-school prospect, but was excellent in college as a right guard. Where do the Steelers play him? At left guard and he had trouble adjusting. The Rams have him back on the right side and he's playing his best ball. I didn't even see his PFF grade before watching the Rams game last week and just saw him dominating. He was the lineman who stood out.
Green at least looked like a viable NFL backup for the Texans. Witherspoon is playing good football for the Rams. Even Cam Sutton is playing at a higher level with the Lions. Spillane has a higher grade with the Raiders than he did with the Steelers.
When players left the Steelers, most played at a lower level. Now a lot of these guys are elevating their play.
He was a small-school prospect, but was excellent in college as a right guard. Where do the Steelers play him? At left guard and he had trouble adjusting. The Rams have him back on the right side and he's playing his best ball. I didn't even see his PFF grade before watching the Rams game last week and just saw him dominating. He was the lineman who stood out.
Green at least looked like a viable NFL backup for the Texans. Witherspoon is playing good football for the Rams. Even Cam Sutton is playing at a higher level with the Lions. Spillane has a higher grade with the Raiders than he did with the Steelers.
When players left the Steelers, most played at a lower level. Now a lot of these guys are elevating their play.
How did the Steelers get Darius Rush, a 5th round draft pick this year by the colts? Did he stink with them?
Weird that someone 6'2" with 4.36 speed would be cut by the team that drafted him and then relegated to the practice squad by another team already. This article doesn't make him sound so bad, other than a supposed tendency to bite on double moves. But I'm guessing the frustrations go beyond that to be able to part with a guy with those tangibles. Maybe he's more of a straight-line guy.
https://coltswire.usatoday.com/2023/09/01/indianapolis-colts-roster-cuts-jaylon-jones-darius-rush/
Feels like certain positional groups have been negatives for us for years now. It's kind of amazing, actually. When was the last time the offensive line was an overall plus? The middle linebackers? The receivers? The running backs? Cornerbacks... eh, I guess they've held their own at times, but it's been a while since they've been really good. And, though I hate to say it, the quarterback. Beyond that, the defensive line keeps getting banged up every season.
I don't think Tomlin values OL-men. Look what he threw in front of his HOF QB and how they've almost completely ignored the position in the draft. A decent OL isn't cheap and Tomlin is a guy that likes to spend money on defense.
I get why the Steelers didn't want to promote Munchak because he wasn't staying if it was just to coach OL. The OL is, IMO, the toughest group to put together on any team. With a TE lining up with his hand in the dirt, it accounts for over half of the offense. You just can't ignore what half of the offense is doing and try to get away with guys that just aren't that good.
This is why I actually loathed the Steelers choosing Pickett. The OL is critical to success and it’s 95% of the reason Pickett stinks (and sadly, he does stink).
Pickett is not a Mahomes (of course, who is) … we know better than anyone on this board that Pickett breaks down easily without at least decent protection (but again, most mortal QBs do as well, even top picks). Once he gets consistent protection, he can be pretty good. But he’s yet to have it in two years, and it isn’t looking great for the near future either (in fact, the OL seems worse than it was last season).
But the media being what is (derrrp, I only see da guy wid da ball, derrrrp) it looks like bad QB play, so he’s getting crucified.
At this point I’d welcome the FAN Fantasy Of The Week that Pickett get released, or traded, or fall into a wood chipper or whatever Ron Cook dreams of (besides molesting 6 year olds). Anyone not blind or mentally challenged realizes Kirk Cousins or nearly any other QB would be anything better than a basket case just like Pickett with this OL, but let’s put the money where the mouths are in this town. (Of course they’d never admit they were wrong, just like nobody admits today that Najee Harris is a WORSE running back than James Conner running behind a similar terrible OL).
players leave the steelers organization and play better. Im so old, i remember it was the other way around within this organization..
but hey, tomlin is still a top 3 coach or so i've been told.
but hey, tomlin is still a top 3 coach or so i've been told.
I hear you, and that was definitely the case with guys like Gildon, Joey Porter, Harrison, Mike Wallace I beieve, etc. But I think there were some (Plaxico, Emanuel Sanders, etc.) who went on to play as good or better. I can't rememeber with Faneca, but I think he was solid afterwards. And maybe Kirkland for like a season or two afterwards with the Eagles.
Not being able to re-sign Keenan Lewis might have ended up working out, but I really wanted to ink Sutton.
I am not necessarily a fan of his… but he gets more pressure than most realize; he just makes plays on the move and negates it better than maybe any QB I’ve ever seen. Uncanny, actually. All the other greats, right up to Brady, if you can get regular pressure on them, they tend to unravel. This guy moves so unpredictably well and then can put passes into places that seem impossible, it puts him in a special category IMO.
Pickett is decidedly in the “can be good to excellent BUT he needs decent protection” category. That’s just happens to include pretty much EVERY QB, including most first round picks.
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