OT: Steelers - who do they build around?
- Thread starter Chairman Moe
- Start date
That is folly. This is Tomlin's defense. If he cans Austin, he needs to look at himself in the mirror and then do the right thing, but he won't!
Rooney can fire Tomlin and get a fresh staff .
If Tomlin is here - he needs a legit DC- not a position coach out of his depth
You know he will not fire him. Austin makes a fine scapegoat. His defense just allowed 299 yards in a playoff game, so you got to blame someone. Tomlin could have hired a legit DC, like Brian Flores, but, Flores might have actually wanted to run the defense, not be a figure head.
I think you have Najee and Warren confused. Only one of these 2 lowers his shoulder and makes something out of nothing
Hint....its the guy that doesnt weigh 240........
Would you give up a 1 for JJ McCarthy? I think the Vikings have to ink Darnold and trade him, no?
Unless they're confident, after seeing what Cousins did before and after Minnesota, that they can plug just about anyone in there and he'll succeed.
They might even ask for a 1 and a 2 given where they drafted him vs where we're picking.
Edit: never mind. I Googled it, and it looks like some regard him as a better prospect than any college QB this season. So he'll probably go to a team with a much higher pick. I would guess Cleveland, Vegas, the Jets, the Giants, or Tennessee will get him.
Unless they're confident, after seeing what Cousins did before and after Minnesota, that they can plug just about anyone in there and he'll succeed.
They might even ask for a 1 and a 2 given where they drafted him vs where we're picking.
Edit: never mind. I Googled it, and it looks like some regard him as a better prospect than any college QB this season. So he'll probably go to a team with a much higher pick. I would guess Cleveland, Vegas, the Jets, the Giants, or Tennessee will get him.
Last edited:
Unless the Vikings get to the Super Bowl and it forces their hand I think the general consensus is the Vikings will keep McCarthy and Darnold will be moving on.
Harris had over double the number of carries to that of Warren (263 to 120).
We will disagree. Harris was nowhere near as productive as he was expected to be. Warren in my view was well worth his contract.
I’m hoping to hear that Jones was injured all year and not at full strength. He had an arm brace pre-season so something was up.
4,300 yards and 35 touchdowns is pretty insane, though I realize Cousins had similar seasons there.
After tonight, moving on from Darnold will be an easy decision.
When you start contemplating this question it makes you realize that the Steelers have a whole lot of needs at many positions. Oline still needs help. D Line looks old and overmatched. LB's were nothing special. DB's also weren't anything to write home about. And the offense was simply bad. Need playmakers desperately. QB is obviously a need. I can see no way that they can address all these needs in a single off season.
Cruzer
Cruzer
This regime, led by Tomlin, has run this franchise into the ground so much so that it will take a minimum of five years before it could legitimately compete for anything. There is just nothing special on this team and even a new staff, making a bunch of good draft picks, will need plenty of time to acquire the talent necessary to be truly competitive.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but Justin Fields had less pass attempts than Deshaun Watson who had a season ending injury in week 6. Hard to get targeted when your QB is not attempting passes. And even less when your team gives up the 6th most sacks in the league.
Awful coaching. Awful schemes.
This has been the consensus for the past few seasons as well.
No
We don’t need a bad qb coming off injury
yep - regressed to the mean .
He choked despite having so many weapons on that team
why would any legitimate DC want to come to Pittsburgh just to be an assistant DC?
They really aren't. They have yet to make OL the priority it deserves to be. You don't draft a bunch of young guys, keep benching them behind the guys they are meant to replace, and provide zero help in the form of a good OL coach. Neither Frazier nor Jones were going to start until there were injuries. They've butchered several other OL picks and it's very telling when they pass over guys in the draft that can really help them.
Were you a hamster in a previous life? Most of us aren’t interested in spinning on a wheel in perpetuity
Tomlin’s offensive philosophy isn’t championship level.
Tomlin’s defensive scheme isn’t championship level.
So we can tear it down and rebuild, but until those two things change the Steelers aren’t winning anything.
That may well be why he’s pretty much hired stiffs since Lebeau left.
Man talk about a gut punch and reality check. When you put it that way, there’s no hope. There’s no super hero coming to the rescue. Not when there are probably 8 pretty good offensive schemes and QBs in the AFC alone and Mike isn’t going to stray away from his Dungy defense of the past.
We had the #1 highest paid defense that finished 23rd in the league. That’s malpractice. And there’s no end in sight.
Speaking of Dungy, Chuck Noll was mandated by Dan Rooney to fire his coaches back in the 80’s. Dungy was one of them. It would be nice if Junior would have the marbles to fire the guy who still runs Dungy’s defense into the ground.
every qb option we have for 2025 is going to have warts. fields, wilson, rodgers, JJ, some Free Agent, drafting a QB in april when there are about 2 only graded as first rd options...
problem is, we still need someone to play QB. we just cant go to the "QB franchise tree" and pick one, they are in limited numbers..
the gross mismanagement of the QB position by this HC dating back to 2019 is why we are where we are. drafting Rudolph and saying he's a first rd grade but never playing him, picking up Mitch in FA then drafting pickett a month later as a 3rd string QB then starting him in week 6. Picking up fields then a few weeks later, picking up Russ, promising Russ the job and not really knowing what to do with fields or pickett..
it's been botched for years with zero long term plan and we continue to use short term solutions to try and fix it and it does nothing but makes the issue bigger..
After reading the multiple Steeler articles in the PPG today, the one thing that struck me was the suggestion many of them had in re-signing Justin Fields at QB. Statistically, his QB rating and Wilson's were nearly identical, and I suspect he will come at a cheaper price. Fields is certainly younger than Wilson, and he brings a "version" of what many teams are using to succeed in the NFL: a QB that can run
Now, can the Steelers win with Fields? Not without a number of other shake-ups to the lineup. But at the end of the day, the Steelers can't dismiss an entire team - much to the contrary of what I implied by the initial post in this thread - and keeping Fields might be the better option at QB
As for the other position players, and having read all of the replies here, it seems as if it might be time to move on from Fitzpatrick, Watt, Harris, Freiermuth, Pickens, and maybe a few others. Trade them for more draft picks
But as many of you have successfully argued, the Steelers will always be stuck in mediocrity as long as the "Tomlin Standard" is in place. I guess we fans just live with it. As will the Steelers' organization as long as fans buy tickets/merchandise and support the team, financially. I guess - as one of the older posters here - that having seen the four Super Bowl wins in the '70's is enough to cling to. And yes, the 2 additional SB wins in the 21st Century helped the Steelers legacy continue. Just as it was "time" for Chuck Noll to give way to Bill Cowher, and Cowher to Tomlin, the time has come for a new HC
Now, can the Steelers win with Fields? Not without a number of other shake-ups to the lineup. But at the end of the day, the Steelers can't dismiss an entire team - much to the contrary of what I implied by the initial post in this thread - and keeping Fields might be the better option at QB
As for the other position players, and having read all of the replies here, it seems as if it might be time to move on from Fitzpatrick, Watt, Harris, Freiermuth, Pickens, and maybe a few others. Trade them for more draft picks
But as many of you have successfully argued, the Steelers will always be stuck in mediocrity as long as the "Tomlin Standard" is in place. I guess we fans just live with it. As will the Steelers' organization as long as fans buy tickets/merchandise and support the team, financially. I guess - as one of the older posters here - that having seen the four Super Bowl wins in the '70's is enough to cling to. And yes, the 2 additional SB wins in the 21st Century helped the Steelers legacy continue. Just as it was "time" for Chuck Noll to give way to Bill Cowher, and Cowher to Tomlin, the time has come for a new HC
I don't see how Fields signs anything if there is even a whiff of a QB competition. Same with Wilson so it will be either/or. Thing is, neither of those guys should do anything prior to testing the market. Would be silly to jump at anything. That puts the Steelers in a tough spot with zero for a backup plan.
Now, if you're a FA QB, how to you view Pittsburgh? No true number 1 at any skill position and the offensive line is deep into the bottom third in pass protection. You might also be playing from behind a lot if that defense doesn't get better. Oh, and it's a "run first" philosophy so you're just expected to convert a lot of 3rd and long plays to the sidelines. You anxious to come to Pittsburgh?
Then anoint Fields as the #1 - for the reasons I mentioned. Look for a capable backup through the draft (Brady Cook from Missouri, perhaps?) as a middle round (3rd-4th-5th) pick. The Steelers limped through part of the transition period between Super Bowl wins with Cordell Stewart, fer crissakes, why not Fields?
Trade some of the current players I mentioned for draft picks to allow the Steelers to fill in some of the huge holes they've created
FAs have to come in the form of an OL, DL, CB/S, WR, and/or RB
And then hope for another 9/8 or 10/7 record so we can continue the current, "standard" ...
(note: the last thing I said above was tongue-in-cheek, but the QB part was not, nor the FAs. I just hope they can have a meaningful draft)
This team overachieved this season. The worst is yet to come as TJ, Cam, Minkah age on D and Pickens takes the cash from somewhere, while Najee is let go and Russ signed to a multi year deal.
Need playmakers and leaders on offense and youth on defense, all while picking in middle of draft and bargain shopping in free agency with an overrated head coach.
Will only get better once they get worse and face reality with a Top 10 pick at some point. That is how we got Ben and Polamalu last time.
Need playmakers and leaders on offense and youth on defense, all while picking in middle of draft and bargain shopping in free agency with an overrated head coach.
Will only get better once they get worse and face reality with a Top 10 pick at some point. That is how we got Ben and Polamalu last time.
As much as I dislike seeing the team I root for lose, I'd rather see the Steelers reset, and rebuild as you allude to in your last paragraph
This is why I am so low on this team.
Tomlin got his HOF ticket punched by Cowher and Ben.
He won his SB w Cowhers team and even his coaching staff, Ben kept the team going as the cowher staff and players fell off, along w Bell and AB.
Recently the team relies a LOT on TJ being superman. He, Cam and Minka made the defense work, we saw how it looked the last five games with TJ being very human.
Minka is looking washed and while Cam earned his $ this year he's now reaching the point where father time is going to get his.
There are some potentially solid guys, but no foundational guys who win games the way Ben, TJ, AB did.
This is the Steelers in a nutshell. Too proud to commit to a rebuild. So we do things like draft a running back in the first round, as if we're in luxury mode and think we're just one piece away.
And now we're going to hold onto guys who should be traded (Heyward, Watt, etc.) and get nothing back for them just so we can go 9-8 instead of 6-11... which will further cost us with draft positioning. And then when they do retire, we'll be starting all over at those positions because we weren't developing young guys like we should have been.
Until they embrace the philosophy of taking a few steps back to go many steps forward, they're stuck. They're like the dude who got a job working landscaping under the table right out of high school vs the dude who went to college to be an engineer. Sure, it seemed like a good idea for those first 4-6 years when you had money and he didn't. But now he's making $140k with great benefits and a retirement plan and you're going around the house hitting things with Flex Seal because you can't afford to call a repairman after you had to cover some out-of-pocket medical expenses a few years ago.
I don't know where people are getting their thinking about the OL.
Yes, Frazier looks like he can be a 10 year starter at C, and that is great.
But even that this OL is less set than it was this time last year. Jones was very bad most of the season and likely penciled in at LT. Gave up like the third most sacks for OTs in the league and the hope is moving him to LT will fix him?
Fautana has talent, but had little pt in college due to being hurt before losing his rookie year to being hurt.
McCormick showed some flashes as did Anderson.
But a lot has to happen for this line to simply not be a disaster next season.
About building around the trenches, as you relayed the OL is very much in doubt and the DL is the great Cam Heyward approaching the end, Benton the epitome of a jag and flotsam.
They have the raw talent to have a pretty good OL and that's a good thing to build around. I do not believe that they have the coaching to maximize that OL, however.
Munchak is never coming back. He left once and his grandkids live in Colorado. He's extremely happy there. I doubt he ever leaves the Broncos unless they move. Will probably retire first.
Similar threads
