Things Mike Tomlin can do to fix the Steelers next season ( besides resign 🤣 )

[Confluence]

Hell, it's Wednesday now. I was pissed for a few days like everyone...how can they be so clueless? You'd think the lack of success would make you reevaluate how you do things. So we'll see.

So you believe they can suddely fix stupid?

I will admit, I bit on the optimism as Russ started to open the O and was making progress, but then there was a complete regression in performance and playcalling and strategy to all the stuff that failed in the past.

It's great to be optimistic, but that doesntly change the reality, even if they managed to put lipstick on the pig for a few games in the middle of this season.
Why not base your optimism on the belief that Steelers can advance into the playoffs?

If there is no clear strategy this offseason, starting today with firing OL coach Meyer, how would anyone except a Steeler pollyanna be optimistic for 2025? The Steelers look like a slightly better version of the Jets for about the past decade.

 

[Coryea]

So you believe they can suddely fix stupid?

I will admit, I bit on the optimism as Russ started to open the O and was making progress, but then there was a complete regression in performance and playcalling and strategy to all the stuff that failed in the past.

It's great to be optimistic, but that doesntly change the reality, even if they managed to put lipstick on the pig for a few games in the middle of this season.
Why not base your optimism on the belief that Steelers can advance into the playoffs?

If there is no clear strategy this offseason, starting today with firing OL coach Meyer, how would anyone except a Steeler pollyanna be optimistic for 2025? The Steelers look like a slightly better version of the Jets for about the past decade.

I have zero optimism! First Tomlin won't even allow the coordinators to run their scheme, and Tomlin's way is play conservative so you don't turn the ball over and play good defense. Second, how in the hell will we ever develop a rookie QB to be the guy if Tomlin won't allow the OC's to do what they want. So we have Tomlin to groom the QB to be safe, nothing over the middle, conservative in a scoring league.

 

[insaniti]

So you believe they can suddely fix stupid?

I will admit, I bit on the optimism as Russ started to open the O and was making progress, but then there was a complete regression in performance and playcalling and strategy to all the stuff that failed in the past.

See, I didn't bite. The crowd was right to boo him with how he started that first game. He was awful. The only thing that changed was he hit a couple moon balls, and we were playing a horrible Jets team. He completed 55% of his passes for 264 and 2 TD's.

His drives for that game before our first TD:
7 plays 42 yards, FG- he was 1-2 for 15 yards
3 plays 9 yards, punt - 1-2 for 4 yards
3 plays -2 yards, punt - 0-2
3 plays 2 yards, punt - 0-2
9 plays 58 yards, FG - 2-3 62 yards (44 yard moonball)
4 plays 28 yards, punt - 2-3 42 yards (holding penalty and a sack took us back 14 yards)
4 plays 54 yards, TD - 2-3 22 yards (benefitted from a 29 yard PI call).

We trailed at halftime 15-13. He was 8-17 145 and a TD. It was pretty much exactly how everything went in Denver. It was feast or famine, it was a dump off or a moonball. No intermediate passes, nothing in the middle of the field. Took a bad sack. It's how his whole season was for us. If he didn't hit on the big play, he couldn't move the ball. Then he started turning the ball over and it got even worse. And this was with the offense "wide open" for him. And you could see a shift in playcalling between him and Fields, and that was one of the things that pissed me off about the change. They said the move was because of veteran experience, and Fields play not being good enough. But they didn't give him the same options they gave Wilson. We know what we have in Wilson, an aging player on the decline, limited by his willingness to only throw two types of balls, who still takes bad sacks.

 

[SteelerSask2]

Eventually the "dumb posts" will become largely accepted and that will be the point when change occurs. To me a dumb post is let's get Darnold or whatever band aid they can put on a giant sucking chest wound

 

[diver]

So you believe they can suddely fix stupid?

I will admit, I bit on the optimism as Russ started to open the O and was making progress, but then there was a complete regression in performance and playcalling and strategy to all the stuff that failed in the past.

It's great to be optimistic, but that doesntly change the reality, even if they managed to put lipstick on the pig for a few games in the middle of this season.
Why not base your optimism on the belief that Steelers can advance into the playoffs?

If there is no clear strategy this offseason, starting today with firing OL coach Meyer, how would anyone except a Steeler pollyanna be optimistic for 2025? The Steelers look like a slightly better version of the Jets for about the past decade.

Yeah, well...stranger things have happened. I guess I can't believe Tomlin could be this obtuse not to see the lack of success, and implosion of this year. Nobody can be that obtuse, right? Hell, I have a bad day shooting trap or something I am immediately reevaluating what I was doing, trying to see what I need to fix. And that's just for fun. My mind has a hard time wrapping around someone who wouldn't or couldn't do that.

 

[Confluence]

Yeah, well...stranger things have happened. I guess I can't believe Tomlin could be this obtuse not to see the lack of success, and implosion of this year. Nobody can be that obtuse, right? Hell, I have a bad day shooting trap or something I am immediately reevaluating what I was doing, trying to see what I need to fix. And that's just for fun. My mind has a hard time wrapping around someone who wouldn't or couldn't do that.

You should then listen to his press conference, because he clearly indicated that he does not understand the problem.

So he is that obtuse, which is indeed the actual problem, and has been the problem. He doesn't get it.

It's just that simple.

 

[SteelerSask2]

One thing we all gave to remember about press conferences. He isnt giving 100 honesty in any way. He is giving PC answers. Like he can't say George is gone cause he has to grow up. That might be said in private. He is responsible for the product and it us not good enough. Period.

 

[Coryea]

One thing we all gave to remember about press conferences. He isnt giving 100 honesty in any way. He is giving PC answers. Like he can't say George is gone cause he has to grow up. That might be said in private. He is responsible for the product and it us not good enough. Period.

He called AB out for his celebration penalties in his presser, but AB still did it after that anyways.

 

[SteelerSask2]

I'm sure there are many things from the pressers that you can take at face value but anyone can see that most of it is said in PC coachspeak. I'm not absolving him of one ridiculous loss in the last however many years. I am saying part of all of this is giant male soap opera. The other is football. Most of the criticism of what he says at press conferences is giant male soap opera.

 

[Lloyd]

1st of all, Shades can't/isn't gonna do anything to fix this team but get out of the way. It all starts there. And short of quitting the team (that clearly isn't going to happen), the big plan are to get Fraudlin out of the way, period. His "pee-his-pants" coaching isn't ever going to get us a single playoff win. Ever. That's the 1st thing.

2ndly, get some real coaches in there and give them room to make real adjustments, short of that, nothing is going to change. We need real change in the O & D, period, end of story.

3rd, get someone who can instill some team discipline. Without it, this team is going nowhere. Sure, the head coach is who makes the most sense on this front, but Fraudlin isn't up to this task. How many more years do we need to see it?

 

[Fiji Mariner]

Yeah, well...stranger things have happened. I guess I can't believe Tomlin could be this obtuse not to see the lack of success, and implosion of this year. Nobody can be that obtuse, right? Hell, I have a bad day shooting trap or something I am immediately reevaluating what I was doing, trying to see what I need to fix. And that's just for fun. My mind has a hard time wrapping around someone who wouldn't or couldn't do that.

You have watched the past several December collapses followed by the inevitable first round loss where the team doesn’t even show up for the first half right?

It certainly would be STRANGE if he all of the sudden figured anything out after repeatedly making the same mistakes year after year

It would be more than strange, it would be absolutely shocking for the light bulb to turn on.

Somebody can and has been that obtuse for years and his name doesn’t even need mentioned cuz everyone with eyeballs knows who it is.

I blend optimism and realism.

Sadly Mike has beaten any optimism towards the Steelers out of me, so I’ll have plenty of extra optimism to spare and share in every other facet of my life as the Steelers won’t be wasting any of it….or more appropriately I won’t be wasting it on Mike’s Substandard Steelers. The Steelers will only get realism, and the reality is nothing changes until Mike leaves. A harsh reality indeed.

 

[SteelerFan448]

Matt Williamson over at DK just broke down the Steelers defensive personnel packages against the Ravens and how poorly they performed with 2 DL on the field. I know many on this board have been calling Tomlin out for this practice for YEARS.

 

[Coryea]

Matt Williamson over at DK just broke down the Steelers defensive personnel packages against the Ravens and how poorly they performed with 2 DL on the field. I know many on this board have been calling Tomlin out for this practice for YEARS.

This was the biggest thing that tipped me off that he was taking control from LeBeau, they started doing this stupid Tampa 2 wannabe 2DL crap, and not just on long passing downs, we started doing on obvious run downs. We've used 2 DL on short yardage a decent amount over the past 10 years on short yardage even, it's absolutely idiotic. The Browns playoff game, the Browns had the best Oline in football and a great running game, they scored their 1st four offensive TD's with us in 2 DL sets.

I'm glad Matt Williamson talked about that, because he's the only one I've heard, none of the idiots at the Fan ever bring this up.

 

[Litos]

Matthew Stafford interview after the game:
“This time of year, it doesn't really reward you to be timid,” Stafford said. “You've got to go out there and make plays. Gotta go win games in the playoffs, not just hope that things fall your way.”

Tomlin, get a ******* clue.

Look how the rams pressured darnold from the start, 9 sacks. Good luck doing that with a 4 man rush against heavy sets, keep doing that soft *** zone with 5 DBs

 

[insaniti]

Matthew Stafford interview after the game:
“This time of year, it doesn't really reward you to be timid,” Stafford said. “You've got to go out there and make plays. Gotta go win games in the playoffs, not just hope that things fall your way.”

Tomlin, get a ******* clue.

Look how the rams pressured darnold from the start, 9 sacks. Good luck doing that with a 4 man rush against heavy sets, keep doing that soft *** zone with 5 DBs

Tomlin used to be so aggressive, and all of that is gone now. He used to go for 2 more than any other team by a large margin. He went for the win against the chargers with 5 seconds left, down by 3, from the 1 yard line... That's Dan Campbell type ballsy. And all of that is gone now, and that was with Vick at QB and Bell taking a direct snap from wildcat.

Roethlisberger was absolutely correct in his podcast, he said he's a hypocrite because he says we don't live in our fears, and then coaches scared. But he wasn't always that way, something changed, and it's more than just Ben retired.

 

[Coryea]

Tomlin used to be so aggressive, and all of that is gone now. He used to go for 2 more than any other team by a large margin. He went for the win against the chargers with 5 seconds left, down by 3, from the 1 yard line... That's Dan Campbell type ballsy. And all of that is gone now, and that was with Vick at QB and Bell taking a direct snap from wildcat.

Roethlisberger was absolutely correct in his podcast, he said he's a hypocrite because he says we don't live in our fears, and then coaches scared. But he wasn't always that way, something changed, and it's more than just Ben retired.

Let me fix that for you, LeBeau was so aggressive.

 

[insaniti]

Let me fix that for you, LeBeau was so aggressive.

LeBeau made offensive play calls?

 

[Coryea]

LeBeau made offensive play calls?

Oops thought you were talking defense, but Arians was so aggressive LOL

 

[insaniti]

Oops thought you were talking defense, but Arians was so aggressive LOL

The Bell game would have been with Haley. But are you saying that Tomlin didn't have has hands in the offense at that point? Because we all know he does now, both offense and defense. And you've said it yourself you could tell when he started to take control from LeBeau on D with the 2 DL thing.

Head coach no matter what team always has the final say on aggressive or game changing calls like that. And at one point, Tomlin didn't blink at being aggressive...when was the last time he was aggressive (and not at a time he was down and there was no choice but to go for it).

 

[Coryea]

The Bell game would have been with Haley. But are you saying that Tomlin didn't have has hands in the offense at that point? Because we all know he does now, both offense and defense. And you've said it yourself you could tell when he started to take control from LeBeau on D with the 2 DL thing.

Head coach no matter what team always has the final say on aggressive or game changing calls like that. And at one point, Tomlin didn't blink at being aggressive...when was the last time he was aggressive (and not at a time he was down and there was no choice but to go for it).

I knew he was taking control of the D because 1. the 2DL thing on obvious running downs, and 2. Everyone started to complain that LeBeau played to much zone and the game passed him by, etc. etc. fans actually wanted him gone. Well he "retired" then went to Tennessee where they used man coverage more than almost every other team.

I think Haley had freedom at the beginning, he has a reputation of being hard to work with, so I'm sure it wasn't Ben going into the FO saying I want Todd Hailey brought in here, and I'm sure Tomlin didn't go to Rooney and ask for Hailey to be brought in.

Tomlin really started to get his hands in the O I'd say around 2015. The time I knew it was Tomlin was a game in Baltimore, can't remember the exact year, but it was around 15 or 16, neither offense was doing anything through halftime, Baltimore got going in the 3rd quarter and put some points up, we finally opened it up in the 4th, Ben threw for 200 yards and 2 TDs in the 4th qtr alone, but it was to late. After the game in the presser, they asked Tomlin about playing conservative on O and not opening it up sooner, he said Baltimore's offense was struggling so I was content with playing it safe. Then when Ben was asked the same thing, he said I wanted to open the offense up early and 3rd. So if Ben didn't get to do what he wanted, and Tomlin said he wanted to play it safe, well that tells me all I needed to know who was running the O.
Then Randy Fichtner was hired, everyone said that was for Ben, when in fact Tomlin and Randy coached together at the collegiate level and were friends there, Randy was Tomlin's very first hire when he took over in 2007.
Then Canada, anyone that thinks that wasn't a Tomlin hire, well then there's no helping you as they are friends and Canada recruited Tomlin's son to Maryland.
Now we Smith, who is a safe OC, just like Tomlin likes it.

 

[insaniti]

I knew he was taking control of the D because 1. the 2DL thing on obvious running downs, and 2. Everyone started to complain that LeBeau played to much zone and the game passed him by, etc. etc. fans actually wanted him gone. Well he "retired" then went to Tennessee where they used man coverage more than almost every other team.

I think Haley had freedom at the beginning, he has a reputation of being hard to work with, so I'm sure it wasn't Ben going into the FO saying I want Todd Hailey brought in here, and I'm sure Tomlin didn't go to Rooney and ask for Hailey to be brought in.

Tomlin really started to get his hands in the O I'd say around 2015.

Not for nothing, but the Bell gamble game was 2015. And I'm not saying you're wrong, but it kind of proves both our points. He was aggressive at some point, and then went to "playing it safe"...So what happened, who hurt him? Because they are completely opposite ends of the spectrum on how we played football then and how we play football now. I just want to enjoy watching my favorite team again, and nothing that Tomlin has done with this team is exciting. It's all predictable, all the way down to how the season will end.

 

[Coryea]

Not for nothing, but the Bell gamble game was 2015. And I'm not saying you're wrong, but it kind of proves both our points. He was aggressive at some point, and then went to "playing it safe"...So what happened, who hurt him? Because they are completely opposite ends of the spectrum on how we played football then and how we play football now. I just want to enjoy watching my favorite team again, and nothing that Tomlin has done with this team is exciting. It's all predictable, all the way down to how the season will end.

Well even look at this season, Wilson seemed to have some freedom to throw the ball around, but after the Ravens loss in the regular season, we clearly went into full turtle mode.

 

[TDX27]

I've been saying this for years. Tomlin does live in his fears. He plays not to lose instead of playing to win. You come out going full tilt on O in every game. Your goal is to win and to do that, you should be trying to score on every possession. You don't play conservatively worrying about turning the ball over. Sure, you don't want turnovers and they will happen but you don't play to avoid turnovers. You play to score and if a turnover happens, you learn from it and make adjustments needed to make sure it doesn't happen again but you don't stop trying to score on every possession.

Tomlin plays to make sure the Steelers are close in the 4th and then hope they can pull out a win. That's just not the way to do it unless your goal is to sneak into the playoffs and get blown out by the first good team you play. The playoff teams that jump out to a 14 point or larger lead tend to win the majority of the time. 6 playoff games in a row, that's exactly where the Steelers were and they lost each game.

60-minute men play 60 minutes trying to score a ton and beat the snot out of the opponent, period-the-end!

 

[Fiji Mariner]

The Bell game would have been with Haley. But are you saying that Tomlin didn't have has hands in the offense at that point? Because we all know he does now, both offense and defense. And you've said it yourself you could tell when he started to take control from LeBeau on D with the 2 DL thing.

Head coach no matter what team always has the final say on aggressive or game changing calls like that. And at one point, Tomlin didn't blink at being aggressive...when was the last time he was aggressive (and not at a time he was down and there was no choice but to go for it).

Last time was Vs the Commanders when he faked a punt deep In his own end

And there was that one brief moment of insane aggression tucked within years of coaching scared AF

 

[Lloyd]

Matthew Stafford interview after the game:
“This time of year, it doesn't really reward you to be timid,” Stafford said. “You've got to go out there and make plays. Gotta go win games in the playoffs, not just hope that things fall your way.”

Tomlin, get a ******* clue.

Look how the rams pressured darnold from the start, 9 sacks. Good luck doing that with a 4 man rush against heavy sets, keep doing that soft *** zone with 5 DBs

And this is McVay's 3rd time advancing in the playoffs in just a handful of years, so that's what having a legit head coach is like.

Different QB, different leading RB, different defensive leader, same results.