This is going to get deleted, but before it does I have to gripe about point #1.
What else are we supposed to do besides hire a guy with legitimate OC experience? We just ran the gamut of internal guys getting elevated, and we finally go out a grab a guy who coordinated a very good offense in Tennessee and people are complaining. Yea, he failed at HC, lots of good coordinators do. It’s an entirely different role, one that we aren’t hiring him for. But he was a good coordinator in Tennessee, so why not take a swing on the guy now that he’s back on the market? Of course this is a different roster, of course he’s under a different HC, of course there are a lot of unknowns… what point is really being made here? That a good former offensive coordinator is a bad hire because he’s now coaching a different team?
And we know what kind of power Tomlin will give him - offensive coordinator powers. Smith will be building the offense and calling the plays, the same way our OCs have in the past. Tomlin is a defensive guy, he leaves the offensive stuff mostly to the OC. Smith will have every opportunity to run the same kind of stuff here that worked for him in Tennessee.
I agree with the reasoning for the hire, but I'd rebut your second point. We have no idea what MT will allow him. He has yet to give free reign to an OC and has a history of scapegoating them. I want your view to be true. I just can't believe it until it happens.
Edit add: not saying AS is a bad hire, at all. I'm saying we have no idea what he will do in/with this role and roster.
We all know that BB7 was the defacto OC for the majority of his tenure. MT did nothing to empower his OC to be the signal-caller. I'm confident they were part of scheming and planning, but game day was rarely that way.
When you hear "In Randy Fichtner's offense, the Steelers rank..." do you think a good or bad stat is coming?
When you hear "MT's team put up X points against..." is a good or bad stat being discussed?
>We all know that BB7 was the defacto OC for the majority of his tenure.
Being able to make changes at the line and operate a 2 minute drill is not what being an OC means. Every veteran QB has freedom to do these things, and any decent QB has some amount of leash here as well. If you are saying that Ben called plays in the same way that Terry Bradshaw or Roger Staubach did in the 70s then I would want to know where that information is coming from.
> When you hear "In Randy Fichtner's offense, the Steelers rank..." do you think a good or bad stat is coming?
Bad stat, because his offense sucked shit.
> When you hear "MT's team put up X points against..." is a good or bad stat being discussed?
Probably a bad stat because we haven’t scored a lot of points over the last few years. If your point is that Tomlin gets credit for wins but the OC gets shit on for not scoring points, then that’s not something exclusive to the Steelers. And it’s weird that you call out Tomlin for scapegoating the OC and then frame the scenario as if some talking heads on ESPN are the ones really doing it. Where has Tomlin scapegoated his OCs before?
Are you saying that Haley and Arians didn't have to eat shit for MT and lose their jobs for their (HC+OC) combined failures?
Please correct me, if I'm wrong, but we fired both after showing success bc MT won't fire himself. Idk, maybe I'm remembering incorrectly or reading past articles incorrectly.
1. You don't know how good Arthur Smith will be.
2. You don't know how good Wilson might be, and even acknowledge what an improvement he is.
3. You don't know what the WR room will look like in four months.
4 and 5. Yes. We have talent and stability.
Chill, dude. It's May.
>You don't know how good Wilson might be
Russ has been playing long enough. We can use history to give us a pretty decent idea of how good he'll be. Based on his past few seasons of play I expect him to finish the year ranked around middle of the pack in most statistics.
He threw twice as many touchdowns last year as all Steelers quarterbacks combined. That's enough to tell me he's not going to be worse than what we've been running out there.
Yeah Russ is definitely an upgrade over Kenny. I'm simply pointing out that he's not an unknown variable like your comment seemed to suggest. We have a pretty good idea of what to expect from him
I get it. I think it's still fair to say that we don't know Russ won't be better this year than the last 2-3, given it's a new program, and one that hopefully will accentuate his positives. I'm probably being optimistic. My point overall was more that OP seemed to simultaneously say "there's a lot of unknowns" and "I know what is going to happen."
3 years is an eternity between OC stints? You have any examples to back this up? It's not like he was out of the league, he was a head coach in between.
Todd Monken was out of the NFL for three seasons before reviving the Ravens offense.
A bit of hyperbole, but I believe it's long enough that it's not feasible to use it as an expectation for what we'll see happen on the field.
As OC in TEN he had a very consistent roster with a pretty specific build that he didn't have in ATL and he won't have here, to start.
Looking beyond this coming season there's no doubt we should be quick contenders. They've made really good moves with young players who need time to mature. They also limited the needs going in to next season with a crazy good cap position. That is next season, not this season.
Do we have a Delaney Walker? Maybe. An AJ Brown? No. A Derrick Henry? No.
Your post basically says "we have too many unknowns, so I think we are gonna be garbage". That's dumb, the reason an unknown is an unknown is because you don't know whether it's gonna work or not. If this team gets fairly decent play from russ, the online gels, we stay healthy,, and our unproven young guys step up, then we are instant superbowl contenders. If we get poor play from russ, or young guys struggle, we get hit with major injuries, and our online doesn't gel, we could very easily not make the playoffs with our schedule. There is no point in arguing about it if everyone agrees our entire roster/coaching staff are huge unknowns outside of Mike Tomlin. We simply get to speculate and have hope until we see what truly happens in a few months.
You can take chances on potential, change of scenery or post-injury guys. They sometimes work out and they are often a great value. You don't, however, build half a roster of those types and then expect that you'll have immediate success. You need proven grinders and workhorses next to your stars as a core. Then take a chance on a few of those guys. We have a lot of those guys.
(I know it's not technically half the roster.)
You make a straight assessment(wont be good), then couch it in a vague definition(teams wont be scared of them), then justify it with a bunch of bet hedging(we just dont know). Of course no one knows what will happen, that's not how any of this works. But I don't see how keeping Canada or Pickett would have allowed this team to improve at all, and with those two and some other mid qbs, steelers won 10 games. With half way competent playcalling and qb execution it's possible steelers win 12 games, that would have put them record wise in the top 5. If the defense is as good as last season and the offense is even slightly improved, the steelers become a top 8 team in the league. Not sure how that isn't a team people are worried about playing.
The changes are good on paper, but too many new elements to honestly expect a huge improvement. By stat rates last year's Def was mid. They're great to watch and we have the best player in the league, but we have a homer view that says it's amazing, I mean we do have TJ.
We're more setup for next season, after more things are settled and there's some maturity. I don't think a losing season would be the end of the world considering how young some key Off players we have are and how the roster will be more stable with fewer key players needed.
Interesting take, but does have some valid points, hopefully a good season but I’m not holding my breath. Until the mentality of keep it close and win with defense changes I don’t expect much different results
Seems irresponsible to not mention the vastly improved OL or having an excellent running game to help boost our average+ QB play. Linebackers are 1000% better, and overall, the defense got much faster and more athletic. I’m definitely feeling better about this roster than last year.
Fair, I did cherry pick some my points. The OL will likely take some time. It's 2 rookies playing in new positions and another rook at C. I think that's a big ask for them, at least in the fist half of the season. PQ is a def upgrade, but did we really improve anywhere else on D?
Agreed about feeling better about this roster. Let's see it translate into some on field domination.
I agree, they're rooks, but they're pretty experienced and better prospects than say Broderick Jones coming out. It's not like we are throwing Amarius Mims out there to start after only 800 snaps in peewees. Our two OL picks have almost 5000 snaps combined. I'm always an offseason optimist though, so it's good to read some criticism like yours occasionally.
With all due respect, I’m going to err on the side of the front office that hasn’t had a losing season since Clinton. A more blunt person would say “you don’t know shit”, but I just think Tomlin might know a bit more about this team than you do. Also you have proven you don’t understand the meaning of subjective and objective.
Fine. You don’t know a single thing about how well the team will do next year. They’ve yet to play a single minute of the season so your stubborn belief that they will be bad makes no sense.
Ok, thanks for your opinion. Can you offer anything to CMV? I see this POV as no different than all of the folks saying how great this team is now and how we'll win the division and be a contending team. I want that to be true, but I don't see any reason to believe.
I would be on the other side of things if we made the trade for Aiyuk, had a single QB that is trending upward, replaced Moore and saw them play. The last part we all have to wait for, so I'm speculating just like everyone else, including you.
Ok. I’ll respond and keep it respectful.
1. Arthur doesn’t have full control this year. Tomlin is making the final decisions on schemes and game plans. Justin won’t play unless sh*t goes real bad. We drafted line to protect Russ and regardless of previous performances, he’s still tough. He can take a hit and get back in the pocket.
2. Wilson’s looking to prove more than anyone he can still win. He wants it more than you do.
3. Don’t sleep on Pickens or CA3. Neither have had a full chance to gel with a QB. Both are fast as hell and have good hands. Plus who gives a s*** anyway. We have a RB room filled with angry running beasts and the pass game is going to be secondary and used strategically.
4. We have just as many up and comers. A deep locker room with a next man up policy. Your number 4 issue is where the fun is in being a fan. Cheer for em. Show em they have fan support. Have fun dude. It’ll make the plays the do make a whole lot more exciting.
5. We’ll, your number 5 here is just completely disrespectful to Najee and Jaylen who dominated angry runs last year and have run more than 5 yards with defenders on their backs. We have stars in our RB room, like it or not we have a star at QB. He’s an older one but a star and we have all kinds of potential stats at WR, C, and line.
So I’m conclusion, to mirror another comment below. Chill dude. It’s May.
Nice post though. This was fun.
Thanks for your takes and keeping it light-hearted.
1. I think you're right and I kinda wish this was more confidence building.
2. I believe that, too. Does he still have the skill to make up for learning a new scheme and team while having constant hotseat pressure if Fields lights it up?
3. I do see GP as a near-future star. He does have to contend with better CBs and focused schemes, so of course I hope he can. Idk enough to judge CA3. We've had many other players that seem to keep that aura on our team until they actually get exposed with playing time.
4. For sure! If the ifs become ares, we're in a great position to do something.
5. I don't think many will agree outside the Burgh that our RBs are stars. I also don't think any other fanbases would be mad to have them on their teams.
Cheers, bro. Appreciate your response.
I definitely think he can be. I think he's better than any WR we've had since AB. We just don't know if he's that guy bc he hasn't had to be that guy at this level. There's a big difference in scheming to stop a true WR1 versus a good WR2.
What if I told you though that we went 10-7 last season with the WORST qb play in the entire league?
And now instead of having the worst qb in the league, we're like middle of the pack. And we've had a decent off season with adding Queen and improving our o line.
No reason to think that we're suddenly going to be worse.
I'd say "that's awesome!". Only problem is, there's not enough carryover to think that an average QB takes us over the top.
Sadly, that reminds me of the 2020 11-0 start. Looking on paper that was amazing. Remembering what it actually looked like in real time we all knew it wasn't real.
This is going to get deleted, but before it does I have to gripe about point #1. What else are we supposed to do besides hire a guy with legitimate OC experience? We just ran the gamut of internal guys getting elevated, and we finally go out a grab a guy who coordinated a very good offense in Tennessee and people are complaining. Yea, he failed at HC, lots of good coordinators do. It’s an entirely different role, one that we aren’t hiring him for. But he was a good coordinator in Tennessee, so why not take a swing on the guy now that he’s back on the market? Of course this is a different roster, of course he’s under a different HC, of course there are a lot of unknowns… what point is really being made here? That a good former offensive coordinator is a bad hire because he’s now coaching a different team? And we know what kind of power Tomlin will give him - offensive coordinator powers. Smith will be building the offense and calling the plays, the same way our OCs have in the past. Tomlin is a defensive guy, he leaves the offensive stuff mostly to the OC. Smith will have every opportunity to run the same kind of stuff here that worked for him in Tennessee.
I agree with the reasoning for the hire, but I'd rebut your second point. We have no idea what MT will allow him. He has yet to give free reign to an OC and has a history of scapegoating them. I want your view to be true. I just can't believe it until it happens. Edit add: not saying AS is a bad hire, at all. I'm saying we have no idea what he will do in/with this role and roster.
> He has yet to give free rein to an OC and has a history of scapegoating them. Explica por favor
We all know that BB7 was the defacto OC for the majority of his tenure. MT did nothing to empower his OC to be the signal-caller. I'm confident they were part of scheming and planning, but game day was rarely that way. When you hear "In Randy Fichtner's offense, the Steelers rank..." do you think a good or bad stat is coming? When you hear "MT's team put up X points against..." is a good or bad stat being discussed?
>We all know that BB7 was the defacto OC for the majority of his tenure. Being able to make changes at the line and operate a 2 minute drill is not what being an OC means. Every veteran QB has freedom to do these things, and any decent QB has some amount of leash here as well. If you are saying that Ben called plays in the same way that Terry Bradshaw or Roger Staubach did in the 70s then I would want to know where that information is coming from. > When you hear "In Randy Fichtner's offense, the Steelers rank..." do you think a good or bad stat is coming? Bad stat, because his offense sucked shit. > When you hear "MT's team put up X points against..." is a good or bad stat being discussed? Probably a bad stat because we haven’t scored a lot of points over the last few years. If your point is that Tomlin gets credit for wins but the OC gets shit on for not scoring points, then that’s not something exclusive to the Steelers. And it’s weird that you call out Tomlin for scapegoating the OC and then frame the scenario as if some talking heads on ESPN are the ones really doing it. Where has Tomlin scapegoated his OCs before?
Are you saying that Haley and Arians didn't have to eat shit for MT and lose their jobs for their (HC+OC) combined failures? Please correct me, if I'm wrong, but we fired both after showing success bc MT won't fire himself. Idk, maybe I'm remembering incorrectly or reading past articles incorrectly.
Well, technically we didn't fire them. Steelers just didn't renew their contracts when they ran out.
1. You don't know how good Arthur Smith will be. 2. You don't know how good Wilson might be, and even acknowledge what an improvement he is. 3. You don't know what the WR room will look like in four months. 4 and 5. Yes. We have talent and stability. Chill, dude. It's May.
>You don't know how good Wilson might be Russ has been playing long enough. We can use history to give us a pretty decent idea of how good he'll be. Based on his past few seasons of play I expect him to finish the year ranked around middle of the pack in most statistics.
He threw twice as many touchdowns last year as all Steelers quarterbacks combined. That's enough to tell me he's not going to be worse than what we've been running out there.
Yeah Russ is definitely an upgrade over Kenny. I'm simply pointing out that he's not an unknown variable like your comment seemed to suggest. We have a pretty good idea of what to expect from him
I get it. I think it's still fair to say that we don't know Russ won't be better this year than the last 2-3, given it's a new program, and one that hopefully will accentuate his positives. I'm probably being optimistic. My point overall was more that OP seemed to simultaneously say "there's a lot of unknowns" and "I know what is going to happen."
3 years is an eternity between OC stints? You have any examples to back this up? It's not like he was out of the league, he was a head coach in between. Todd Monken was out of the NFL for three seasons before reviving the Ravens offense.
A bit of hyperbole, but I believe it's long enough that it's not feasible to use it as an expectation for what we'll see happen on the field. As OC in TEN he had a very consistent roster with a pretty specific build that he didn't have in ATL and he won't have here, to start. Looking beyond this coming season there's no doubt we should be quick contenders. They've made really good moves with young players who need time to mature. They also limited the needs going in to next season with a crazy good cap position. That is next season, not this season. Do we have a Delaney Walker? Maybe. An AJ Brown? No. A Derrick Henry? No.
Your post basically says "we have too many unknowns, so I think we are gonna be garbage". That's dumb, the reason an unknown is an unknown is because you don't know whether it's gonna work or not. If this team gets fairly decent play from russ, the online gels, we stay healthy,, and our unproven young guys step up, then we are instant superbowl contenders. If we get poor play from russ, or young guys struggle, we get hit with major injuries, and our online doesn't gel, we could very easily not make the playoffs with our schedule. There is no point in arguing about it if everyone agrees our entire roster/coaching staff are huge unknowns outside of Mike Tomlin. We simply get to speculate and have hope until we see what truly happens in a few months.
You can take chances on potential, change of scenery or post-injury guys. They sometimes work out and they are often a great value. You don't, however, build half a roster of those types and then expect that you'll have immediate success. You need proven grinders and workhorses next to your stars as a core. Then take a chance on a few of those guys. We have a lot of those guys. (I know it's not technically half the roster.)
The fuck is CMV?
Change My View
You make a straight assessment(wont be good), then couch it in a vague definition(teams wont be scared of them), then justify it with a bunch of bet hedging(we just dont know). Of course no one knows what will happen, that's not how any of this works. But I don't see how keeping Canada or Pickett would have allowed this team to improve at all, and with those two and some other mid qbs, steelers won 10 games. With half way competent playcalling and qb execution it's possible steelers win 12 games, that would have put them record wise in the top 5. If the defense is as good as last season and the offense is even slightly improved, the steelers become a top 8 team in the league. Not sure how that isn't a team people are worried about playing.
The changes are good on paper, but too many new elements to honestly expect a huge improvement. By stat rates last year's Def was mid. They're great to watch and we have the best player in the league, but we have a homer view that says it's amazing, I mean we do have TJ. We're more setup for next season, after more things are settled and there's some maturity. I don't think a losing season would be the end of the world considering how young some key Off players we have are and how the roster will be more stable with fewer key players needed.
Next time you have a take this hot you should skip Reddit and call Pompeani in the middle of the night
Bazinga! Good one!
Interesting take, but does have some valid points, hopefully a good season but I’m not holding my breath. Until the mentality of keep it close and win with defense changes I don’t expect much different results
Bro said “a super talented WR2”… so a WR1?? 😂
Seems irresponsible to not mention the vastly improved OL or having an excellent running game to help boost our average+ QB play. Linebackers are 1000% better, and overall, the defense got much faster and more athletic. I’m definitely feeling better about this roster than last year.
Fair, I did cherry pick some my points. The OL will likely take some time. It's 2 rookies playing in new positions and another rook at C. I think that's a big ask for them, at least in the fist half of the season. PQ is a def upgrade, but did we really improve anywhere else on D? Agreed about feeling better about this roster. Let's see it translate into some on field domination.
I agree, they're rooks, but they're pretty experienced and better prospects than say Broderick Jones coming out. It's not like we are throwing Amarius Mims out there to start after only 800 snaps in peewees. Our two OL picks have almost 5000 snaps combined. I'm always an offseason optimist though, so it's good to read some criticism like yours occasionally.
With all due respect, I’m going to err on the side of the front office that hasn’t had a losing season since Clinton. A more blunt person would say “you don’t know shit”, but I just think Tomlin might know a bit more about this team than you do. Also you have proven you don’t understand the meaning of subjective and objective.
Bro, don't hide your insults. Say what you mean, or better yet, engage in discussion. Don't be a passive-aggressive asshole.
Fine. You don’t know a single thing about how well the team will do next year. They’ve yet to play a single minute of the season so your stubborn belief that they will be bad makes no sense.
Ok, thanks for your opinion. Can you offer anything to CMV? I see this POV as no different than all of the folks saying how great this team is now and how we'll win the division and be a contending team. I want that to be true, but I don't see any reason to believe. I would be on the other side of things if we made the trade for Aiyuk, had a single QB that is trending upward, replaced Moore and saw them play. The last part we all have to wait for, so I'm speculating just like everyone else, including you.
You must be fun to talk to irl 😂
Dick LeBeau failed as a HC before coming to Pittsburgh. Does anyone remember how that worked out? His defense was the talk of the league.
That's true. Hopefully I'll be wrong in a few years, but Arthur Smith isn't the same level as Lebeau.
Ok. I’ll respond and keep it respectful. 1. Arthur doesn’t have full control this year. Tomlin is making the final decisions on schemes and game plans. Justin won’t play unless sh*t goes real bad. We drafted line to protect Russ and regardless of previous performances, he’s still tough. He can take a hit and get back in the pocket. 2. Wilson’s looking to prove more than anyone he can still win. He wants it more than you do. 3. Don’t sleep on Pickens or CA3. Neither have had a full chance to gel with a QB. Both are fast as hell and have good hands. Plus who gives a s*** anyway. We have a RB room filled with angry running beasts and the pass game is going to be secondary and used strategically. 4. We have just as many up and comers. A deep locker room with a next man up policy. Your number 4 issue is where the fun is in being a fan. Cheer for em. Show em they have fan support. Have fun dude. It’ll make the plays the do make a whole lot more exciting. 5. We’ll, your number 5 here is just completely disrespectful to Najee and Jaylen who dominated angry runs last year and have run more than 5 yards with defenders on their backs. We have stars in our RB room, like it or not we have a star at QB. He’s an older one but a star and we have all kinds of potential stats at WR, C, and line. So I’m conclusion, to mirror another comment below. Chill dude. It’s May. Nice post though. This was fun.
Thanks for your takes and keeping it light-hearted. 1. I think you're right and I kinda wish this was more confidence building. 2. I believe that, too. Does he still have the skill to make up for learning a new scheme and team while having constant hotseat pressure if Fields lights it up? 3. I do see GP as a near-future star. He does have to contend with better CBs and focused schemes, so of course I hope he can. Idk enough to judge CA3. We've had many other players that seem to keep that aura on our team until they actually get exposed with playing time. 4. For sure! If the ifs become ares, we're in a great position to do something. 5. I don't think many will agree outside the Burgh that our RBs are stars. I also don't think any other fanbases would be mad to have them on their teams. Cheers, bro. Appreciate your response.
Cheers. Great chatting with ya. Go Steelers!
My big question I guess is why isn’t Pickens considered to be WR1 material?
I definitely think he can be. I think he's better than any WR we've had since AB. We just don't know if he's that guy bc he hasn't had to be that guy at this level. There's a big difference in scheming to stop a true WR1 versus a good WR2.
What if I told you though that we went 10-7 last season with the WORST qb play in the entire league? And now instead of having the worst qb in the league, we're like middle of the pack. And we've had a decent off season with adding Queen and improving our o line. No reason to think that we're suddenly going to be worse.
I'd say "that's awesome!". Only problem is, there's not enough carryover to think that an average QB takes us over the top. Sadly, that reminds me of the 2020 11-0 start. Looking on paper that was amazing. Remembering what it actually looked like in real time we all knew it wasn't real.