Good enough vs. Great

by BadMaafala on Sep 24, 2008 11:46 AM EDT

One thing that has bothered me a lot as a Steelers fan over the years is the team's contentment with superficial success. The team is unwilling to take risks and identify and preemptively fix problems when things are going fairly well. How many times have we heard people excuse the OL because "Parker was leading the league in rushing when he got injured"? It doesn't matter what the stat sheet says, we couldn't run the ball when we needed to, and Ben's sacks/drop back were out of hand. I'm all for encouraging mediocre players to get the most out of them, but saying they're better than they seem should not be confused with them actually being good players. People credit Arians with a successful offense because Ben's stats are good, even if we couldn't move the ball consistently and Arians was awful at making adjustments. If you watched the games last year, it was easy to see that he's not a very good offensive coordinator. All the team's faults got a pass last year "because Tomlin won the division and made the playoffs in his first year". We had one of the easiest schedules in the NFL last year, and hit many teams at their lowest points. We padded our stats and record against the Bills and 49ers, and ignored losses to bad teams like the Jets, Broncos, and Cardinals.

Now this year, we play a great all-around opener (even Arians) and then win a tough but badly played divisional game, and people have already started making excuses for the offense. We couldn't move the ball on the ground before the 4th quarter, and Ben had big pressure whenever the Browns brought a blitz. Ben still got sacked on 5 of 39 attempts, which isn't any better than last year. We didn't spread the ball around, we didn't get the TE's or the RB's (aka "all the weapons" we have so we don't need a good OL) involved in the passing game, and we started running the clock out in the 3rd quarter. We're lucky the Browns made some key mistakes at the end, or we could be 1-2.

This week we played an identical game against a good (albeit incomplete) defense with a great coordinator, and we looked beyond terrible. We made no adjustments from the Browns game, because, hey, we won. The encouraging news about the Eagles game is that since we lost in such horrendous fashion, we'll have to face up to the fact that Arians and the OL suck, Ben needs to do better with hot reads, and we need to have some plan in place to deal with big blitzes. Johnson did us a huge favor by running the same blitzes over and over instead of just at key moments. If we had just been beat on a few blitzes, like the Browns game, we could have ignored the fact that we have no answer for it. Now we HAVE to deal with it. Part of me hopes that we play so poorly on offense against Baltimore that Tomlin fires Arians on the spot. If we play okay for the rest of the season and lose in the first round of the playoffs, my fear is that we'll still have Arians next year because "he helped us get to the playoffs, so he must be doing something right."

On the other side, I can't complain about the defense. Everyone is playing pretty well except Foote. I also hope that a great defense doesn't cover up the deficiencies on the offense - like if we had somehow beaten Philly on a couple turnover FG's or something.

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Uh, hoping we play so badly that they fire Arians? Not good. Look, Arians ephed up last week, as well as Tomlin, and the entire O. They’ll recover. Sometimes teams lay an egg. At least it was against a very good Philly team and not some trash team.

Have faith.

by Cols714 on Sep 24, 2008 1:15 PM EDT reply actions

Also, Foote played extremely well last week. I think he had 1 or 2 sacks. I agree that Timmons is better, but still, give credit where it is due.

by Cols714 on Sep 24, 2008 1:16 PM EDT reply actions

That's the problem

I’m saying that this hasn’t been an isolated incident. Arians ephed up all last year and last week too, but a winning record, a playoff appearance, and some good stats from great players kept him from getting the boot. I know this would have been more prophetic last week, but I’ve been saying since very early last year that Arians is dragging down this offense. I don’t know where his good game plan from week 1 came, but he’s been awful these last 2 weeks, continuing his work from last year.

We have almost no chance of winning a SB with Arians, because talented, well coached defenses (the ones we’ll meet in the playoffs) have consistently made him look bad. I’d rather see Tomlin just fire him, but I’m willing to have a few more embarrassing performances if that’s what it takes to get him fired. The last thing I want to see is him doing just well enough not to get fired, while we go 10-6 and lose in the first round every year.

As for Foote, more of the same. Getting 1.5 sacks is a superficial coverup for him missing tackles and getting destroyed in coverage against Jerome Harrison. We’re just lucky Westbrook and McNabb were banged up last week.

charity standing orders

by BadMaafala on Sep 24, 2008 1:53 PM EDT reply actions

I agree with you

on Arians, but not on Foote. Foote hasn’t missed many tackles (no more than anyone else), and has been good in coverage too.

by TheMostViolentTeam on Sep 24, 2008 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions

I tend to agree....

but Arians had a HUUUGE wake-up call last week. The optimistic Steeler fan in me thinks that he and Tomlin will make the necessary adjustments to compensate for the blitz. I don’t see any personnel changes in coaching or OL happening during the season but I do feel that they will add more hot reads, draws, and screens to counter. I do however, strongly feel that if Ben suffers another 45+ season of sacks, something will be done. There is just too much money invested in Ben for Colbert to sit back and watch him get hurt.

by woody71 on Sep 24, 2008 3:50 PM EDT reply actions

good point

32 td passes and a pro bowl appearance, mixed in with a top 5 rusher in the league and a home game in the postseason certainly did cover up many of our AWFUL offensive moments (like the 3rd and 6 play against the jags, late in the game after we had fought and scrapped to take the lead, and arians calls a F*CKING QB ROLLOUT!!!!! and of course Ben, with all his amazing speed and agility, got stuffed).

bottom line, we can’t have ben getting sacked 4-5 times a game. he won’t play past 30 years old if that’s the case. also, like someone else mentioned in an earlier post, we have all these weapons that we’ve drafted and groomed recently (holmes, heath, delicious, washington, sweed, spaeth) but we don’t get them the ball. does anyone have a Play Calling for Dummies book? is so, please send it to arians.

by NoCal-SteelCity on Sep 24, 2008 4:23 PM EDT reply actions

Devil's advocate

I don’t really disagree. But what I do wonder is exactly what to do about it? The most successful teams come from continuity. And while the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mentality can be aggrivating, it also comes with successful seasons hoping you get hot at the right time. I don’t think Arians would turn up the play calling like Whiz did during ‘05 playoffs but who knows? That’s what made it look so good was that it was the opposite of what we’d been doing for years. If we brought in a new OC I’d want the same system just different play calling. It’d be odd but I wouldn’t mind if we just had someone else calling plays and let Arians design it all he wants. He might quit if this was teh way it worked, but we can live with that.

I guess my long drawn out point is that we might be better off than with constant flailing looking for the answer.

by Chicago Steeler on Sep 24, 2008 4:44 PM EDT reply actions

continuity

I agree that if we did something like firing Arians right now, it wouldn’t help at all this year, and jumping from OC to OC isn’t going to help. My big issue is with how Arians was evaluated last year. After the season, Tomlin immediately said there would be no coaching changes. There was no sense that anyone noticed anything wrong with his playcalling, which I felt was clearly bad. Instead I heard people drop stats that didn’t really reflect how inconsistent we were on offense or how badly he ignored certain parts of a successful offense, such as the short passing game.

There were some viable candidates last offseason that didn’t seem to get a second look, like Cam Cameron who proved he could take a talented offense over the top. If we’re sure Arians isn’t a guy who can utilize the talent we have, why not try someone who has had more success in the past or take a chance on an up-and-comer. Can it really be that much worse? I contend that it cannot.

charity standing orders

by BadMaafala on Sep 24, 2008 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions

A promising point

Came when the team traded Mahan, and not just for obvious anti-Mahan reasons. It was the first time that Tomlin reversed a decision and cut a loss. The Faneca release was already determined when Tomlin got here, so he was an innocent bystander. But it was Tomlin who brought in Mahan with ties to Tampa. Tomlin had the stones to disregard Mahan’s salary, disregard his ties and make the hard cut. That was a good sign.

I have no problem with the team not making coaching changes after Year One. Zierlein was undercut by Faneca all year and there’s no denying that Willie and Marvel on offense and Aaron Smith and a healthy Troy on defense was clearly the two point difference in a playoff win.

I’m OK with the moment, but the jury ain’t coming back into my courtroom until they see the season unfold. I’m willing to see how we respond to last Sunday, and certainly willing to let the season play out before any major moves indicate white flag. It’s hard to imagine a defense manhandling us worse than what the Eagles did, but two years ago the Ravens did just that. That was with Cowher, Whisenhunt, Russ Grimm, Faneca, Hartings and Starks.

So my rope goes to the end of the season, and at that point I have faith that Tomlin will do what he must, ala Mahan, to make his job better. Tomlin knew all along that this past season was not the time to whack coaches, but he can’t say that again. I think Tomlin is smart enough to make the hard choice and win rather than take the easy way and lose. He is learning very quickly that losing in Pittsburgh, especially the way we did Sunday, is not an option.

by maryrose on Sep 24, 2008 6:50 PM EDT reply actions