I think questioning the effectiveness of our offense, including the coach who runs it is a perfect example of “level headed thinking”.

Excepting Mediocrity (22nd ranked total offense in the NFL) is not something steeler fans, the steelers front office, or the steelers head coach like to do.

So why shouldn’t we be able to discuss what is broken and what we think could get us to the ultimate goal of a NFL Championship?

Where’s the mindless dribble? I’ve explained in very reasonable ways why we should get rid of him. Respond to the arguments if you disagree with them instead of calling me unreasonable or mindless.

And in response to your arguments, 13-4 with the best defense of the decade, and possibly a top 5 all time defense. 13-4 with a top 5 QB. 13-4 despite having the 22nd ranked offense, the 17th most efficient passing game, the 29th most efficient running game. The offense has nothing to do with the record other than contributing to the losses.

You’re making the case that mediocre is okay. What happens when our DL deteriorates or gets some injuries next year – propelling our defense down to 6th or 7th in the league? If we have the same offensive output, we’d be a wildcard at best, and a quick bounce out of the playoffs. We should be striving to have a top offense AND a top defense, because you never know when injuries or age will decimate one of them.

I’m also going to cut & paste this post from steeler.lifer in another thread. I don’t think it’s nearly as mindless as this fanpost is, actually quite the opposite. Is the new “in vogue” thing to say someone is not “level-headed” when they disagree with you?

I’ve generally agreed with BadMaafala about Arians. I advocated his firing a year ago because I didn’t envision the offense getting better in 08, and that has been the case. The offense was average last year despite a great season from Ben (and others), and has declined into mediocrity most of this season. The kind of performance we saw vs. San Diego just underlines what this team is capable of doing with the ball. Even so, even in the victory, we saw examples of the X’s and O’s of Arians’ playbook not coinciding with the talent those X’s and O’s represent (ie, Carey Davis, not Gary Russell getting the ball at the goal line; Carey Davis, not Mewelde Moore, catching passes out of the backfield). I would disagree with Bad about Heath Miller looking bored; he is just a non-demonstrative player who is criminally under-utilized. Fortunately for us, he doesn’t have the ego of a Jeremy Shockey or Kellen Winslow Jr, and go to the media to whine about it. And I think Nate Washington has improved considerably over the past two years and is now a very reliable and dangerous WR who could end up being one of the heroes this Sunday. He’ll be open all day against the banged up Ravens’ secondary.

Tomlin has shown his leadership publicly and behind the scenes by committing himself to work with the people he has. He has not panicked, he has kept people that he could have fired, he has shown faith in everyone’s ability to get the job done. If they win a Super Bowl, then it can be fairly said that everyone did their job, plus a little more.

But even with a SB ring, I think Tomlin will make some changes. Change is a fact of life and must be embraced, win or lose. QB coach Ken Anderson will be 60 years old next month. Arians is 56. Coach Z might still have to pay the price for his email shenanigans early in the season, and in general being responsible for the worst-performing unit on the team. It might be tough for Tomlin to fire people from a winning team, but there’s always a way to put a different spin on things. Arians might "find" a college opening for his golden years, Anderson could just up and retire.

The job as offensive coordinator would be a huge plum for dozens of capable candidates. For example, I know a little bit about a guy named Kent Austin, a former Ole Miss QB who had playing and coaching success (as an OC and head coach) in the CFL, then did a great job this past season as offensive coordinator at his alma mater under Houston Nutt. Mississippi had a very good balanced offense in the SEC, Austin developed their young QB and they capped off the season by hammering Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl. I have no doubt this guy (45 years old) could be successful in the NFL, as either a QB coach or right off the bat as an OC. There are undoubtedly dozens of other guys WITH experience in the NFL who would be slathering to join a SB team with a dynamic young head coach, a young established QB and an arsenal of talented offensive weapons. There are good people available, some of them even younger than Tomlin. Houston hired 27-year-old Kyle Shanahan as their QB coach/offensive coordinator this past season and the Texans were terrific offensively despite losing their No. 1 QB for a big part of the season.

For now, I don’t really care who or what is responsible for the recent transformation of the offense. It’s intriguing to try to analyze or guess why, but the bottom line is that it’s working. I don’t see any reason why it can’t continue to work for two more games. This Sunday, I think the Steelers hit hard and fast and win by two touchdowns, 24-10.

read “mindless dribble” and then use comments which don’t meet the standard of mindless dribble as the opposite argument, then I would quote my good friend Bill O’Reilly-“that’s nuts.”

Who would advocate accepting mediocrity? That makes no sense. And yes, analysis that says the Steelers’ offense is actually the 22d best [or worst] in the NFL would indicate that changes should be made. But if the analysis says the offense isn’t actually the 22d worst [or best] and just ended up that way for a variety of reasons, then folks shouldn’t be calling for BA’s head willy-nilly. And if change is necessary as a part of the natural development of the team, then BA might need to go, but he should go with praise for the job he’s done in the situation the Steelers’ offense found themselves in this year.

And no, disagreeing with me is not the standard for mindless dribble. That would make no sense either.

From the Steelers website: http://news.steelers.com/team/coach/49259/

While it would be up to the individual players to realistically assess BA’s impact on their abilities/honors, the Steelers seem to think he’s done some good things. His past shows good things as well.

As fo age, CL has shown that age might not be the #1 priority screening criteria. And before one heads down that path, i am not willy-nilly equating BA’s performance with CL’s.

for one to read “mindless dribble” and then use comments that don’t meet the standard to be called mindless dribble as the counterpoint would cause me to say “??”

I am certainly not advocating mediocrity; who would do that? To quote my good friend Bill O’Reilly-“that’s nuts.” If in fact, detailed analysis reveals that the Steelers do have the 22d best [or worst] offense, then perhaps changes are immediately necessary, but detailed analysis is more than numbers. Who can say that the offense that has taken the field over the last few weeks is the same offense that generated a year’s worth of “22d worst” stats? One might be better off taking last week’s stats and multiplying it by 16 to see how the team really is. The impact of injuries, inexperienced replacements, etc must be considered when making the assessment. The general tenor of comments is that the Steelers reached the AFC Championship in spite of BA and I don’ think that is accurate. It may be that BA needs to be moved on as part of the natural future development of the team, but he should leave with praise for the job he has done in a difficult situation and not be run out on a rail.

From the Steelers’ website

http://news.steelers.com/team/coach/49259/

While it is up to the players to accurately assess BA’s impact on them, the Steelers’ bio shows that BA does have an excellent body of work behind him.

And no, disagreeing with me is not the standard for mindless dribble.

He might be a decent coordinator somewhere else, but his style doesn’t fit this team. You know that Tomlin did some arm twisting after a normally quiet Willie Parker complained about the lack of running game. Since then the Steelers offense has picked up. You know that if FWP or any other player hadn’t said anything, we’d be still running an ineffective running game, and ultimately an ineffective offense.