Steelers win in spite of Tomlin

But why not kick the onside kick. The defense has shown all season that it doesn’t matter if it’s 80+ yards for the opposing team to get into scoring position, they are going to let the other team score in the 4th quarter. The defense gave up 22 points in the 4th quarter. 15 of which came prior to the onside kick.I think Tomlin may have made the best decision there. Approximately 4 minutes left in the game and any score by them can win the game. Just like in the super bowl, the Cardinals scored quickly. So too in this game did the Packers. Offense today was going to give us the best chance to win and did. Kudos to Mike Wallace. Hell of a catch!

I don’t trust the D to hold in the 4th at all. Sorry but they are what they put on tape.

We needed the offense back out on the field with the last posession. Last year I would not have said that. Last year I would have said put the D on the field for the last posession. But this year, it’s our offense that is going to give us the best opprotunity to win. Ben is a winner. That’s his 13th fourth quarter game winning drive.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Has anyone heard this story before: HC leaves it up to this D to close out a game against a team with a strong passing attacking late in the 4th quarter? What’s happened in almost all instances: The D has given up the lead and the team has lost the game. By defintion what Tomlin did was an attempt to break a cycle that has given us all multiple ulcers over the season. I commend him for it.

Tomlin took a chance to keep his D off the field simply because it was getting ripped apart by Rogers and company. In the end, they couldn’t even keep it to a field goal, they ended up giving up a score to a team that was probably just playing to run the clock out before kicking a field goal. Tomlin saved the necessary minutes that allowed Ben to work up the field and find Mike Wallace for a clutch throw with no time left. If Tomlin doesn’t onside kick it, then Rogers scores anyway and Ben doesn’t even have a shot to win the game.

One more thing.

At this point how is the coaching staff supposed to correct the problems in the secondary? It’s late in the season, there’s no good talent on the street to pick up, we can’t trade for anyone, and if Lewis was better than Ike or Gay at this point they would have put him in.

Schematically I’m not sure if their deplorable play can be fixed either. After all, they’re already playing off the line to prevent the big play, they basically run a cover 2 so the safeties are usually back. Honestly, you just see a lot of folks losing individual matchups on a regular basis in coverage (Farrior, Gay, Carter, Clark, Ike somewhat) to young guys making mental errors (Timmons, Burnett, Mundy).

You can blame it on age, on the loss of Troy and Aaron, or on OC’s figuring out what makes Lebeau tick. And there’s probably some truth to all of those. But at the same time we need to realize that at this point in the season, this D is what it is.

Fired? I’m hearing a lot of people saying they agree with Tomlin’s onside-kick call. If we lost, would everyone still agree? I’m not so sure…especially if GB took longer to score. Which was quite possible. I’ll admit if they recoverd the onside kick (which they should’ve if Ike wasn’t a bonehead), I’d have been happy…and would’ve said that was stupid, but I’m happy…but even recovering the kick wasn’t a guaranteed victory.

Tomlin’s move was that of a scared coach. One who has no confidence in his D which has made the same mistakes basically all season. Mistakes which the coaching staff could not correct. So, even if he has a right to be scared, why couldn’t he fix these problems? If the HC has no confidence in his O, D, or STs then that usally means that co-ordinator will or should be fired. Because in the NFL, you can’t win consistently unless you have confidence.

For whatever the reason (beyond Troy being out) LeBeau and the D coaches could not fix their problems, and Tomlin did nothing as a leader to instill change. So, there has to be many questions about the coaching staff right now.

All, that being said, it’s still great to get a win and this was surely exciting!

I totally hear you on this. Dick Lebeau will never be fired and he shouldn’t be. His defense has been devestated by injuries to key starters, FO mistakes in letting a player go, age, and players simply slumping (I’m lookin’ at you “Face Me”). My guess is that next year this D reloads and returns to form.

Given the talent at their disposal though, I’m still not sure how you can fix problems like Gay, Farrior, Carter, Clark, and (sometimes) Taylor getting beat in individual match ups. I mean, if it was just a couple of guys you could scheme around this and put them in favorable match ups. But when the entire secondary is just getting toasted, blowing coverages, falling down a ridiculous amount of times, I’m not sure how you fix that with good coaching. Especially considering the secondary is made up of veterans who have performed well in the past.

I think this D is out of Lebeau’s and Tomlin’s hands to fix as far as this season goes. You put your guys out there, prep them as best you can, and hope that they make more plays than they blow.

I don’t care how good of a baker you are, you simply can’t make a cake without the right ingredients.

I agree with all the information posted so far about our secondary, but how we fix the issues? We need to try something new. If the coaches see the problem, they need to try something new or different to expect better results. I hope they come with agood remedy to solve the problem, even this late in the season.

what I was thinking….that he has no confidence in his D. I can’t blame him for that, because any reasonable person wouldn’t have confidence in this D. However, that doesn’t mean an on-side kick is the answer. Almost seemed like a desperation move…which may be what he’s come to.

The one thing that no one really has commented on is what was Tomlin’s solution if GB took longer to score than they did?

The onside was attempted with 3:58 to go. GB took 1:52 in a 6 play drive to score the TD leaving 2:06 to go and the Steelers need a TD (with 1 timeout left…they use one on D on the drive). So, if GB took twice as long to score (3:00), then that would have left less than 1 minute for the O to drive down the field. While, it’s possible, that not the ideal situation to put your football team in…hoping that GB scores quickly.

On the flip side, if they kick the ball off and GB starts from say the 35, they would need to go at least 35 yds. to the Steeler 30 for a realistic shot at a FG…although the way Crosby was kicking, I’d say they’d want the TD or get the ball down to the 15 or so. Anyway, way does it seem that everyone’s assumption is that they would go on a long, clock burning drive to win the game. GB would be thinking what any other NFL team would be thinking, we need to score…and how much time it takes is secondary to the actual score itself….otherwise they would have burned more than 1:52 in their scoring drive from the Steeler 39. So, to me the argument doesn’t really hold, GB is going to try to score from whatever field position they have when they get the ball because they are down 2pts. and there is 3:58 left in the game, if they don’t score they won’t win.

Also, even if the Steelers recovered the onside, it’s not a given that they’d be able to run the clock out or score a TD to seal the W. What if they went 3-and-out and had to punt, then were right back to the same scenario where the D needs to make a stop.

Honestly, when I saw the onside, I almost thought Tomlin was doing that because Reed’s KOs had been so poor. I think maybe that factored into the decison a bit too, and if so I’d rather him come out and say it. Otherwise, if you have the chance to pin a team deep you gotta do it with the game on the line.

I’ll bet if you asked most of the Steeler players, and they gave you an honest answer, they’d say they disagreed with the call. Actually, when Pam Oliver asked Ben that ? he basically said NFL speak for “disagree”…he said that Tomlin’s the coach and he wanted that call (the onside) and we have to do what he tells us.

Either way, the Steelers won and that feels great!

Now, they have to find a way to stop BALT next week, and the D will have to actually show up and play the game, unless Tomlin wants Ben and the O to go both ways.

So what if Tomlin simply called a spade a spade? The D was getting owned out there, especially in the 4th when they gave up THREE touchdowns. Keep in mind this is the same secondary that made Bruce Gradkowski look like Dan frickin’ Marino.

If the D happens to be offended by Tomlin’s vote of no confidence then they should show it on the field by actually, ya know, making a play in the last 15.

It’s true that Ben saved the day, but the only reason Ben had the chance to win it was because Mike finally decided to do something, anything, to change the pattern of blown 4th quarter leads. You can either do the same thing that you’ve been doing which has lead to nothing but loses, or you can gamble and try something different that has the possibility of resulting in a win. It’s a great call whether or not Ben throws the last pass to Wallace.

I’m just utterly dumbfounded that given the tape this year that anybody could think the secondary, which had been rolling over all day, was going to make a stop. You know you’re in trouble when James Harrison leads the team in pass deflections.