What is Mike Tomlin's Offensive Philosophy?

First of all, happy new year to all. I wish you all the best, health and a lot of success in your endevours. It is truly a pleasure to read and share whatever is on our minds here in BTSC.

Most of us here at BTSC have been calling for Bruce Arians' head for two years and counting (since MT did not announce anything at his Conference today). He has driven us crazy with some of his playcalling and unfortunate timeliness of his calls at critical times of games. He has been the easy scapegoat to answer why is it that the offense has the ability to reach the red zone four times against the Bengals in Heinz Field and manages to get exactly four FG's. He has demonstrated time and again that while he generally has a good script of plays to start the games, he never manages to adjust in-game to what the opposing Defense is throwing at them.

However, I think that while BA has to go, it all starts with Mike Tomlin.

Just what is Mike Tomlin's offensive philosophy?

All of the numerous offensive problems described above and throughout many posts in BTSC have to do either with play selection or with an overall philosophy. I think that we (the fans) should give Mike Tomlin more of the blame for the short-comings of the offense.

More after the break.

I've had this idea for a post for a while now and it did not materialize better since the first third down attempt of the second Clevaland game (you all probably remember that play), but before I wrote it, I wanted to let the season play out (which since the loss to the brownies, season's end was all but assured to happen last sunday) to gather some more examples of this. 

A very good example of how the Offense has been run under Arians, and what I think is exactly what is wrong with this team offensively, was a series of plays in last week's game against the Dolphins. During the 2nd quarter, Arians called a beautifully designed screen pass to Mendenhall that went for 26 yards to the Dolphins' 6 yard line. Next series of events baffled me.

Mendenhall is taken out of the game for Fast Willie, who gets stuffed on 1st down and the next plays are:

• 2nd down: slant to the slot receiver (Holmes) that is almost intercepted by Jason Taylor
• 3rd down: slant to the slot receiver (Moore) into tripple coverage, with an empty backfield if I recall correctly.
• Settle for FG
• Offense gets the ball back after an almost unforseen CB INT.
• Arians out-thinks himself having Santonio Holmes throw a pass to the opposite side of the field

The goal-line play selection was questionable at best, but the play design was pathetic. But that was not all. The next play was pukable. Nevertheless, I was not surprised, as I imagine most of you wheren't. That series of plays was classic Arians. And therein lies the problem: classic Arians.

We have become accostumed to point our collective fingers towards BA. But, in my opinion, it goes even further. It is not only that BA rarely tries to set-up plays through the use of formations and other plays; he seems to have a Madden play selection screen (or worst yet - the madden suggestion button) instead of a game plan. The main aspect of what, to me, is wrong with the offense is the whole phylosophy on offense.

That which would answer: What are the Steelers trying to accomplish through their play selection?

An example of this comes to mind as the aforementioned third down attempt of the second game against Cleveland. After a 7yd run by Mendenhall on second down, the Steelers come empty set on third down, you all know the result. Right then and there, with the weather conditions as they where, told me a lot of what is wrong with his team's offense, and not just the playcalling.

To me, it starts with the Head Coach and his willingness to allow those types of plays through the course of more than 2 seasons now. Would something change if Mike Tomlin fires B.Arians and the next OC comes in, salivates with the idea of All-Ben-All-The-Time (which is what I think is BA's motto), and wants to call a sequence of plays like the ones we just saw against the Dolphins and Tomlin allows it? Please don't get me wrong, it's not that the offense should not be centered around #7, it should as he is our best player, but there has to be a phylosophy or "way-to-do-things" that follows some basic rules; Football 101 if you will, like power-running on third and short when it is below 15 degrees and there are 40mph winds on the field; or when you have first down inside the six yard line, or not throwing a slant pass near the goal line to the receiver that is closest to the QB.

That Bruce Arians has been allowed to "engineer" a game plan around his type of plays speaks very poorly about Mike Tomlin and his involvement with the offensive game plans. Or, we all just must be wrong about what constitutes his offensive philosophy and he actually encourages those plays. He does not strike me as being in favor of a finess game, but that is what we have now with the Offense. Stats are good, but they don't win the AC North. The fact is that the Steelers are now the least physical team in the AFC North (Cleveland finished very strong in that dept in my opinion) and we have some big problems to fix for next year in regards to that.

It all starts in the trenches, specially the offense' side, and that has to do with the phylosophy above. I hope that Mike Tomlin realizes this and connects the dots that go back to the Offense's game plans and play selections...

What are your thoughts, do you think that the media and us fans have given Tomlin a pass on the offense' shortcomings?

Saludos,