Sunday in Buffalo was the worst Pittsburgh Steelers defeat in over 30 years. A drubbing. Complete and utter embarrassment for fans, players and especially the coaching staff of the once feared Pittsburgh Steelers. I say 'once feared,' because let’s face it, the Steelers scare nobody now, and are borderline a team on the schedule that you can look to and just chalk up as an easy win. I’m not overreacting, it's that bad. But why? How did we get here? Well, I have a few ideas.
Keith Srakocic / The Associated Press
For starters, we have to figure out why the Steelers are such a bad football team right now. There are some obvious reasons. One being that they don’t have their highest paid defender, and 2021 AP Defensive Player of the Year, TJ Watt. Next you could argue that they’re going through growing pains as they try to find their next franchise quarterback after a certain first ballot Hall of Famer, Ben Roethlisberger retired. Yet those are not the only reasons, and to say they are, is continuing to exercise the same faulty logic that’s gotten us to this point. So, let's dig deeper.
What did we watch on Sunday? Truly, what did we see? Well, we saw a lot of the same things we’ve seen over the course of the last 5-7 years of shortcomings in Pittsburgh. We saw a totally inept offensive coordinator. We saw a defense that could not stop anything. We saw wide receivers that could not catch balls that were right in their hands. We saw bad special teams. And we saw scared, timid coaching from a head coach who preaches about “not living in his fears.” But the most frustrating part is that these same issues have plagued the Steelers for years. And as fans, we continue to call for heads. But are we calling for the right heads if the coordinators change, but the issues remain the same?
And am I shorting any successes Mike Tomlin has had? No. He won a title. He’s never had a losing season. Can’t deny that. But he’s a defensive coach and he’s lost his fast ball. Sometimes the game evolves and coaches lose their touch. That’s very real. And I think it’s happened.
— Kevin Adams (@KevinAdams26) October 9, 2022
Now this isn’t a hit piece against Mike Tomlin and calling for his head. This is merely a call to action. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over, but expecting different results. The Steelers and their coaching staff are insane. Dating back to the end of the Dick LeBeau era, that's when it started to unravel. We later found out that Tomlin was the one calling the defenses for the Steelers on gamedays, not LeBeau. But he was the one who was scapegoated. Well, LeBeau was out and the Steelers did what they do, they promoted from within.
Long-time linebackers coach, Keith Butler is promoted to defensive coordinator. Butler was terrible. Absolutely awful and to defend him is laughable. I still get nightmares at how often the Steelers defense was out schemed to allow players like Vince Williams to be forced to cover other teams #1 receivers. He should've been fired well before he eventually left by retiring after the 2021 season.
Jordan Schofield - SteelerNation (Twitter - JSKO_PHOTO)
We would come to find out after Butler was relieved of his duties, that it was still Tomlin calling the defensive plays on gamedays, and Butler was more so just the figurehead of defense, but not actually the one making the decisions. And listen, I don't care who calls the plays on Sundays as long as they work, but this defense is bad and has been bad for a while, so it's safe to say, it's not working.
With Butler out, again the Steelers promote from within with secondary coach, Teryl Austin. Also joining the staff was a highly respected defensive mind in Brian Flores. So as Steelers fans, you’d expect that having the highest paid defense in football, a new defensive coordinator, and another great coach to help the defense, that the Steelers would finally return to their form of being an elite defense. Wrong. The Steelers still remain either last, or close to last in every defensive category that matters. And the part that should drive the fans nuts the most, is that Sunday we saw all the same issues that hurt the defense going as far back as LeBeau. Linebackers covering #1 wide receivers, a defense that can't get off the field on third down, bad tackling, nonexistent run defense. And the worst one of them all. NO HEART.
So, if you’re still with me, we changed the defensive coordinator three times now, yet the defense looks the same each time, and on the way out the door, the coordinators make sure to tell us that they weren't the ones calling the defenses on gamedays. It was Tomlin. Are we seeing the trend here?
Keith Butler on Tomlin calling the defensive signals since he became DC: “I would have liked to do them myself, sure I would. I think everybody would. But Mike’s the head coach. He can do what he wants to do.”
— Gerry Dulac (@gerrydulac) January 22, 2022
Next, the offensive coordinators. Being as Roethlisberger was a successful veteran, I am sure he had pull in who his offensive coordinator was. He hated Todd Haley and we scapegoated Haley out of town after the Jaguars playoff loss in 2017 (one where the Steelers offense scored 42 points against the best defense in football, but hey who's counting). In comes Tomlin's long-time coaching buddy, Randy Fichtner. A known Roethlisberger guy. And boy, did this guy blow too.
The Steelers offense was coming off of being one of the most electric in football from 2012-2017, to struggling to score 20 points under Fichtner. Everybody could see that Fichtner was awful, but not Coach Tomlin. Nope, he continued let Fichtner run the offense into the ground for two seasons before he was let go. In comes Matt Canada. Another in-house promotion. Are we starting to love the fact that the Steelers don’t look outside the building or what?
PITTSBURGH, PA - JULY 28: Ben Roethlisberger #7 of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Matt Canada of the Pittsburgh Steelers look on during training camp at Heinz Field on July 28, 2021 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
Canada is terrible. And it’s more of the same. An offense that can’t scheme well, can't score in the redzone, can't push the ball downfield with any regularity, can't use the middle of the field, can't run the ball with any success, or most importantly, can't sustain drives to help their defense get wind. But what drives me insane is that Canada was awful last year too. We were told, 'ohhh he needs a mobile quarterback to succeed, Roethlisberger won't change his way,' etc. And as fans, we all believed in that. Well, not all of us. But you get my point. And he kept his job.
He came back for yet another season and the issues look even worse with his mobile quarterbacks now. What we're coming to realize is that the Steelers won games and were competitive last year because Roethlisberger had a little 4th quarter magic left in his bag. Oh, and the magic went hand in hand with Roethlisberger calling his own plays late in games. So, if your best offense is when the offensive coordinator is hands off, do you really have an offensive coordinator worth a dang?
You see, the Steelers aren’t lacking talent. They’re a bad football team because they have bad coaching. Bottom line. And they’ve had bad coaching for most of Tomlin’s tenure with the Steelers, they just had a Hall of Fame quarterback that was able to mask most of those shortcomings. Do I think Tomlin is bad head coach? No. Not at all. Do I think he should have far less control over the defense, and the hiring process entirely of his coordinators? You bet I do. Because in all these years of Tomlin being an elite head coach, as they say, what's his coaching tree look like? Zilch. Not a single guy went on to be a head coach or take a promotion elsewhere. That’s pretty telling.
If the Pittsburgh Steelers really want to be a different team moving forward, you have to actually do things differently. You have to hire outside the building, and you have to let the coaches you hired to coach, actually do the coaching. This is no longer a defense wins championships league. You need to score. You need a bright offensive mind to find success. Not Matt Canada. So, am I calling for Tomlin’s head? No. But you're blind if you refuse to admit that Tomlin needs to shoulder his fair amount of this blame. After all, these are his hires and he is the captain of this ship.
Find more takes from Kevin Adams on Twitter @KevinAdams26.
Coming to the Steelers Bucs game on Oct 16? Come tailgate with us! All you can drink and eat. Click here.
MORE STEELERS NEWS
Steelers Rookie RB Jaylen Warren Outplays Struggling Najee Harris On Sunday For 2nd Time This Season
