The Pittsburgh Steelers do not play a brand of football that the NFL is interested in promoting. The offense is exciting to watch for all the wrong reasons. They play close, physical, defensive games that often end with cardiac events for their fans. Mike Tomlin’s group wins ugly, and the modern NFL doesn’t like ugly.
Ron Schwane / Associated Press
Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin has his sights set on a successful 2023
The Steelers are the last of a dying breed. The Tennessee Titans and Mike Vrabel, an ex-Steeler, have had some success with defense and Derrick Henry. They did not make it to the Super Bowl, and with all due respect to Titans fans, the window seems closed. Very few coaches left in the NFL are embracing what worked in football for decades: smash-mouth football on offense and defense.
Mike Ditka, the spokesman for being a tough guy, once famously addressed the problem with the perception of football. The popular trope is that football is a contact sport. According to George Wilcox of the Chicago Tribune, Ditka famously addressed nearly 50 high school football coaches in August of 2015 and corrected the improper perception.
“It’s not a contact sport,” Ditka asserted. “It’s a collision sport.”
The NFL wants to forget how much they embraced this concept in the past. The league settled a concussion lawsuit in 2015 for reportedly $765 million dollars. However, players like Steelers' Mike Webster and his family still have not seen a dime of the settlement pool. The NFL has turned to embracing words like "player safety" and "concussion protocol" in an attempt to wash their hands of the actual history of professional football.
Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin Is The Catalyst To Jumpstart Meaningful Player Reforms
The first 82 years of the NFL are passed off as barbaric times when the league did not know any better, is what they would have you believe. They have abandoned reason and created ridiculous rules paired with hopelessly flawed enforcement. The roughing the passer penalty on Minkah Fitzpatrick on Sunday Night Football is a perfect example. NBC's paid officials analyst Terry McAulay could not even endorse the ridiculous call.
L.E. Baskow / Las Vegas Review
Steelers' Kenny Pickett takes a brutal hit by Maxx Crosby.
Kenny Pickett took a much more vicious hit with forceable contact to the head earlier in the Sunday night game that was not called. However, when Las Vegas Raiders' Jimmy Garoppolo tried to rally his team to victory, the same referees gifted 15 yards and a first down for a hit that seemed far less violent.
The inconsistency of the rule's application is an increasing source of outrage for fans. Massive hits are allowed against the likes of Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton, who endured multiple unflagged hits from defenders that, in Newton's case, severely affected his longevity. At the same time, Tom Brady and a plethora of other favored signal-callers enjoyed the protection of the officials.
McClatchy / Tribune photo
The Ravens' Haloti Ngata, not pictured, broke Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's nose, but Pittsburgh pulled out a 13-10 victory at M&T Bank Stadium on Dec. 5, 2010.
A league that has embraced gambling to grow its audience is either blind to the fact that this uneven enforcement of rules is the breeding ground for scandal, or they just don’t care. The NFL fully embraces the multiple websites that have sprung up to enable gambling. Nothing can damage the integrity of the Fabled Shield, especially now that they have auctioned it off to the bookies.
The logic is flawed. It is fast becoming a product that is almost entirely dependent on who the officials are for the game. It is not sustainable. Exactly how long does the league expect to get away with selective enforcement of rules before they are facing a Kevin Donaghy, Joey Crawford situation? The NFL is not the NBA, but they are trying their best to make fans question the on-field product.
The league has already allowed the Philadelphia Eagles to make a mockery of short yardage. The "tush push" is good for social media engagement. What will they do if someone does what Chris Simms suggested with clumsy language on Pro Football Talk? Eject the defenders who figure out how to stop it, fine, and suspend them? It is much more likely than outlawing the play in 2023.
Courtesy: Getty Images
Steeler Nation reacts to "Renegade" in Pittsburgh, PA.
The last thing Roger Goodell wants is for the Steelers to bring back brutal physicality to the game. The Steelers play Renegade for a reason. It’s an incredible moment in the stadium, and it is the culture that Pittsburgh continues to embrace. The Steelers have an international fan base that is vocal and, worst of all, visible for Goodell’s version of the NFL. A Super Bowl run by Pittsburgh would completely upset the narrative that the NFL sold to the millions of fantasy football players and the fans who hammered the over.
The pendulum is going to swing. Omar Khan and Andy Weidl have started assembling the antidote with a team that is supposed to be built on power running. As long as Tomlin gets rid of Matt Canada, he will be riding it like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove all the way into the NFL front offices, but I don’t think he will be screaming yee-haw when he gets there.
What do you think, Steeler Nation? Are the Steelers the fly in the ointment that will upset the NFL's apple cart? Please comment below or on my Twitter/X: @thebubbasq.
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