Why haven’t they fired Butler yet? Oh no?
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He's still under contract. FWIW, they would have to work out some details for his parting gifts.
It doesn't matter whether they fire Butler, this is Tomlin's defense. Tomlin will keep Butler around as long as possible so that he continues to get the blame instead of the person ultimately responsible.
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Hopefully....Art2 mandates the DC change and Tomlin actually allows his replacement to coordinate.
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Porter wasn't "fired", he wasn't renewed. 
Dale at DK did an intersting piece this morning talking about how far back this coaching staff goes. Relationship with Butler, Fitch, Dunbar, and the strength coach goes back to MT's early coaching days in college. Makes me think they will pause long and hard (er, waddle in it) before they fire any of the buddy net.
Dale at DK did an intersting piece this morning talking about how far back this coaching staff goes. Relationship with Butler, Fitch, Dunbar, and the strength coach goes back to MT's early coaching days in college. Makes me think they will pause long and hard (er, waddle in it) before they fire any of the buddy net.
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Porter wasn't "fired", he wasn't renewed.
Dale at DK did an intersting piece this morning talking about how far back this coaching staff goes. Relationship with Butler, Fitch, Dunbar, and the strength coach goes back to MT's early coaching days in college. Makes me think they will pause long and hard (er, waddle in it) before they fire any of the buddy net.
someone posted a video a while back of Tomlin, Fitch and Butler all as coaches at Arkansas State. Only one year together there, I think.
The defense was better when Tomlin put his hand print on it in the last few games of the season. Take off your Tomlin hate glasses.
I disagree with the above post.
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As one poster already said, statistically the defense was improving, particularly in the last half of the year. Again I say I will be surprised if they fire Butler. Internally, they can rationalize this season failure on a bad kicker and some bad luck (Ben hurt in Oakland, Bell). I don’t agree with this, but I can see them NOT moving on from Butler this year. We shall see.
Then he still deserves blame for waiting an entire season to put his hand print on it. Doesn’t make sense.
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Well then you can hate him for waiting until the last few games of the season. Glasses stay on.
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I think this is incorrect as it's implausible that Tomlin doesn't want to point blank win as many football games as possible. He understands he needs a top-notch defense to accomplish that. I think he is at the crossroads in his professional journey, in that he realizes this current collection of coaches, mostly all 'known commodities' from years past, are simply not getting the job done. He also understands, I think, this is a cut-throat business and that his tenure will end soon if he doesn't change things up. Ultimately, he's failed as the HC to get the team to where it wants to go. Say what you want about him, Tomlin's no dummy, and when 7-8 HC's get canned within hours after the season ended, he knows what he's up against. My guess is he's gonna take a bit of time, huddle with Rooney & Colbert and chart out the path forward, as far as coaching - and possibly schematic - changes. We'll see.
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They have had a habit of letting contracts run out and not renewing. I believe this will be the exit of Tomlin over firing. Not sure what the details of a firing are. He has a contract, you pay it. He leaves. End of story. Not like players where there is a guarentee portion and a salary. Coaches contracts are guaranteed.
I think we are assuming a lot with a statement that says Tomlin all of a sudden put his hands in the pile. When the general thought was he had his hands in the D all year.
What evidence do we have that he didn't earlier on compared to later?
And the depleted Bungals in the last game wasn't a good measuring stick.
Against the top teams I never felt the team could late quarter stop anyone.
What evidence do we have that he didn't earlier on compared to later?
And the depleted Bungals in the last game wasn't a good measuring stick.
Against the top teams I never felt the team could late quarter stop anyone.
Yeah, seriously. For all we know, he let Butler do more of what he wanted and took his hands off the defense.
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Whether Butler is a good DC or not is pretty irrelevant at this point. Every year there are stretches where it looks like the defense has turned a corner. They come up with a big game and put up a lot of sacks. Still, when we go back and evaluate each season, the defense continues to be a major issue. The defense is littered with underachieving high draft picks. At some point you need a fresh perspective to try to improve things. The offense improved when they dumped Arians for Haley and improved again when they promoted Fichtner. There is no reason to believe the same can't be done with the defense.
What about the past few years? Tomlin was getting involved in Lebeaus final season.
We played more zone than any team in the NFL Lebeaus final season, and that was put on Lebeau saying the game passed him by, then the first season without Lebeau we played more zone again, while Lebeau went to Tennessee and played more man than anyone.
The constant usage of 2 Dlinemen, especially on short yardage and goal line situations is beyond stupid. 3rd and 20 and we play cover 4 and drop beyond the first down marker and give Brees all day.
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At this point it's a pretty sure bet that Tomlin and Butler are not going to be fired. They will be allowed to finish out their contracts. Unless we have a dominating season, and go a long way in the playoffs, maybe even win the Super Bowl, then you'll likely not see their contracts renewed.
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If you are Butler and you waited in the wings of Dick's for years to get your shot as a DC. Even passed up an offer to be a DC from another organization ....why would you want to be here when your hands are tied? If Tomlin does hand his fingers into this ****** *** defense if I was Butler I would just asked to be let go and try to get into another organization.
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I think I saw a graph that showed the Steelers were one of the teams that played some of the least zone coverage this year. I can't seem to find it again.
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Found it:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Per <a href="https://twitter.com/SportsInfo_SIS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SportsInfo_SIS</a>, here is the man coverage tendencies for each defense this season. <br><br>The Patriots and Broncos are the most man-heavy teams, followed by surprisingly the Steelers, who have traditionally been a zone-heavy team under Mike Tomlin. <a href="https://t.co/zKFjHcWAa9">pic.twitter.com/zKFjHcWAa9</a></p>— Keegan Abdoo (@KeeganAbdoo) <a href="https://twitter.com/KeeganAbdoo/status/1078722411338522624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here are the zone coverage tendencies, which is understandingly reciprocal of the previous chart.<br><br>The Colts bend don't break defense leads the way, followed by the Chargers dime-based defense. <br><br>Ron Rivera and Pete Carroll coaching trees represented heavily in the top 10. <a href="https://t.co/j7Vs8ejgsP">pic.twitter.com/j7Vs8ejgsP</a></p>— Keegan Abdoo (@KeeganAbdoo) <a href="https://twitter.com/KeeganAbdoo/status/1078723620849905664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Per <a href="https://twitter.com/SportsInfo_SIS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SportsInfo_SIS</a>, here is the man coverage tendencies for each defense this season. <br><br>The Patriots and Broncos are the most man-heavy teams, followed by surprisingly the Steelers, who have traditionally been a zone-heavy team under Mike Tomlin. <a href="https://t.co/zKFjHcWAa9">pic.twitter.com/zKFjHcWAa9</a></p>— Keegan Abdoo (@KeeganAbdoo) <a href="https://twitter.com/KeeganAbdoo/status/1078722411338522624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here are the zone coverage tendencies, which is understandingly reciprocal of the previous chart.<br><br>The Colts bend don't break defense leads the way, followed by the Chargers dime-based defense. <br><br>Ron Rivera and Pete Carroll coaching trees represented heavily in the top 10. <a href="https://t.co/j7Vs8ejgsP">pic.twitter.com/j7Vs8ejgsP</a></p>— Keegan Abdoo (@KeeganAbdoo) <a href="https://twitter.com/KeeganAbdoo/status/1078723620849905664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I heard about that. How's his playoff record?