why did I open this thread???
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And through this rough patch, how many losing seasons have we had?
The team is changing identities. That's tough. We are trying to figure out who we are in a league that has outlawed pass defense. I'd say that our rebuilding phase was probably a lot better than most teams that sink to 3-13 depths in order to start over. We draft from mid to late first because WE ARE COMPETITIVE. Can you even remember the last time the Steelers picked in the top ten?
The past is the past. Our D went from old and slow to young and fast in record time. We have one of the youngest and most talented front 7s in the entire NFL. We're being picked as SB favorites. We have one of the top 3 offenses in the NFL, and the best receiver in the NFL (who BTW was a SIXTH rounder). We are one of the best teams in the entire league at developing late round and rookie free agent players.
The Steelers are the greatest franchise in the history of professional sports and that doesn't look to change any time in the near future.
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Just to start trouble.......... LOL
I remember many here (I being one of them) blamed tomlin for everything under the sun. We were so frustrated with the consecutive years of missing on draft picks. Considering the fact we were spoiled with Cohwer power drafting, we felt justified in doing so. Fast forward to today, many here feel tomlin has stepped up. Maybe NOT just tomlin himself but the whole process has stepped up. At least we seem to be doing better and our "cap hell" is slowly leaving us.
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Look at the glass half full and that's fine.
I don't. I think we under performed a few too many times over the past 5-6 seasons. We had Roethlisberger. We had a stable front office and coaching staff. "Average" isn't good enough.
I also am not sold we are quite on the rebound as much as you think.
There are some key statistics from last season that helped hide some flaws with this team that are unlikely to be maintained or continued.
1. Red zone efficiency for vs. against was abnormal last season. We failed on 1 time when inside the red zone at converting points and had a decade best 75.3% efficiency (scoring 5.27 points per red zone appearance). Opposing teams failed 13! times last season in the red zone at scoring any points and had a 60.4% efficiency rating in the red zone (4.22 points per appearance).
That is likely going to not stay the same.
2. Our sacks went up significantly with the help of 7 DB sacks this past season, but I'm not convinced yet that's a scheme change or an anomaly. Our D-line and OLB sack production is very average right now (right on the average over the last 25 years) but in order to get better than average we are leaning heavily on sacks from our ILB's and DB's to make up the difference. Not sure that can be maintained year-in, year-out right now.
3. Offensive production without Martavis Bryant and Heath Miller. Still think they were a big part of what we do on offense and we have to go into this season a bit more unknown or "by committee" at WR#3 and TE than we did last season.
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He wasn't following the team then. You can't expect him to know what was going on in Pittsburgh 8 whole years ago. Anyone who was a Steeler fan then knows that '08 and '09 were way worse.
Any time you get a perennial starter....at any position....in the 7th goddamn round, it can never be the worst draft ever. The chances of that happening are about 1/50.
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I have more Steeler history knowledge in a turd than you have in your whole body.
And Beachum was hardly a "perennial starter." They reluctantly gave him a chance to start and only did so after they had no other choice. If Mike Adams didn't blow goats, Beach would have never seen the field.
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Steel Vanguard
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Average compared to who? The Colts? The Pats?
Very few teams IN ALL OF SPORTS are as consistently competitive as the Steelers have been over the last 10 years. And the NFL is the toughest nut to crack. No team has won three consecutive Super Bowls in this league. Ever.
The Colts fell apart when Manning went down. We still competed with Leftwich, Batch and Vick under center.
The Pats are a quite unique case of a team that not only has been caught cheating during it's super bowl wins, but has had the unprecedented assistance of the league office (competition committee) changing the rules in order to help them succeed. In the 1970s when the Steelers were dominant, the NFL changed the rules to make it harder for us to win. The 5 yard chuck was originally called the Mel Blount Rule. When Tiger was annihilating fairways in the early 2000s, the PGA started "Tiger Proofing" it's courses to slow him down. Now compare that with what Tom Brady has experienced. Rule after rule has been added, modified, or "emphasized" to make "pocket passing" easier, "safer" and pass defense harder. Everything is pass interference, OL holding calls on pass plays are nearly nonexistent, you can't hit the QB above or below his numbers, you don't dare try to blow up a receiver trying to catch a pass, and we haven't even talked about the fact that cut blocking is still legal in the new "safe" NFL.
The league has done everything in it's power to make it easier for the Pats to win their way, and harder for us to win playing our way. And yet we're still competitive. According to you, that makes us "average".
I get it. You're a Baseball Fan (read that, stat geek). I care about wins, losses, and team effort. I care about clock management. I care whether we hit hard or take play off. I care how many mental errors we make in a game. These are the things that win and lose football games, not red zone stats. Go look at Manning's QB efficiency in February's Super Bowl. Or for that matter, Ben's in his first Big Game.
We are changing schemes, and there are growing pains. We're getting young and switching from a two gap to a one gap scheme. That takes time. The personnel and coaching changes have had an effect, and I see these young players doing more good things as they get better at what they do.
I've been hard on Jarvis, but looking at that draft class, only one DE/OLB from that ENTIRE DRAFT has double digit sacks for his career and that guy was taken 4th overall. It was a weak draft, period. 7 defensive pro bowlers overall. That's bad. He was drafted out of need, and all things being considered, was as good as any other choices we had. There were no "can't miss" defensive prospects at that spot. Some times you roll craps, it happens.
We have addressed Heath Miller. I actually think we'll be more explosive with Ladarious and the up and coming Jesse James. Heath had great hands but he was never fast and had lost a step of what he did have. Martavis was a luxury who never even owned the #2 spot. Wheaton is a very solid guy and Coates is a talented athlete. I expect good things from both, and I expect the pass offense to be quite prolific this year. But none of that is the point. We've had enough offense to win the SB for several years now.
The issue is our secondary and pass rush. They needed fixing. We've taken steps. If we can hide Jarvis by spreading out the pass rush responsibilities to the DL/DBs AND get some deep coverage from our new secondary I think we may have a SB squad on our hands. I'm optimistic for football reasons, not because I just like saying Ra Ra Ra.
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sorry the yankees are and its not close
Steel Vanguard
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BUUUUZZZZZ! Try again!
The first 10 of their World Series came in a segregated league.
An additional 6 came before the Yankees themselves integrated.
So of their 27 World Series titles, only 11 are legitimate. And lets not forget you can buy a championship in baseball because there is no salary cap.
The Yankees can eat a dick. GO STEELERS!
The Yankees were great from about 1920 to 1965. After that they were probably not as consistent as the Steelers.
Del and SV have great points. The only thing I'll add is, though Bryant was not consistent as a player, he was dangerous as a home run threat. He got us past Arizona with his skill to clinch that win. We will miss him, but we may miss him less if Coats can show some productivity.
I thought we were a top offense with Bryant, we're knocked down a peg without him.
I thought we were a top offense with Bryant, we're knocked down a peg without him.
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And I didn't even talk about the division we play in, which may be the toughest in professional sports. I mean, is there a division that sends 75% of it's teams to the playoffs on multiple occasions besides ours? We talk **** about CIN and BAL, but they're no pushovers. Brady's Pats and Manning's Colts played in garbage divisions which guaranteed them a playoff berth if they were merely competent year to year. We've down in the mud, scrapping with HOF defenders like Ray Lewis and Ed Reed for the last decade. And we still keep winning.
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maybe
maybe with Lad and Coates combined they can even the playing field.
Two other things.
Bell as a pass catcher -contract year
Wheaton - contract year
that can bring the O from a notch below to even, to even better...............
maybe
And as a result our first round draft picks come somewhere in the middle at best. The 2008 and 2009 drafts were still the worst since the mid-80's days of Keith Gary and Liffort Hobley. By 2014 no one from either draft was left on the team. Wallace and Mendy were good while they were here but were gone as FA's, Wallace slacked his last year here and neither has done jack since they left. Hood wasn't a bad player, just a bad fit here IMO. Mundy was serviceable but just a guy. Two consecutive drafts essentially wasted.
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2009 was a bad draft for everyone.
We actually did pretty well identifying the talent (much better than I did that year). We drafted four of the top-100 AV producers in that class, including one in the top-10.
Wallace - 48
Hood - 29
Urbik - 26
Lewis - 23
Unfortunately only 71 of that 126 production was accumulated with the Steelers.
In reality, the 2009 draft left a lot to be desired. There likely isn't one hall-of-famer in the entire class. Clay Matthews currently leads in AV production with 71. Stafford is the top QB. Lesean McCoy is the top RB. Louis Vasquez and Sebastian Vollmer are the top O-lineman. The WR's are Wallace, Maclin, Harvin and Crabtree. The top defensive lineman are Michael Johnson, B.J. Raji and Terrence Knighton. The top DB's are Malcolm Jenkins, Glover Quin and Vontae Davis.
Busts were everywhere. Mark Sanchez and Josh Freeman were 1st round QB's that fizzled out. Jason Smith, Michael Oher, Eugene Monroe and Andre Smith never lived up to left tackle billing and none have stuck with their original team. Tyson Jackson drafted 3rd overall just shows you the "top-end" talent in this draft was really lacking. Lots of swings with lots of misses and only singles when you made contact. Very few home runs (if any). A couple doubles maybe.
2009 goes down as my worst draft ever too (my 2011 draft got hit by injuries pretty hard as well).
We actually did pretty well identifying the talent (much better than I did that year). We drafted four of the top-100 AV producers in that class, including one in the top-10.
Wallace - 48
Hood - 29
Urbik - 26
Lewis - 23
Unfortunately only 71 of that 126 production was accumulated with the Steelers.
In reality, the 2009 draft left a lot to be desired. There likely isn't one hall-of-famer in the entire class. Clay Matthews currently leads in AV production with 71. Stafford is the top QB. Lesean McCoy is the top RB. Louis Vasquez and Sebastian Vollmer are the top O-lineman. The WR's are Wallace, Maclin, Harvin and Crabtree. The top defensive lineman are Michael Johnson, B.J. Raji and Terrence Knighton. The top DB's are Malcolm Jenkins, Glover Quin and Vontae Davis.
Busts were everywhere. Mark Sanchez and Josh Freeman were 1st round QB's that fizzled out. Jason Smith, Michael Oher, Eugene Monroe and Andre Smith never lived up to left tackle billing and none have stuck with their original team. Tyson Jackson drafted 3rd overall just shows you the "top-end" talent in this draft was really lacking. Lots of swings with lots of misses and only singles when you made contact. Very few home runs (if any). A couple doubles maybe.
2009 goes down as my worst draft ever too (my 2011 draft got hit by injuries pretty hard as well).