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3 things that need to change in 2018 for the Steelers.

C

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Run defense. Yes, I've seen way too many gaping holes and massive runs to the right. Dupree can't set the edge. Our safeties are not good enough, and we lack a true NT. Sometimes our offense is too much for the other team, and it limits the opponents rushing attempts, masking the weakness. But this must be fixed. ILB, S, NT/DT. First, three draft picks, or go into free agency to help fix the problem. Sadly, a player of Shazier's talents just cannot be replaced. I'd even be okay with a three-down NT in round one provided he can stay on the field and rush the passer.

Coaching. On display yesterday, Tomlin and Haley need to go! Butler is just average. The stupid onsite kick with over two minutes to go and two-timeouts is on Tomlin. Running it wide on 4th and 1, when Ben is 14 for 15 on QB sneaks, flanked by pro bowl center and guard is on Haley. But above and beyond that, we were not focused. Even DeCastro, a normally very quiet leader, said so. That is on Tomlin. Too many distractions.

Team speed on defense. Running QB's kill us. None of our safeties are fast, and we are downright slow at ILB. Covering the TE and backs is a problem. The loss of Shazier has ripple effects on the defense as he was perhaps the man we could least afford to lose.
 
If you have any question whether Bud Durpree can set the edge all you need to do is watch Fournette's 19yd TD run after Ben's INT. This is exactly why Durpree needs to be replaced.
 
Chicoman said:
If you have any question whether Bud Durpree can set the edge all you need to do is watch Fournette's 19yd TD run after Ben's INT. This is exactly why Durpree needs to be replaced.
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He is Jarvis Jones part 2. Both have the same pass rush moves, which is run around the tackle and go 10 yards up field while the QB steps up.
Dupree is more athletic but is useless with his low football IQ. This defense has some other low IQ guys too, that is a problem.
 
The three things that MUST change are Tomlin, Butler, and Haley. I believe that the player have lost faith in this structure and they needs a new one. Once there is a new structure, the pieces can be filled in. Right now, filling in the pieces will make little difference.
 
mdk2 said:
He is Jarvis Jones part 2. Both have the same pass rush moves, which is run around the tackle and go 10 yards up field while the QB steps up.
Dupree is more athletic but is useless with his low football IQ. This defense has some other low IQ guys too, that is a problem.
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Sad thing is that he will go to a 4-3 team that will use him as a pass rush specialist and he will be decent. That's all he is. Oh yea, and I agree he plays like he is box of hammers stupid.
 
could Dupree move to ILB? he's athletic as **** and has said he's been dropping into coverage more this season.
then draft Harold Landry.

problem solved.
 
Superman said:
could Dupree move to ILB? he's athletic as **** and has said he's been dropping into coverage more this season.
then draft Harold Landry.

problem solved.
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The guy can't even do his job as it is, no way in hell he's able to play ILB where there is a lot more technique and smarts needed. Bud hasn't learned much over his career as a Steeler and I think he's reached his max potential with the team, time for him to move on. No way do I pick up his option.
 
We need to pick up the best safety available in free agency and then trade a future pick to move up in round 1 to get Roquan Smith assuming he’s going out. I swear one of the worst draft moves the Steelers ever made was not picking Landon Collins in 2015. We should have take him in round 1...


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Completely accurate. Lost my voice yelling at the coaches from section 122 yesterday. Spence was dreadful and Williams is a problem too, IMO. Love his heart, but too slow and bad angles on runs all game. The coaching difference was painfully obvious in this game. Our points were from sheer athletic talent (in the face of uncalled penalties in many cases), theirs mostly from scheme and team focus. This loss at home was to the same team that struggled to put up 10 points against the Buffalo Bills at home last week. Worse than Tim Tebow...much worse IMO.

Completely unacceptable.


Coach said:
Run defense. Yes, I've seen way too many gaping holes and massive runs to the right. Dupree can't set the edge. Our safeties are not good enough, and we lack a true NT. Sometimes our offense is too much for the other team, and it limits the opponents rushing attempts, masking the weakness. But this must be fixed. ILB, S, NT/DT. First, three draft picks, or go into free agency to help fix the problem. Sadly, a player of Shazier's talents just cannot be replaced. I'd even be okay with a three-down NT in round one provided he can stay on the field and rush the passer.

Coaching. On display yesterday, Tomlin and Haley need to go! Butler is just average. The stupid onsite kick with over two minutes to go and two-timeouts is on Tomlin. Running it wide on 4th and 1, when Ben is 14 for 15 on QB sneaks, flanked by pro bowl center and guard is on Haley. But above and beyond that, we were not focused. Even DeCastro, a normally very quiet leader, said so. That is on Tomlin. Too many distractions.

Team speed on defense. Running QB's kill us. None of our safeties are fast, and we are downright slow at ILB. Covering the TE and backs is a problem. The loss of Shazier has ripple effects on the defense as he was perhaps the man we could least afford to lose.
Click to expand...
 
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Superman said:
could Dupree move to ILB? he's athletic as **** and has said he's been dropping into coverage more this season.
then draft Harold Landry.

problem solved.
Click to expand...

I was wondering the same thing. I don't know if he could, but he's been completely underwhelming at OLB.
 
dv13 said:
Completely accurate. Lost my voice yelling at the coaches from section 122 yesterday. Spence was dreadful and Williams is a problem too, IMO. Love his heart, but too slow and bad angles on runs all game. The coaching difference was painfully obvious in this game. Our points were from sheer athletic talent (in the face of uncalled penalties in many cases), theirs mostly from scheme and team focus. This loss at home was to the same team that struggled to put up 10 points against the Buffalo Bills at home last week. Worse than Tim Tebow...much worse IMO.

Completely unacceptable.
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When you see it live, you capture everything as it happens. This has to be the worst playoff loss in years. Even worse than the Tebow loss. Agreed.

Some day Tomlin won't be here ( Hopefully while Ben is still playing ). The draft should address ILB, speed, and Safety
 
There's no chance in he'll of Ben playing without Tomlin. Get that right out of your head.

Tomlin is Black. He ain't goin' nowhere. The Rooney's have too much invested in equality to fire a black head coach. It doesn't matter that there are far BETTER black coaches out there. Mike is OUR black coach.

This isn't about racism. It's about the Rooney's determination to support equality in the NFL. It doesn't matter if Tomlin is nothing more than a cheerleader, until the H.O.F. QB that makes him look like a ******* savant leaves Mike is going to continue to post winning seasons. While he does that, The Rooney's look good, the league looks good and everyone's happy.
 
wig said:
There's no chance in he'll of Ben playing without Tomlin. Get that right out of your head.

Tomlin is Black. He ain't goin' nowhere. The Rooney's have too much invested in equality to fire a black head coach. It doesn't matter that there are far BETTER black coaches out there. Mike is OUR black coach.

This isn't about racism. It's about the Rooney's determination to support equality in the NFL. It doesn't matter if Tomlin is nothing more than a cheerleader, until the H.O.F. QB that makes him look like a ******* savant leaves Mike is going to continue to post winning seasons. While he does that, The Rooney's look good, the league looks good and everyone's happy.
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I’m not ******* happy but I get your point.
 
The mindset overall sucks. The old mean nasty mindset of Steeler defense doesn't exist anymore. Something must be done to bring that back.The OC needs to go. The DC needs to go. They need to learn how to tackle and tackle well. They're god awful at it. Bring in someone to teach them.
 
yeahboyz!


Todd Haley could be on the outs in Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette suggests there's a real possibility the Steelers move on from OC Todd Haley.

Haley does not have a contract for 2018, and his relationship with Ben Roethlisberger became increasingly fractured in 2017. One Steelers source told the Post-Gazette that one of the reasons Big Ben openly contemplated retirement was his failing rapport with Haley. The two "rarely talked along the sidelines," and "never huddled to discuss strategy" during games. Roethlisberger reportedly requested QBs coach Randy Fichtner to come down from the booth to create a game-day "buffer" between the quarterback and Pittsburgh's OC. Fichtner is reportedly a "strong candidate" to replace Haley if he isn't re-signed.

http://www.rotoworld.com/player/nfl/9301/todd-haley
 
1) Offensive coordinator
2) Entire defensive staff (plus some of the roster too)
3) The culture and attitude of the team not taking every single game seriously
 
Roethlisberger reportedly requested QBs coach Randy Fichtner to come down from the booth to create a game-day "buffer" between the quarterback and Pittsburgh's OC.

Fichtner is reportedly a "strong candidate" to replace Haley if he isn't re-signed.

AggieSteel said:
1) Offensive coordinator
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If they just replace him with a guy already on staff what will change?
 
Spike said:
Roethlisberger reportedly requested QBs coach Randy Fichtner to come down from the booth to create a game-day "buffer" between the quarterback and Pittsburgh's OC.

Fichtner is reportedly a "strong candidate" to replace Haley if he isn't re-signed.



If they just replace him with a guy already on staff what will change?
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Maybe our situational play calling. For exactly fourth and a inch...What to do?
 
Spike said:
Roethlisberger reportedly requested QBs coach Randy Fichtner to come down from the booth to create a game-day "buffer" between the quarterback and Pittsburgh's OC.

Fichtner is reportedly a "strong candidate" to replace Haley if he isn't re-signed.



If they just replace him with a guy already on staff what will change?
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More no huddle, up tempo...etc? Maybe Randy won't have the ego that Todd had and let us do what actually works.
 
stillwright said:
Maybe our situational play calling. For exactly fourth and a inch...What to do?
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This

I do not think we throw out the playbook and start over with an entirely new philosophy. Our offense is very good, and the plays that work are generally designed well and our talent executes very well. What we do not have is the correct sequencing and down-to-down calling of the plays. Creative and aggressive when playing the odds is necessary, then playing the odds when being creative and aggressive is called for. Over-utilization of plays that do not work, such as too many quick screens to WRs. Terrible in 'situational' play calling - short yardage, red zone. These are not results of a bad overall scheme/philosophy/playbook, but rather just need someone different sending in the calls on a play-by-play basis

If you want an example of an entire scheme being broken and needing an influx of new ideas, look to the other side of the ball. Flat terrible. It's not the most talented defense we've ever had, but it's also not so bad as to come out looking like 11 traffic cones against one of the worst offenses in the league in a HOME PLAYOFF GAME. It's not bad enough to give up 38 points at home to Flacco, almost lose at home to Brett Hundley, almost lose to Jacoby Brissett, almost lose at home to Deshone Kizer (most of our defensive starters played in that game so I don't want to hear it), get dominated by Jacksonville twice, get absolutely MASHED ON by Chicago's running backs to the point that their QB didn't even throw for 100 yards and beat us.

We have enough players on that defense that none of those things are justifiable. That is a broken scheme, a broken philosophy. They are not just sending in the wrong calls on a down by down basis. The entire approach is fundamentally broken. Guys have no idea what they're supposed to do. Talent is not being developed. They are burned by the same plays by the same players over and over again when they should by all accounts know what is coming. They make the same mistakes in week 17 as they did in week 1. Hell they make the same mistakes in 2017 as they made in 2015 and 2016. The defense is broken all the way around. I refuse to believe that the players are just simply so bad that we had no choice but to make all these pedestrian offenses look so much better against us than any other team. Nope. It is designed wrong to constantly make mediocre QBs and RBs feel very comfortable against us. It is clearly not intuitive to our players who are constantly out of position, miscommunicating with one another, taking bad angles, or arriving too late to make a play. It clearly lacks leadership and development ability from position coaches who have not seen a single player in the back 2 levels (other than the guy who may never play again) make significant strides in his development from his rookie season. Think about it. Name one current LB or DB who has just genuinely improved throughout his Steelers career. You can't. Every single thing about this defensive coaching staff is broken, and the only member of it who can make a solid case to keep his job is the DL coach who is thinking about retiring.

Can the offense improve in some ways? Sure - and I think a lot of that improvement can come with better management of the minutiae, the playcalling in the moment and situations. But I do think the overall design of this offense succeeds in keeping Ben upright, succeeds in allowing Ben freedom to be Ben, succeeds in taking FULL advantage of the great skill position players we have. No one can ever argue that we are not properly utilizing Brown or Bell - they are thriving and so is JuJu and even MB when his head is on straight. No - this offense is schemed very well, it's just called badly in situations. I'm totally okay with Fichtner taking over, not changing much at the molecular level and just tweaking the calls. And I'd also be okay with someone like Rex Ryan or Jack Del Rio coming in and re-writing the defense entirely and re-programming these guys how to play NFL football.
 
Since we know they won't get rid of Tomlin:

1. Fire Haley and cut Mitchell
2. Art Rooney II needs to be un-Rooney like and get involved. Tell Butler he has 1 more year to get this defense playing at a championship level when it matters, #1 being able to simply stop the run, get his attention by firing Lake-Burns and Davis are high draft picks and have regressed this year
3. Art Rooney II publicly and privately (again, un-Rooney like I know but necessary now) admonish the team's cocky undisciplined behavior (Bryant's complaining, assistant coaches in bar fights, looking past the Jags despite getting their buts kicked by them in week 5, Mitchell's pre-game taunts, Bell's tweeting) and say the problem starts at the top with the head coach putting a stop to this

If Tomlin doesn't like any of this, hit the bricks-but he's not that dumb, he's on-side kick dumb, but not quit over this dumb
 
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