This is NOT a defense of Tomlin, but I'm just not buying "talent-loaded is was ridiculous."
I think you have to factor in, along with physical talent, what kind of heads the players have. They had too many guys who had million dollar talent with 10 cent heads. A "talent loaded" team would be those Steelers teams of the 70s in which the physical and mental was there much more often than not.
Well, as I have pointed out quite often, I actually don't think Bell was nearly as great as his hype. The truth is, Bell just ran a LOT and behind a really talented line. And he was a good receiver who benefitted from having guys like Antonio Brown drawing lots of coverage. But as we have seen, few former Steeler players have flamed out as spectacularly as Le'Veon Bell after he left.
That said, although I really loathe what he evolved in to, Antonio Brown is unarguably one of the best receivers to play the game. It remains to be seen if he can retain the kind of production he had with the Steelers, although age and situation dictate that will be difficult for him. Nonetheless, even if I hate to say it, if anyone can do it, it's him.
What the Steelers DID have was a strong, even dominating offensive line, likely one of the best QBs to ever play the game, clearly one of the best WRs to ever play the game and a RB that was talented enough to be able to take advantage of his opportunities.
The critical failure of Tomlin, imo, is that he can't look at the forest, he can only see a few trees. He will gear up and he and the staff will focus on an aspect of the game. Offense, or even specific aspects of the offense and for a long period of time (sometimes entire seasons) he will basically ignore every other aspect of the game and just "hope it does fine."
We've seen the Steelers focus endlessly on the offensive side of the ball, (probably at Ben's request) while basically doing nothing more than applying expensive bandages to the defense. (I'm referring to the Steelers simply drafting or signing endless first round picks to the defense in the hope sheer talend would eventually "fix" the defense.) That strategy was painfully ineffective until the Steelers struck gold with Minkah Fitzpatrick. Then, suddenly a mediocre at best defense began to emerge as good and eventually dominant.
But Tomlin doesn't focus on the entirety of the team. He can't even be bothered to game plan or make adjustments to what other teams are doing. He doggedly focuses on some aspect and he literally chooses to live or die on that hill. And when he dies, he blames "execution" ironically.
Tomlin is probably a decent motivator. He is clearly loved by his players. However, one suspects that the NFL has too many high talent players for a team to get by on motivation alone. There has to be some coaching, teaching, and what former president Bush called "strategery". Add in good scouting (something I think the Steelers actually do better than average at) and business management (also a Steeler strength) and you've got a chance.
Since the Steelers are, again imo, lacking in coaching, teaching and strategery aspects of the game, I really don't believe that the Steelers have much of a "chance" sadly. But, I love em anyway. I hope it's a great season and that we all have some wonderful feel-good moments this year.
