Don't let winning mask an issue. "Bill Cowher"

[SteelerFan448]

I think Cowher had as many defensive draft busts in his career as Shades averages in one season.

You're building a team and you get your choice of first-round defensive draft picks. Which set of players are you taking?

Cowher/Colbert: Hampton, Polamalu
Tomlin/Colbert: Timmons, Hood, Heyward, Jones, Shazier, Dupree, Burns, Watt, Edmunds

 

[tapeANaspirin2it]

Pats just had 47 rushing attempts vs the Chiefs. I guess they play Martyball too.

 

[Acereros]

Says the coach that was 1-4 at home, in conference championships...

And who were the Steelers QBs in those loses? Two of those were against the Cheatriots? Have you not heard of Spygate? Ernie Adams? Goodell burning the evidence? etc....

Unbelievable the length you guys go to justify the shortcomings of our current inefficient HC!

 

[Ike Kelly]

Again what is "featured"? You can't give a concrete answer for what "featured" is because you and everyone knows that O'Donnell threw the ball a lot during the regular season. He averaged passing the ball 31 times a game. In Ben's first 5 years he averaged 27 passes a game. Kordell was almost exactly the same as Ben in his 5 years starting. So please stop with this non-sense.

BTW if one of our starting WRs doesn't get hurt in the SB that route is run correctly and O'Donnell doesn't throw that last Int. Fact is Cowher won even though he was constantly having to re-work the offense and defense because of FA. He did the best he could with what he had.

In my use of the term “feature”, I’m using the offensive philosophy. NOD under Cowher went over 3000 yards in passing only once. With the exception of the SB year (ironically), the offense gained over 2000 yards rushing. That was under the Erhardt offense. It didn’t change under Gailey either. Only until Mularkey became OC that philosophy flipped and the pass was used to set up the run. Even using Zeroue as the lead back (over Bettis). They went back to Bettis and then had Maddox open up the passing game. Yet in Ben’s first year Cowher relied on Bettis. Ben’s second year they continued with the run first offense and Ben got them to the SB with efficient passing set up by Bettis and Parker. 2006, the philosophy went with Ben and he had his best passing season first over 3000 yds. The Arians came on board with the 5 wides and rushing took a back seat through 2011.

As for NODs throw in the SB, which one? To Ernie Mills? I thought that it was reported that NOD didn’t audible the hot read to the right side. Hence Mills running the fly, instead of the curl. Yeah CJ was hurt, but I thought Mills was the better receiver that year.

We will have to agree to disagree on the offensive philosophy or feature issue. I just look at the tendencies in the game, and not just by the players but by the play callers as well.


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[BLITZ]

you know it will never happen but if Cowher replaced Tomlin, it would technically be still only 3 coaches since 69.

 

[Acereros]

That doesn't even make sense. Hos team was behind him 100%. Tomlin doesn't even have his own *** behind him.


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Very true!

A very good friend and a fellow Steelers fan pointed out to me that Dumblin's coaching style is known to be a "player's coach", but not even at that he is good. Just look at the current state of the Steelers, his own players/ex-players are turning against him!

 

[Ike Kelly]

Don't let winning mask an issue. "Bill Cowher"

I strongly disagree.
2007: Sacked 47 times. Had 32 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and was second in the league in quarterback rating at 104.1, the highest of his career.
2008: Sacked 46 times. Poor statistical season, but only 15 interceptions compared to 23 in 2006. Also had four 4QC compared to only two in 2006.
2009: Sacked 50 times. Had a QB rating of over 100.

Where'd you get the fumble stat from? ESPN has the 2006 Steelers with 11 of 27 fumbles lost, 34 turnovers (Steelers defense had 20 interceptions and 9 fumbles recovered). By comparison, the 2008 team Ben threw 15 interceptions and the team had 26 fumbles with 9 lost, 24 turnovers (Steelers defense had 20 interceptions and 7 fumbles recovered).

I still believe Ben's injury played a major role in their failure in 2006. The Steelers started the season 1-6 and Roethlisberger had a 1:2 TD to INT to TD ratio (14 interceptions through 7 games)--this includes no touchdowns and seven interceptions through three weeks. Over the course of the season, the Steelers went 1-7 when he had more interceptions than touchdowns--with two of those losses being one possession games.

For comparison sake, the 2008 Steelers went 12-4 and won the title. He was sacked more times than in 2006, but he did a better job of protecting the ball. The Steelers were 2-3 (including a meaningless season finale win over the Browns) when he had more interceptions than touchdowns. His performance was particularly evident in one possession games, in which the Steelers went 6-2. In the six wins, 7 touchdowns and only 2 interceptions. In the two losses, 1 touchdown and 7 interceptions.

Roethlisberger is the most important player on the team and when he performs well, the team usually wins. When he's bad, he can be real bad and it's often too much to overcome. Given his numbers at the start of the 2006 season and that it was the worst of his career, you start to look outside factors that influenced his performance and two significant health issues can't be ignored.

448, My bad on the fumbles. Looking at the stat lines I didn’t take into account the fumbles loss category.

Listen, I know Ben wasn’t 100% the whole year. No player is. There are always guys playing with pain. It’s part of the game. Ben was cleared, and probably he pushed it to be cleared because he’s so competitive. He also tends to dramatize his injuries more than they really are. But in this case, there was some ignorance on his part, choosing not to realize he wasn’t going to be 100% to start the year.

Personally, I didn’t want Ben active. After reading about what he went through with the accident, he should have been kept on the PUP list through the first 4 games. He definitely had head trauma and in all likelihood had a severe concussion with limited PTSD from the injuries. So I thought it was a poor decision for Dr. Maroon to clear him. Ben was young, had many more years left to play. They shouldn’t have jeopardized his chances of suffering another injury or exacerbated his previous one. Batch was a competent back up. They could have easily given Ben another month to ease in. It would have allowed the appendix issue to have more recovery too.

But with him actually playing and still getting sacked so much, well that wasn’t his best year obviously.


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[Stryker]

And that's the rub between Cowher and Tomlin.

Cowher: Had a great D and OL, because it was a run first league that won with defense. QBs weren't the focus on that team, which is why he had never rans playing QB all the time.

Tomlin: Had a great O, the best the Steelers have ever had. D is secondary now across the league when 2 of the lowest rated defenses make the conference championships.

People make excuses for Cowher not having a QB, because he never needed one

People rip Tomlin for having a bad D when NO and KC make the CCs and NE played in a couple SBs with a terrible D.

D is no longer the focus. Turnovers are. Get them and you win. Don't get them and you lose. Case in point: the 2018 season.

 

[Coryea]

And that's the rub between Cowher and Tomlin.

Cowher: Had a great D and OL, because it was a run first league that won with defense. QBs weren't the focus on that team, which is why he had never rans playing QB all the time.

Tomlin: Had a great O, the best the Steelers have ever had. D is secondary now across the league when 2 of the lowest rated defenses make the conference championships.

People make excuses for Cowher not having a QB, because he never needed one

People rip Tomlin for having a bad D when NO and KC make the CCs and NE played in a couple SBs with a terrible D.

D is no longer the focus. Turnovers are. Get them and you win. Don't get them and you lose. Case in point: the 2018 season.

Aikmanx3, Young, Elwayx2, Favre, Bradyx3, Warner QBs that won while Cowher was coach, you still needed a QB to win, hell you could say QB might have been more important then because the rules weren't skewed and the passes were harder to complete and with less # of passes, each pass was that much more important.

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[CharlesDavenport]

And that's the rub between Cowher and Tomlin.

Cowher: Had a great D and OL, because it was a run first league that won with defense. QBs weren't the focus on that team, which is why he had never rans playing QB all the time.

Aikman, Elway, Farve, Warner, and Montana were winning SBs during Cowher's tenure. There were a couple of flukes in Balt and Wash, but we weren't winning a SB with the likes of O'Dummy and Cornhole.

 

[CharlesDavenport]

Aikmanx3, Young, Elwayx2, Favre, Bradyx3, Warner QBs that won while Cowher was coach, you still needed a QB to win, hell you could say QB might have been more important then because the rules weren't skewed and the passes were harder to complete and with less # of passes, each pass was that much more important.

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I basically duplicated your post as you were posting it..