it takes a willfully closed-minded person to not see what Tomlin has done this season.
As stated before, we have played the vast majority of the season without Ben. We've also been without our top RB for a few games. Our #1 WR has struggled in his new role and also been injured. We've had to rely at times on Johnny ******* Holton to make catches...the Ike Taylor of the WR corps. Our rookie WR is essentially our #1 WR when Juju is out. Our 3rd WR has finally started playing to his potential. We had a WR with dislocated fingers and likely missing thumbs and/or palms.
We've also been without Tuitt for a large portion of the season.
It cannot be said enough, though, that without injuries to either Ben or Tuitt, we'd likely not have made that trade for Minkah. So there is a silver lining in that.
It's being said we lost to the good teams and beat the bad teams. That's true, but at the time we lost to the "good" teams, at that point in the season we didnt know what we know now. When we lost to the ***s on their home field to open the season, it was understood no team was going to win that game other than the ***s. So we were behing the eight ball to start.
Seattle was 2-0 after they beat us in week 2. We then made the trade for Minkah and faced the 49ers in San Francisco. Remember, Tomlin has a **** record on the West Coast. 49ers were 3-0 after that game.
So we lost our first three games to 3 of the top teams in the league. We'd also lost Ben, Tuitt and were struggling offensively to find an identity. One of those games was a non-win anyway. Two of those were away. We lost to Seattle by 2 points and the Seahawks worked our defense for the final 5:34 of the game, nullifying any chance we had to win.
we beat the Bengals at home. yawn. 1-3 on the season at this point. yawn. Offense still struggling, but defense is changed.
We lose to the Ravens, in Overtime. This is the game where Mason was KO'd by Earl Thomas. Also marks where Mason started regressing in play if we want to look back and give an honest assessment of his play going forward after this game. Ravens were 2-2 coming into this game and now look to be one of the top teams in the AFC and league as a whole. **** Justin Tucker.
so at this point, we're now 1-4, and since we're looking back but also looking at current standings, we've lost to the top 4 teams in the league. But, change is coming.
Over our next 7 games, we've gone 6-1. Those wins include a win AT the Chargers (going against Tomlin's ineptitude on the West Coast), beating the Colts, to give them their 3rd loss of the season (and raise our record to .500), beating the Rams to continue our defensive rise and push the Rams season towards an also-ran. We did lose to the Browns in Cleveland, but that was also when the Browns were starting to gel after beating the Bills. Say what you will, but those turds have a stacked offense with LBJ, Landry, Chubb and Hunt.
and if Cleveland is a bad team and we lost to them, then they're still a bad team when we beat them when starting street free agents.
I've also wanted Tomlin gone, but do not really trust in the hiring process to put a coach in who could be the next great coach. Tomlin's outlasted both of the other candidates the Rooneys were choosing from when Cowher retired.
