Mike Tomlin and the rest of the coaching staff

[VigilantZombie]

So listen first of all I know that there's going to be some really boneheaded stuff discussed in this thread but I decided after all the talk over the last few weeks especially with two straight losses that quite frankly are games we should not have lost for many reasons Beyond poor officiating that I would start a thread where at least some of us to candy level headed can discuss what we feel the current issues is any are with the coaching staff.

[VigilantZombie]

So now I'm going to tell you my thoughts I made that first post to start the topic to describe my intent here so now I'm going to try to give you my honest level-headed thoughts on the coaching staff.

First and foremost I'm going to start with Mike, I said this many times before and I'm going to say it again here the biggest area I filled it he struggles is proper clock management. This can range from for challenges that are pretty much pointless to not using time out when he should or using timeouts when he shouldn't. I think that most of us can agree that there is at least more than a handful of scenarios that's it this criticism and I don't think it's in unfair criticism but let's not pretend like he is the only coach that has these issues. The other area actually two areas that I feel he struggles is first of all having his team mentally prepared to execute properly on the field in games that we should win but seems to almost always be plugged with mental mistakes. I also feel that he struggles to hold people accountable I'm sure many of us have listened to his postgame press conference is into no not too many head coaches come out and criticize their coaches other players in the situation but not only does Mike Tomlin not do that as well we do not see even the slightest bit of James someone game to the neck when things go terribly terribly wrong. I'm kind of using this is a blanket statement to describe both player personnel and coaching staff issues. We can talk all day about how he seems to have his team play down to interior opponent but the fact is going to average overall the success rate of this team has been more than sufficient that I'm not going to send time arguing about that.

Now moving on to a coach that I believe needs to be fired at the end of the season regardless of the outcome of this season. That coach is Keith Butler. One of the primary goes and rules in a manner of speaking of coaching is to put your best personnel in the best position to win. So why is the hell is John Bostic being put on the field to replace LJ Fort who has played the majority and the snap in the game and has done so very well again supposed to to run in past in a clear passing situation on 3rd down and 7? Furthermore why is the hell is Marcus Allen playing on the field at all at any point in the game? Marcus Allen sucks and that is being complimentary. please got guys running around the field. Paying attention to their surroundings hitting there own guys. The defense for 2 often looks absolutely lost. In the post game press conference this week he is excuse was it he guess strong more than once. Well he is been doing that for more than a season and he has been putting the wrong guys in the wrong decision and quite frankly I think that he is a mediocre defensive coordinator at best. Play opinion of him needing to be fired is not based on the last two games where even a combination of this singular season but more a combination of his time as our defense time as our defensive coordinator all together.

I also didn't feel with Randy Fichtner that he isn't any better than Todd Haley and that we need to go out and get an offensive coordinator who can put a for quarter offensive game plan together.

The last two guys I'm going to criticize and I don't recall the second one name if I'm being quite honest but RV assistant linebacker coaches. Joey Porter absolutely needs to be fired his existence on this coaching staff is pointless I have seen no impact from him at all whatsoever.

[MOSteelers56]

I'm ok with giving Fitchner another shot. He's made some bad calls, but he's also made some calls that were very good and helped win some games. I also think Tomlin is the right man for the job. I'm ok with letting him coach for a long time, unless he really starts regressing. I agree about the challenges and time management, moreso the challenges. It's like every time he throws the flag it's an immediate wasted challenge. 

I agree with you strongly about the defense. Butler seems like he doesn't know what he's doing. I understand that his secondaries have been lacking, but the lack of turnovers is problematic. I've liked Tom Bradley, which sounds strange because the secondary is garbage. Dunbar seems fine too. Butler, Porter, and the ILB coach(name is slipping my mind) need to be out of here yesterday. Danny Smith needs to go as well. He's been nothing but bad, except for his punt pressures. 

[MOSteelers56]

I wanted to add something. One great example of Butler's deficiency is our D-line and linebackers. WHY WHY WHY aren't we running a nickel defense with 3 linemen? Our best passrushers are Heyward, Tuitt, and Hargrave. Our linebackers are shaky, so why must we always have 4 of them out there. Let our d-linemen rush the QB. Take Dupree or Williams out and leave Hargrave in. Maybe next draft try and get some guys who can play in a 4-3 or a 3-3-5, because our strength is definitely not at ILB anymore. I feel like hitting on 1 draft pick could change our defense and make the 4-3 possible. 

Our nickel should be:

Tuitt - Hargrave - Heyward

Watt - Fort - Dupree, Ola, Williams, Bostic(whomever can get to the QB that day and preferably not trip over themselves covering a RB or TE). 

Whatever garbage they throw out there - Joe Haden

Also, if we could stop putting Williams, Bostic, Dupree, and Watt on WR's that'd be great.

[VigilantZombie]

I don't love him trying to do it but I think TJ watt is the only linebacker we have they can even remotely run with a wide receiver and he's not great at it but he's also not a defensive back so he's not really expected to be OJ for might be the next one because he's got the speed. If I'm being completely honest and I kind of said this even though I'm not stupid enough to think it would happen or it will happen but I'm in favor of cutting Boston Anthony chickillo and Vince Williams and keeping fort and ola I also cut Tyler matakevich. We already need linebackers and if the guys I suggested cutting even though Bostick is good against the run I feel essentially deadweight but Vince Williams isn't going to get cut since he was just signed to another contract. Also I don't know why I didn't think about Danny Smith but I agree with everything that you said about him he absolutely needs to be fired at the end of the season. I feel like Tom Bradley has had a positive impact on our secondary and the reason I feel this way it's because of the flashes of goodness from Sean Davis from Terrell admin and even at times from Cameron Sutton and Coty Sensabaugh and we all know very well that I cannot stand Coty Sensabaugh despite the fact he has had periods of time where he has played better this year than he did last year. I also posed the question of whether or not Tom Bradley would make a good quality defensive coordinator in replacement of Keith Butler considering he did it at penn state who runs a pretty versatile defense. Part of me actually wonders and I post this question before the season begin if the Pittsburgh Steelers hired Tom Bradley has a possible promotion candidate to the defensive coordinator position in the event that he's Butler's defense did not improve

[AFF]

Agreed on Tomlin for the most part

Butler had to have a part in defense not giving up more than 21 pts for almost 2 months til recently but the LB on Allen bit boggles my mind.

Fitchner at least has improved the red zone offense a ton IIRC...needs another year.

[VigilantZombie]

 so far I'm liking the sensible responses. Honestly I may have been a little critical of Randy I do agree that maybe he deserves another year I mean it is just his first year as the offensive coordinator & it can definitely be argued that he has improved the offense.

I can definitely agree as well that Butler has shown some positive signs because as you stated the defense was holding people to a low amount of points for a while early in the season despite not having a strong start overall. That also had a lot more to do I think with the offense then it did the defense early on and as 43 pointed out in some ways it's still does. Regardless as my criticisms on Butler if the offense is not scoring points it's going to make it more difficult for the defense. That in itself is not Keith Butler's fault however I think that coupled with the fact that I personally don't believe the Keith Butler he's a very good defensive coordinator overall create the majority of the problems we have defensively. It's not even debatable that we have player quality issues and I don't think anybody's going to disagree there but you have to work with what you have that's just the way it goes. Having said that as I alluded to above and others have it as well what you guys mentioned above how he is using the Personnel that we have in some cases I think he's a large part of the problem. I think the Personnel groupings he chooses to use put us in some seriously bad situations and I agree that at times it looks like he has no idea what he is doing. Which is also why I brought up the press conferences although I did mention Mike Tomlin specifically but when Keith Butler talks about the defense in post-game press conferences he furthers the idea that he doesn't know what he's doing because he sounds Clueless.

[3rivers]

and all this won't happen if the offence wakes up and we make the playoffs. We might not  win in the playoffs, but maybe making the playoffs is enough  for this group. Butler needs to go as does porter, but will it happen?

Tomlin can stay because I am not sure if this team will adjust well to a new regime.  Maybe it would be the best thing to happen, but wait and see. I am blaming him a bit because he has let Butler fail too often . Colbert gets some blame, but he won't be going anywhere and maybe this draft will be good eventually.

The Bell saga is on colbert, and we could have spent that on some secondary help and left the drama somewhere else.  

Unless Connor gets healthy and we run him as we did earlier in the season, I can't see this team going far . Only way is if the offence outscores , but when have they done that against a playoff calibre team?

One more year of stephen a smith telling tomlin to fix the secondary.  How many years will it take? What if we never got the gift from the browns, just what if?

[43M]

11 hours ago, wwhickok said:

First and foremost I'm going to start with Mike, I said this many times before and I'm going to say it again here the biggest area I filled it he struggles is proper clock management. This can range from for challenges that are pretty much pointless to not using time out when he should or using timeouts when he shouldn't. I think that most of us can agree that there is at least more than a handful of scenarios that's it this criticism and I don't think it's in unfair criticism but let's not pretend like he is the only coach that has these issues.

I dont feel this is his biggest struggle.....but he isnt great with clock management, but here is a dirty little secret....most coaches arent.   

My issue with Tomlin's lock management stems from what I feel IS his biggest struggle.....not learning from past mistakes.

11 hours ago, wwhickok said:

The other area actually two areas that I feel he struggles is first of all having his team mentally prepared to execute properly on the field in games that we should win but seems to almost always be plugged with mental mistakes.

While I wont give him a pass for this, people need to hold the players accountable for mental mistakes as well.    Tomlin doesnt play the game, the players do.     I know its his job to have them prepared, and I do feel he deserves blame for that, too often fans blame Tomlin for mistakes that players, especially veteran players, shouldnt make at the pro level...at least not as much as they happen..  

11 hours ago, wwhickok said:

I also feel that he struggles to hold people accountable

He does, but it often happens later than it should (for instance, a few years ago when Antwon Blake was getting slaughtered, it took him forever to make a change).

And at times, I dont think he has many other better options.

 

11 hours ago, wwhickok said:

I'm sure many of us have listened to his postgame press conference is into no not too many head coaches come out and criticize their coaches other players in the situation but not only does Mike Tomlin not do that as well we do not see even the slightest bit of James someone game to the neck when things go terribly terribly wrong. I'm kind of using this is a blanket statement to describe both player personnel and coaching staff issues. We can talk all day about how he seems to have his team play down to interior opponent but the fact is going to average overall the success rate of this team has been more than sufficient that I'm not going to send time arguing about that.

This was somewhat confusing, but I get annoyed with fans critiquing media press conferences like the mean anything.   Its mostly prepared canned responses and just giving the media soundbytes.

11 hours ago, wwhickok said:

Now moving on to a coach that I believe needs to be fired at the end of the season regardless of the outcome of this season. That coach is Keith Butler. One of the primary goes and rules in a manner of speaking of coaching is to put your best personnel in the best position to win. So why is the hell is John Bostic being put on the field to replace LJ Fort who has played the majority and the snap in the game and has done so very well again supposed to to run in past in a clear passing situation on 3rd down and 7? Furthermore why is the hell is Marcus Allen playing on the field at all at any point in the game? Marcus Allen sucks and that is being complimentary. please got guys running around the field. Paying attention to their surroundings hitting there own guys. The defense for 2 often looks absolutely lost. In the post game press conference this week he is excuse was it he guess strong more than once. Well he is been doing that for more than a season and he has been putting the wrong guys in the wrong decision and quite frankly I think that he is a mediocre defensive coordinator at best. Play opinion of him needing to be fired is not based on the last two games where even a combination of this singular season but more a combination of his time as our defense time as our defensive coordinator all together.

Butler needs to go IMO....but I will say this...

I dont believe he is as terrible as some Steeler fans do given what he has had to work with.    And lets remember that this year has been terrible for most defenses.   Our defense has actually performed well at times, despite the offense putting them in bad situations.   

The reason I want to move on from ButlerI feel like he may have hit his ceiling.   I feel like we are kind of spinning tires with him.    You could say the same thing about Tomlin to a point, but I would replace Butler and Porter this offseason, and if the same issues continue, then it may be time to flush the entire front office and start from scratch....but I doubt that happens because thats not really the way the Rooney's do things.

11 hours ago, wwhickok said:

I also didn't feel with Randy Fichtner that he isn't any better than Todd Haley and that we need to go out and get an offensive coordinator who can put a for quarter offensive game plan together.

Its FIchtners first year.    He definitely has flaws, but some of the problems have been lack of execution.

Definitely wouldnt move on from him this offseason.   Id give him at least another year.

11 hours ago, wwhickok said:

The last two guys I'm going to criticize and I don't recall the second one name if I'm being quite honest but RV assistant linebacker coaches. Joey Porter absolutely needs to be fired his existence on this coaching staff is pointless I have seen no impact from him at all whatsoever.

Ive been calling for Porter to be fired for 2 years now.    I see very limited progression from our LBs.     Shazier is the only LB that showed notable development under him, and even he had his own flaws and thrived mostly off of his own athleticism

[warfelg]

I’ve seen it’s popped up again but Tomlin has a top-3 success rate in challenges since he’s become the Steelers Coach. He’s also near the top in 2-point conversions, 4th down conversions too. These are three things that when it’s not successful he gets piled on, but when it works no one says anything. 

[VigilantZombie]

9 minutes ago, warfelg said:

I’ve seen it’s popped up again but Tomlin has a top-3 success rate in challenges since he’s become the Steelers Coach. He’s also near the top in 2-point conversions, 4th down conversions too. These are three things that when it’s not successful he gets piled on, but when it works no one says anything. 

I agree. The reason i made the thread to discuss the issues that really do exist with the coaching staff.

I think so far we have accomplished that respectably 

[warfelg]

26 minutes ago, wwhickok said:

I agree. The reason i made the thread to discuss the issues that really do exist with the coaching staff.

I think so far we have accomplished that respectably 

Here’s my thing on Tomlin:

I think most know my stance of don’t replace unless you know it’s an improvement. 

Diving deeper: he doesn’t have issues that are uniquely his.

Clock management: Andy Reid is considered a great coach and has huge clock management issues. So do other good/great coaches. 

Tomlin only trails Belichick in winning percent since becoming the head coach, and I think still has the only distinction of never having a losing season as a head coach. 

 

I think as as time goes on coaches in the style of Tomlin are becoming more and more rare. The guys that don’t call one side of the ball and just manage the team. They are just a dying breed. I have theories as to why, but the issue in Coach T’s case is it makes it look like any issue is on him as opposed to other coaches. 

Look at it this way:

Sean McVay is a great coach, but strictly focuses on the offense. When there are defensive issues he gets 0 blame. Even when there are offensive issues he gets reduced blame. But he doesn’t have to shoulder all the blame because he has little to do with one side of the ball. 

 

I wonder what things would look like if we made a similar shift. Bring in an “head of offensive football” coach to basically run everything on that side except going for it and challenges. Then Tomlin becomes the HC/DC, runs the defense, and the staff gets filled out with “his guys”. I think that things would really look different with this team, Tomlin might have more success, and the defense would be better. I do think there was too much “respect LeBeau” when Tomlin came on as HC, and Tomlin wasn’t really able to get his touch on the defense until it was too late. He never got the scouts on his side of looking for what he wanted. 

I think many of Tomlins issues came when he was first hired. The team didn’t seem to want him to do the things he impressed them with when he was hired. It was very much an “everything is set, just don’t hit the iceberg” attitude. I wish they just let him shake up things from the start and do what he wanted with staffing and personnel. 

[3rivers]

51 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Sean McVay is a great coach, but strictly focuses on the offense. When there are defensive issues he gets 0 blame. Even when there are offensive issues he gets reduced blame. But he doesn’t have to shoulder all the blame because he has little to do with one side of the ball. 

I don't think mcVay is a great coach. He abandoned the rushing attack last payoff and ti cost him the game.  Thats a basic rule in playoff football when you have possibly the best RB in the game, be patient and eventually own the TOP and LOS. He does great passing play calling but he hasn't proved to be a great coach yet anyways.  As a HC he should consider having more to do with the D if they are failing, but he has a vet DC so it's respect to let the DC have the reign, much like tomlin did with lebeau.

 

55 minutes ago, warfelg said:

I wonder what things would look like if we made a similar shift. Bring in an “head of offensive football” coach to basically run everything on that side except going for it and challenges. Then Tomlin becomes the HC/DC, runs the defense, and the staff gets filled out with “his guys”. I think that things would really look different with this team, Tomlin might have more success, and the defense would be better. I do think there was too much “respect LeBeau” when Tomlin came on as HC, and Tomlin wasn’t really able to get his touch on the defense until it was too late. He never got the scouts on his side of looking for what he wanted. 

Our OC had it right for a while running Connor especially in the RZ, we were the best possibly ever for a while near 80%. Then he must have opened haleys playbook and decided to get cute in the RZ and it was back to FG's and FG attempts.  Ben might have too much say here, nobody will know. It would be interesting to watch tomlin have a team the way he wants with proper players, but what that would be is anyones guess.  Agree that lebeau was given too much respect and left unchallenged. Result : Insanity tyring the same D vs these QB's that easily picked his D apart.

What kind of D would tomlin run? 4-3 with NT, press man, zone, tampa 2  or a hybrid that vaires according to opponent? This team right now has many players that aren't in their ideal scheme and of course the secondary needs major help. 

[43M]

2 hours ago, warfelg said:

I’ve seen it’s popped up again but Tomlin has a top-3 success rate in challenges since he’s become the Steelers Coach. He’s also near the top in 2-point conversions, 4th down conversions too. These are three things that when it’s not successful he gets piled on, but when it works no one says anything. 

That's how its always been with Tomlin and his haters.    Blame him for every little thing when things aren't going well,  but remain mum or give everyone else the credit when we are doing good. 

My support of Tomlin has dwindled over the last couple years, but not because I think he's a bad coach overall... I'm just becoming skeptical he can get us back to being a Super Bowl winning team.

[VigilantZombie]

3 minutes ago, FourThreeMafia said:

That's how its always been with Tomlin and his haters.    Blame him for every little thing when things aren't going well,  but remain mum or give everyone else the credit when we are doing good. 

My support of Tomlin has dwindled over the last couple years, but not because I think he's a bad coach overall... I'm just becoming skeptical he can get us back to being a Super Bowl winning team.

I agree with this. The issues with our team right now dont fall solely on the shoulders of Tomlin