Jump to content

5 ups/downs on the 2019 steelers season


August4th

Recommended Posts

Up:

1. Minkah trade

2. TJ Watt/Bush/Minkah look to be the cornerstones of our defense the next 7-8 plus seasons. You can throw Dupree in there too. What a season from him, I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

3. Diontae Johnson should be a beast next year with Ben at QB and a healthy JuJu across from him. James Washington deserves some credit too. 

4. Steven Nelson, one of the best FA signings we’ve had in a long time

5. Tomlin - say what you want about him but this season was one of his best performances and in my opinion he cemented himself as a top 5 NFL head coach

bonus: Boz bounce back season

Down:

1. O-Line took a step back. Partially Pouncey/Foster getting older and partially Munchak not being here.

2. James Conner/JuJu - We needed both of these guys to step up this year especially losing Bell AB and Ben. Neither one of them were reliable this year.

3. Fichtner - Revolving door at QB all season doesn’t help but man he was awful this year. I like the idea of demoting him back down to QB coach to keep Ben happy but we need a new OC.

4. Mason Rudolph - Hindsight is 20/20 but sure would love to have Kittle on this team instead of Mason. The Browns/helmet saga was just embarrassing. Hard to see him bouncing back from this season but we’ll see.

5. Mark Barron/Edmunds - still don’t understand how Barron was still seeing so much time over VW towards the end of the season. Edmunds seemed to regress as the season went on after a decent start to the season.

bonus: Jordan Berry

 

 

Edited by bigben07MVP
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, bigben07MVP said:

Up:

1. Minkah trade

2. TJ Watt/Bush/Minkah look to be the cornerstones of our defense the next 7-8 plus seasons. You can throw Dupree in there too. What a season from him, I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

3. Diontae Johnson should be a beast next year with Ben at QB and a healthy JuJu across from him. James Washington deserves some credit too. 

4. Steven Nelson, one of the best FA signings we’ve had in a long time

5. Tomlin - say what you want about him but this season was one of his best performances and in my opinion he cemented himself as a top 5 NFL head coach

bonus: Boz bounce back season

Down:

1. O-Line took a step back. Partially Pouncey/Foster getting older and partially Munchak not being here.

2. James Conner/JuJu - We needed both of these guys to step up this year especially losing Bell AB and Ben. Neither one of them were reliable this year.

3. Fichtner - Revolving door at QB all season doesn’t help but man he was awful this year. I like the idea of demoting him back down to QB coach to keep Ben happy but we need a new OC.

4. Mason Rudolph - Hindsight is 20/20 but sure would love to have Kittle on this team instead of Mason. The Browns/helmet saga was just embarrassing. Hard to see him bouncing back from this season but we’ll see.

5. Mark Barron/Edmunds - still don’t understand how Barron was still seeing so much time over VW towards the end of the season. Edmunds seemed to regress as the season went on after a decent start to the season.

bonus: Jordan Berry

 

 

Losing Ben didnt crack your top 5 downs?

Good list, otherwise.

Injuries in general derailed this season.

Edited by FourThreeMafia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, FourThreeMafia said:

Losing Ben didnt crack your top 5 downs?

Good list, otherwise.

Injuries in general derailed this season.

I guess that one was just too obvious. Clearly the #1 down on the year was losing Ben. Not only sabotaged this season but gave us all a ugly glimpse of what life could be like when he decides to retire.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, bigben07MVP said:

5. Tomlin - say what you want about him but this season was one of his best performances and in my opinion he cemented himself as a top 5 NFL head coach

Tomlin is who he's always been. He can keep his team together. All of his flaws were on display this season from dumb in-game moments (these usually cost the team a few games a year, though he got lucky this go around) to a we-do-what-we-do mentality. His big plan all year was hope the defense forced turnovers, and there was no plan B. Surprise surprise - that wasn't enough. His offensive gameplan was don't screw up too badly (which they failed at - this is a team that has now turned it over in 23 straight games). The coaching brain trust had no big ideas schematically outside of employing the wild cat. They didn't even need much. Just finish around 20th in the league on offense and you're in the playoffs.

Tomlin's warts were all there. And what they did defensively won't be easy to duplicate. Turnovers fluctuate quite a bit between seasons. High turnover numbers are usually a good indicator of a team that will regress back to the average. Offensively, it would be a mistake to put everything on QB play. The Ben injury revealed what was already kind of evident going back years now. This is  finesse offense too reliant on favorable match-ups and a veteran QB who can put them in the right positions. It's individual talent making plays at the  skill spots and putting the OL in favorable situations where their weaknesses are minimized. It doesn't use all of the field effectively, doesn't do anything creative schematically to put defenses off guard, and it no longer has the talent to just line up and beat you outside or up front.

The offensive design sucks. They need new ideas and they aren't going to get them. There wasn't even a plan A on offense this year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Ben, Conner, and JuJu are all healthy this year we are easily in the top half of the league in offense. Especially with all the turnovers and short fields the defense gifted us. I know there’s a lot of Tomlin haters on this board but let’s not criticize Tomlin for the shortcomings on offense. We were starting 2nd and 3rd stringers all season. Injuries and Fitchner were the reason we couldn’t do crap on offense all year.

Any other coach not named Belichick, Sean Payton etc we could have easily gone 3-13 and no one would be surprised. 

I agree we are definitely due for some turnover regression next year but it’s not like our defense was only good because we got lucky with turnovers all year. We have had a nasty pass rush the past two seasons and this year we finally had a secondary to pair with that pass rush and things should stay that way for a while. Getting Tuitt back healthy next year will be a big help as well. Don’t forget how dominant he was in the first 5 games. That was a huge loss.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Chieferific said:

The Jets debacle eliminated him from COTY imo.  Everything on the line and you crap the bed. Unacceptable. 

While Im not disagreeing, I think they went as far as they could with the QBs they had.      

We shouldve beaten the Jets, but once teams got more tape on Hodges, he hit a wall and couldnt get over it.     

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

out of everything, by far the most annoying DOWN was fichner. I still think our QB's could have had a few more wins with almost any other OC in the league but fichner is terrible with these QB's anyways. Worst OC I have seen here since I started watching about 40+ years ago

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, bigben07MVP said:

I know there’s a lot of Tomlin haters on this board but let’s not criticize Tomlin for the shortcomings on offense.

Let's not criticize the head coach for how half his team performs on a weekly basis...

10 hours ago, bigben07MVP said:

Any other coach not named Belichick, Sean Payton etc we could have easily gone 3-13 and no one would be surprised. 

And last year, they were all of 9-6-1 with a healthy compliment of guys on offense. Mainly because of Tomlin's stupidity.

 

10 hours ago, bigben07MVP said:

Getting Tuitt back healthy next year will be a big help as well.

Tuitt can't stay healthy, if people haven't noticed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

UP:

1) MINKAH!!!!  Dude is a stud, and what a trade by Colbert.

2) Rookie play:  Bush and Johnson are PLAYERS!!  Snell looks like a future player as well, and had a good end of the season.  Layne, Buggs, and even UG3 early made themselves players on this team in roles.  Gentry is too early, hopefully he grows into the role.  Gray as well.  I am not going to bring up Sutton Smith...

3) Tomlin... for all of the negatives, dude can keep a team together.  Consumate professional.

4) Haden/Nelson/Sutton/Hilton.  Can't tell you the last time that CB hasn't been a worry at the end of the season.  Dudes can ball, and are all retainable.

5) Boswell's return to glory--should be a study in sports phyc.  How did he manage to overcome his yips from last year??

HON Mention--Emergence of James Washington

 

DOWN:

1) Injuries are the obvious--Ben, Tuitt, Connor, Juju... all banged up and missed time.

2) Regression of the OL--All of the guys were not great.  In context, many teams would like our problems, but we went backwards.  IDK if its Munchack leaving, guys getting old, offensive change after Ben's injury, or what, but ALL of the OL went backwards.  DDC regressed the LEAST, and Feiler was exposed on the edge at times.  Lack of development of Chuks also goes here, as a 2nd round pick should not be inactive for most of the games.

3) JUJU as a #1 WR-- Missing AB was always gonna be an issue, but anyone that thought that Juju was a shoo-in #1 WR and Top 10 WR in the league has to reassess.  Even when healthy, he was missing most games.  I would argue that the last 1/3 of the season that he was 2nd or 3rd best in the WR room.  JW stepped up more, and DJ looks more dynamic and reliable.

4) Offensive player game management--This might go to the OC, but late in the season the offensive player management was suspect.  We have 4 active RBs, but don't put any of them in a position to succeed.  White gets two carries and plays on KR.  Samuels is the 3rd down back, but was not targeted late in the season as much as he should have been.  Snell should have been feed 15-20 times every game once he established himself after the first Connor injury.  TEs are afterthoughts, even though Vance SHOULD have been Duck and Mason's best weapon.  If you just want to block with McDonald/Vannett, bring up CSW and use him as the 3rd TE to block edges.  Yesterday, Duck looked lost and we had Lynch sitting on the bench and we could have at least seen what he could do.  Don;t get me started on Deon Cain.... dude made some clutch catches and broke his neck to learn the offense, but lost time yesterday to Holton??  Makes no sense.  Even OL play was strange as the Banner package that was working wasn't used late.

5) Future of OLB room--had to put something from the D on here.  Basically, we have painted ourselves into a corner with Bud.  SInce we have NO OLB in the room with play time other than Bud, Watt, and Chick, we HAVE to resign Bud at this point.  We made a big deal about Ola and Skipper, but neither emerged as a real threat to even take the backup spot from Chick.  This means that we essentially have to bring Bud back, and we might have to cut Chick to do it.  In the end, we have not addressed this spot, and it makes it even worse if something bad happens.

HON mention: Edmunds lack of progress, Special teams as whole

 

Optimistic:  Assuming we resign Bud, we will have almost all the defense back.  (RIP Hargrave).  This defense is excellent right now, and should be feared.  We can get Bud, resign Hilton as a RFA, and the rest should be good to roll into 2020.

Pessimistic: WR room.  Yes, I know that we have 3 young guys with JW, DJ and JJSS.  One thing that I notice though is that we are lacking a true #1.  We do not have a #1 pick, and we will not have money to address this issue.  Without fear of our WR, the run game is going to suffer.  I think the OL stuff can be fixed as we KNOW those guys can play at an All-Star level, but none of the WRs have been forced to play as a true #1 and that is an issue.  I hope they can prove me wrong, but that is my biggest worry, by far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, CKSteeler said:

Let's not criticize the head coach for how half his team performs on a weekly basis...

And last year, they were all of 9-6-1 with a healthy compliment of guys on offense. Mainly because of Tomlin's stupidity.

 

Tuitt can't stay healthy, if people haven't noticed.

I know it sounds like I’m making excuses for Tomlin but we got either completely screwed by the refs or were one unlucky play away from a handful of games last year. 9-6-1 could have EASILY have been 11-4-1.

Im saying don’t blame Tomlin for the offense because we were starting 3rd and 4th stringers all season. You would rather criticize Tomlin specifically for our offense sucking this year rather than appreciate that we have a head coach that motivated a team decimated (to put it lightly) by injuries to an 8-8 record and kept us in playoff contention until week 17.

I seriously don’t understand the Tomlin hate from yinzers like you. Seriously what coach on this planet would you rather have than Tomlin that would be even remotely available?

Edited by bigben07MVP
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, CKSteeler said:

Let's not criticize the head coach for how half his team performs on a weekly basis...

And last year, they were all of 9-6-1 with a healthy compliment of guys on offense. Mainly because of Tomlin's stupidity

Yeah...its much better to blindly bash him and blame him for absolutely everything, while giving anyone but him credit for anything good that happens.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wtf is Tomlin supposed to do about the fact his WRs started the season dropping every pass. His RB cant stay healthy, his C cant snap the ball properly, his QB blew out his elbow, the other two cant stop throwing picks, his players cant seem to stop fumbling? He can only bench so many guys. He can scream in their face til he passes out about taking care of the football and execution, he cant make them do those things.

We should have gone 2-14 at beat. We finished 8-8 with a #4 QB, a rookie RB, and a struggling OL. But a monstrous Defense.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...