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I am now calling the Plays....


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2 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Jesus H Christ. That first part should 100% tell you this is on Haley.

When you're facing the 32nd ranked run defense and the 1st ranked pass defense and we throw 55 times and run less than 20? That's entirely on the guy calling the plays. This is also not the first time this exact thing as happened with Haley. He hasn't progressed and actually seems to be regressing. We need to be in the no huddle/muddle huddle about 95% of the time from now on. Ben needs to be the offensive coordinator.

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We can still bounce back but it's gonna take everybody being on the same page. Ben's gonna have to be carried a little which means that the oline and running game is going to have to work. The short passing, wco, timing, quick read, precision stuff was never ben's forte. But when the running game is not reliable...

just a turd offense right now. 

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I will disagree with some of the above.  Ben can't move well to do a decent PA.  It is on Ben to do his pump fake.  Ben's skills have eroded and teams know to take away the deep ball and it kills this team.

Peyton after multiple neck surgeries could still run play action. They still ask him to run to hand the ball off to Bell. They have moved the pocket a few times this year. I'm not buying this. When Haley took over, from day 1, the play action vanished. So did intermediary routes. So did most down field passing outside go routes. We get a few post patterns a year, and the opposing DB's always look stunned. QB sneaks also vanished with Todd Haley. What do these things all have in common? Hint - they put your QB at an increased chance of being hit. They are longer developing plays. It should also be noted that they aren't very good even when they do run play-action under Haley despite a much more effective ground attack. Teams should be scared, but they aren't.

Roethlisberger was one of the best in the league statistically for much of the time early in his career. He was very effective at it through 2010. Especially when it came to hitting the deep and intermediate passes off it. Roethlisberger was one of the best intermediate throwers the game has ever seen. And he now runs an offense that de-emphasizes that entirely.

Maybe he got lazy running it. Maybe. But that laziness coincided with a coordinator change (the Steelers talked about improving in play action after Haley's first year on - it never happened). The lack of play-action, and it's lack of effectiveness, does not correspond to his health in the least. And I still don't see a guy who has physically declined. But the results are obviously poor. The only thing different about his game that I've noticed this year is what I would call an active desire to avoid being hit. He's releasing some passes a second or so early to avoid that. I'm curious if he isn't releasing the ball earlier in general.

I do know I'm tired of this offensive scheme. I like almost nothing about it.

 

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The Steelers still run PA passes but Ben does not sell them.  He kind of waves the ball at Bell which is not fooling any defenses.  Ever watch Ben the past year struggle to reach the point to hand the ball off to Bell? I have been amazed that we have not had more bobbles in the exchange, in just handing the ball off. I also think this is a reason why the play action passing had disappeared so much. You need to have a QB who has the legs to do that, I think it places too much of a strain on Ben and so that is why Haley has deemphasized it in the playbook.

Also, that inner core strength that Ben used to have with his legs, those magnificent tree trunks he had for legs, they allowed him to shrug off would be sackers and they allowed him to move in the pocket, to scramble and throw with great accuracy on the move. These past few years that has been diminishing and has been very apparent to me this past year, he is more of an immobile pocket QB. Yeah, Ben's arm may have lost no strength but the lower half of your body is the key to everything, and was the key to his Hall of Fame career.

 The play calling, the design of the routes, they do no favors to Ben or the receivers. Most OC's would love to have a #2 and #3 WR like Bryant and JuJu, to have a TE like Vance McDonald. McDonald had 54 catches and 7 TDs his last two seasons with the 49ers, he had 11 pass plays over 20+ yards, had two plays over 40+ yards, one being a 75 yard TD. He did that with the 49ers and their substandard QBs.

If Haley can't design an offense to make use of all of this talent then when will he ever be able to do so? They need to make a change. I am thinking a 4 game skid, where we lose to KC, to Cincy and to Detroit, where we sit 3-5 during the bye week should be enough to get Haley fired.

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35 minutes ago, jebrick said:

It is more annoying that there were no adjustments.

 

Just now, warfelg said:

I'm more annoyed that we've used the same gameplan 5 straight weeks.

You two have hit the nail on the head. Same type of game plans with no changes according to our opponents strengths and weaknesses or exploiting our strengths to our opponents weaknesses. The inability of the offense to make in game adjustments year in and year out baffles me. The red zone production or lack thereof comes strongly from play calling. You get the ball first and goal at the 5 yard line against the #29 run defense or whatever they are ranked and we come out throwing. We did this against KC in the play-off game last year after racking up well over 100 yards of rushing offense.  Don't we learn from our mistakes?  You get to a point where you want to send a message and heck you have four downs to get five yards. If they stop us, great job on defense.  With our OL and arguably the top back in the league, run the dang ball there.

There are too many instances where we beat ourselves more than our opponents do (whether it is from undisciplined plays, predictability, or a lack of preparation).  We have to do better here.

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2 minutes ago, Steeler Hitman said:

 

You two have hit the nail on the head. Same type of game plans with no changes according to our opponents strengths and weaknesses or exploiting our strengths to our opponents weaknesses. The inability of the offense to make in game adjustments year in and year out baffles me. The red zone production or lack thereof comes strongly from play calling. You get the ball first and goal at the 5 yard line against the #29 run defense or whatever they are ranked and we come out throwing. We did this against KC in the play-off game last year after racking up well over 100 yards of rushing offense.  Don't we learn from our mistakes?  You get to a point where you want to send a message and heck you have four downs to get five yards. If they stop us, great job on defense.  With our OL and arguably the top back in the league, run the dang ball there.

There are too many instances where we beat ourselves more than our opponents do (whether it is from undisciplined plays, predictability, or a lack of preparation).  We have to do better here.

It's like I said in the actual GDT:

Line up in the I with an extra lineman, put in Connor, and say "we dare you to stop us".  Even if you want to go with a single WR and PA a slant fin.  But those plays had none of that.  And James said it perfect.  Defenses aren't looking for the random turn up fields, the sluggos, the hard cuts.  They are sitting on the crossings and making Ben throw through a picket fence.  That's why Ben looks off.  That's why we're struggling to move the ball.  That's why the run game can't get going.

When they can sit like that Ben has smaller windows to throw through.  Right now they know they only have to cover the width of the field about 8 yards deep.  That means you don't have to keep anyone deep.  That's why Ben's looking off.  He's not getting looks he like and he's forcing it because he has no other option.  And it hurts the run game because they aren't covering with much depth so that allows more guys to be near the LOS and the reaction time from start to the ball carrier isn't quite as far when you start closer so Bell is getting met in the hole by defenders that weren't there.

I bet Haley is a guy that puts a tow hitch on a Porsche to get mulch home from Home Depot.

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2 minutes ago, warfelg said:

It's like I said in the actual GDT:

Line up in the I with an extra lineman, put in Connor, and say "we dare you to stop us".  Even if you want to go with a single WR and PA a slant fin.  But those plays had none of that.  And James said it perfect.  Defenses aren't looking for the random turn up fields, the sluggos, the hard cuts.  They are sitting on the crossings and making Ben throw through a picket fence.  That's why Ben looks off.  That's why we're struggling to move the ball.  That's why the run game can't get going.

When they can sit like that Ben has smaller windows to throw through.  Right now they know they only have to cover the width of the field about 8 yards deep.  That means you don't have to keep anyone deep.  That's why Ben's looking off.  He's not getting looks he like and he's forcing it because he has no other option.  And it hurts the run game because they aren't covering with much depth so that allows more guys to be near the LOS and the reaction time from start to the ball carrier isn't quite as far when you start closer so Bell is getting met in the hole by defenders that weren't there.

I bet Haley is a guy that puts a tow hitch on a Porsche to get mulch home from Home Depot.

Why do so many of us arm chair coaches see this, but the real coaches don't or are not adjusting to it?  That is the billion dollar question.

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1 minute ago, Steeler Hitman said:

Why do so many of us arm chair coaches see this, but the real coaches don't or are not adjusting to it?  That is the billion dollar question.

Because I'll be honest here, even though I coached a different sport, as a coach there is a certain element of "I'm going to make this work".  What's stupid is I usually changed after 1 quarter of it not working.

 

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2 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Because I'll be honest here, even though I coached a different sport, as a coach there is a certain element of "I'm going to make this work".  What's stupid is I usually changed after 1 quarter of it not working.

 

Many of us have played this game or others on various levels and have also coached this sport and or others.  Yet there is point that you have to say, "This isn't working."  There is too much talent on this team and too many intelligent football coaches, to simply not get it. If you are "going to make it work,"  You would think after five games, that you realize, "It isn't working!" We do not seem to learn from our mistakes! That is what drives me crazy.  There are weeks that a team comes out and just beats you. hey prepare better, execute better, and assert themselves better. I can understand that will happen and despite never liking to lose, I can understand that.  The Steelers usually beat themselves.  You can't let a team that passes for less than 110 yards in four quarters of football beat you nowadays. It is not like they just came out and consistently rammed the ball down our throats. Turnovers and poor offensive execution led to this. The same formula that lost the Bears game.  We know the jags are strong in the secondary and weak in the run defense yet our game plan is to play to their strength.  Didn't we do that in the AFC Championship Game against New England? Hey Tom Brady is one of the most accurate QB's to ever play the game, yet our defensive plan is to play a soft zone. Hats off to the Bears and Jags for executing and winning, but they should never beat our team with the level of talent, front office and coaches that we have. PERIOD!  They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. This applies to football as well. Time to change things up team!!!

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