2021 Week #16 GDT Steelers visit The Chiefs

[Dcash4]

2 hours ago, MOSteelers56 said:

We shouldn’t have drafted Washington to begin with.

I don't really doubt this, but since we already had drafted him we never needed Claypool. Even if Claypool is better (which is arguable at this point, but he does have higher upside), you spent pick 49 on a receiver that made pick 60 2 years ago irrelevant. 

Picks: 24, 49, 124, 66, 122, 60, 165, 62, 105, 87, 97, 118, 48, 79, 186 were spent on receivers and RB's in the last 9 years.....one has reached a second contract with the team -- and that's JuJu's one year deal. 

Eventually you cannot hoard that many picks over two positions, especially one like running back. Eventually, paying someone cash is better than continuing to use assets. I would far and away rather extend DJ and JuJu and skip drafting a receiver for 2 years than take another one. 

[warfelg]

14 minutes ago, Dcash4 said:

This is why I, personally, would focus some of my assistance (specifically QB coach) on up and comers who have aspirations to be more. I've said it before in some of my other coaching comments, but it always amazes me how many offensive minds these top end guys have. McVay and Reid have an OC (despite the fact they call plays), a QB coach, an assistant QB coach, and in many cases a plethora of other offensive assistants to the HC. They have a pipeline. 

It's also why if we had an opening at HC...my next hire would be an offensive head coach. I think we are seeing this more -- Reid, McVay, LaFluer, Reich, Shannahan, Stefanski, Gruden, Kingsbury, Zac Taylor, Siriani....can't have your playcaller promoted off staff if they are the HC. 

But it still goes back to your comments about hiring a former HC as a coordinator that I buy into completely. Have Tomlin hire the Haley type of OC and spend more of his own time on defense. 

And I don't necessarily disagree, with the having a pipeline thought process, but like I said, and I feel the same way about the BB coaching tree, how often are you getting the good and how often are you getting the playbook without the good.  Keep in mind for every one of those guys you do get the bad.  Kingsbury has failed late in 3 straight seasons, Siriani still has the jury out, Stefanski is looking overrated, Nagy is in over his head.  A few that have been fired recently in Gase, Lynn, Marrone, Pederson (to some degree), Kitchens.

I honestly think sometimes it's rather random as to these things sometimes, and no one way is right or wrong.

[MOSteelers56]

13 minutes ago, Dcash4 said:

I don't really doubt this, but since we already had drafted him we never needed Claypool. Even if Claypool is better (which is arguable at this point, but he does have higher upside), you spent pick 49 on a receiver that made pick 60 2 years ago irrelevant. 

Picks: 24, 49, 124, 66, 122, 60, 165, 62, 105, 87, 97, 118, 48, 79, 186 were spent on receivers and RB's in the last 9 years.....one has reached a second contract with the team -- and that's JuJu's one year deal. 

Eventually you cannot hoard that many picks over two positions, especially one like running back. Eventually, paying someone cash is better than continuing to use assets. I would far and away rather extend DJ and JuJu and skip drafting a receiver for 2 years than take another one. 

I pretty much agree. I don’t have a problem with JuJu but I think we don’t use him well enough. JuJu is good enough to play inside and outside. We use him as a safety net slot guy and that’s a waste of his talent. He should be doing back shoulder routes on the outside and intermediate stuff in the middle. That’s his skill set. He’s not Ryan Switzer or Ray-Ray. He’s more like Hines Ward.
I completely agree we don’t need to be drafting skill guys on the offensive side. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

If you guys had to guess, do you think Ahkello gets re-signed or hits the market and signs elsewhere? I mean he's still not starting despite putting together four or five consecutive strong performances and he didn't even play half the snaps yesterday. Heck, played four snaps in the first 10 or so games. I'm guessing the team just isn't high on him or possibly his attitude?

[Dcash4]

3 minutes ago, MOSteelers56 said:

JuJu is good enough to play inside and outside. We use him as a safety net slot guy and that’s a waste of his talent. He should be doing back shoulder routes on the outside and intermediate stuff in the middle. That’s his skill set. 

Totally agree, and this is the problem with over-drafting. JuJu should have been the Z who goes into the slot, but they drafted Washington who is Z only and then re-drafted another Z who they don't even consider using as a slot. But that also makes it tough to re-sign JuJu. Unless you are willing to move Claypool around (dear, god they should)...Chase is the Z, DJ is your only X....JuJu has to be your slot. 

18 minutes ago, warfelg said:

And I don't necessarily disagree, with the having a pipeline thought process, but like I said, and I feel the same way about the BB coaching tree, how often are you getting the good and how often are you getting the playbook without the good.  Keep in mind for every one of those guys you do get the bad.  Kingsbury has failed late in 3 straight seasons, Siriani still has the jury out, Stefanski is looking overrated, Nagy is in over his head.  A few that have been fired recently in Gase, Lynn, Marrone, Pederson (to some degree), Kitchens.

I honestly think sometimes it's rather random as to these things sometimes, and no one way is right or wrong.

I just want to create a pipeline. At this point I don't see one assistant that anyone would want from the Steelers outside of Dunbar. I would just start trying to create a culture guys would want to come here to advance their careers. If I was an intern coaching somewhere right now, I would be writing a letter a day to Reid and McVay because they are so sought after. I don't know why a young coach would want to come here...Tomlin's crew goes nowhere. 

And I dont disagree at all about their being poor playcalling HC's, but if we were to move on that's where I would personally go. Its an offensive league and if I could build around an offensive mind it creates more stability in the long run -- especially if you can pair them with a QB (which is like finding a unicorn). 

[warfelg]

So @Dcash4 I can see your point but I would also counter with this: 

Sometimes those pipelines dry up fast and there was all those young guys there in the first place because the job was seen as a developmental team, and these guys get patched because of quick success. I’d say maybe we haven’t gotten those young interns in a while because we have been an established team for a long time and they didn’t see a way to make their mark. Mind you this was the case under Cowher as well. Noll was really the last time we had a “pipeline” of coaches. 

[warfelg]

Also an interesting thing in this whole line of conversation: Ian Rapaport is reporting that there’s likely to be high interest in second time coaches this year due to the shaky nature of recent young hires. 

[43M]

17 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

If you guys had to guess, do you think Ahkello gets re-signed or hits the market and signs elsewhere? I mean he's still not starting despite putting together four or five consecutive strong performances and he didn't even play half the snaps yesterday. Heck, played four snaps in the first 10 or so games. I'm guessing the team just isn't high on him or possibly his attitude?

We have nothing at CB for 2022 outside of Sutton, so its possible.     

Our coaches are absolutely dreadful with secondary, and have been for years...which is surprising since our head coach was a former secondary coach, yet thats consistently his weakest area.

[J-ALL-DAY]

5 minutes ago, 43M said:

We have nothing at CB for 2022 outside of Sutton, so its possible.     

Our coaches are absolutely dreadful with secondary, and have been for years...which is surprising since our head coach was a former secondary coach, yet thats consistently his weakest area.

Yeah, but I read Coach Butler say they wanted more urgency from Ahkello earlier in the season. Not sure what he was referring to, but doesn't seem like he was ever truly able to get out of the doghouse until the team had no other option with the injuries and bad play from the young corners. Three seasons in a row that he has shown that his best>>any other corner on the team in terms of coverage. The problem is three seasons in a row he has not been able to do it for the entire season. So I can't suspect he will cost all that much if the Steelers did want to re-sign him. For the life of me I just don't get how he can't start over Sutton? I get why Haden is getting the start over him, but how many weeks in a row has Ahkello outplayed Sutton....Quite easily as well?

[warfelg]

1 hour ago, Dcash4 said:

I don't really doubt this, but since we already had drafted him we never needed Claypool. Even if Claypool is better (which is arguable at this point, but he does have higher upside), you spent pick 49 on a receiver that made pick 60 2 years ago irrelevant. 

Picks: 24, 49, 124, 66, 122, 60, 165, 62, 105, 87, 97, 118, 48, 79, 186 were spent on receivers and RB's in the last 9 years.....one has reached a second contract with the team -- and that's JuJu's one year deal. 

Eventually you cannot hoard that many picks over two positions, especially one like running back. Eventually, paying someone cash is better than continuing to use assets. I would far and away rather extend DJ and JuJu and skip drafting a receiver for 2 years than take another one. 

What burns me (and I know I know the what of game) is how many other quality players were picked in those areas that would really help right about now. 

[Dcash4]

16 minutes ago, warfelg said:

What burns me (and I know I know the what of game) is how many other quality players were picked in those areas that would really help right about now. 

Oh totally. You know I don't like the what if game, but just play a position what if with draft success percentages. 

Take Claypool (49), McFarland (124), and Snell (122). If those players are, say, DL, OL, and DB -- even if just one of them (which is 34% and close to "good" drafting success) we would be far, far better of at that positions right now. 

How much more useful would Jaylon Johnson, Trevon Diggs, Raekwon Davis, Ezra Clevelend, or Justin Madubuike be right now rather than Chase? Claypool needs to hit on his high side or that one is going to go down as one of the worst picks the Steelers have had in recent memory...just from what it cost in terms of assets and team build. 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Dcash4

[43M]

35 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

Yeah, but I read Coach Butler say they wanted more urgency from Ahkello earlier in the season. Not sure what he was referring to, but doesn't seem like he was ever truly able to get out of the doghouse until the team had no other option with the injuries and bad play from the young corners. Three seasons in a row that he has shown that his best>>any other corner on the team in terms of coverage. The problem is three seasons in a row he has not been able to do it for the entire season. So I can't suspect he will cost all that much if the Steelers did want to re-sign him. For the life of me I just don't get how he can't start over Sutton? I get why Haden is getting the start over him, but how many weeks in a row has Ahkello outplayed Sutton....Quite easily as well?

I honestly have no idea.   Tomlin's doghouse is a joke.   We were just talking about it yesterday.

None of us know exactly what happened with Witherspoon early on, so it mustve been behind the scenes stuff.     With how bad our CBs have been, it better have been a good reason for holding him out.

[J-ALL-DAY]

1 hour ago, 43M said:

I honestly have no idea.   Tomlin's doghouse is a joke.   We were just talking about it yesterday.

None of us know exactly what happened with Witherspoon early on, so it mustve been behind the scenes stuff.     With how bad our CBs have been, it better have been a good reason for holding him out.

But Niners fans were upset when Ahkello was in Shanny's doghouse. So eventually it has to be on the player, right? Maybe how he does certain things rub coaches the wrong way? His play the last two seasons has been mainly lights out but he's been inactive for half of both seasons. 

[Cbrunn]

Who knows they'll probably use the excuse the defense is too complex to learn excuse 

Witherspoon should be out there regardless, he was playing like our best corner, no reason to take him out even for Haden 

 

[Shady Slim]

if we can top cleveland and baltimore which is eminently possible it's still more likely than not we wind up in the dance, probably scoring a date with buffalo upstate... i'm not saying it's impossible...