Rooney gives his state of the Steelers

[ikestops85]

With what Arians is trying to do with our offense of going for the rainbow passes, nothing underneath, not allowing for the the short stuff or allowing for ball control with the run game that, can add into as much of a factor with the losses.

Ball control on offense to keep Brady on the bench, more man to man on defense and less blitzing on Brady because Brady, reads too fast and unloads too fast with accuracy.

Steelers were the No.2 team on Offense regarding TOP. Now even though they did not score bunch of points they did control the ball which helped the Steelers Defense. Steelers move the ball from 20-20 very efficiently. Its the Red zone which is the achilles heel for Steelers Offense.

People have fallen in love with the game plan against Patriots. In the end Steelers scored only 25 points. Dink and Dunk offense did not solve red zone woes for Steelers.

Ball Control is never an issue with the Steelers offense. Scoring in Red Zone is an issue. Do i blame OC for that? Yes he should take some blame but players including Ben should take responsibility for failure to execute in the red zone.

I want Steelers OC to be replaced not because BA sucks but i think BA does not bring anything new to the plate. I want new OC to tweak the current system not overhaul it.


My Wish List from new OC:
I hope to see fewer runs on 1st down and in Red Zone. No more stupid 3 TE sets. I want more 3-4 WR set. And i want RB like Sproles in the backfield maybe Batch will be that person.

I wonder if Mendenhall falls out of favor now that Arians is gone?

I don't know if I want Mendy to fall out of favor. I just think Redman has earned the shot at being the #1 RB for us with Mendy as the change of pace guy. We actually ran against teams we should be able to run against with Redman as the man ... unlike what Mendy provided us.

This really isn't a knock on Mendy. I just don't think he is suited as well as Redman is to run behind our lousy offensive line. With a different line, one that opens holes, I think Mendy would be the guy.

[fezziwig]

Many see the upside to Redman over Mendenhall and I do too if you compare desire of the two individuals. Redman just seems like he has the push or the want to in him more than Mendy. That being said, Mendenhalls to me is still more of a break away threat.

I'm curious if Mendenhall will recover from his injury fast enough, good enough for the Steelers to want him back. Having Redman is a pretty nice counter balance to the situation but, I still would like Mendenhall and Redman on the team if the dollars work out well enough.

As for Ben doing what Ben wants to do that, falls upon the OC and or the HC. If you guys think and are probably correct that Ben won't throw the underneath stuff then, that is his coaches responsibility to correct him.

[Slapstick]

It is Ben's responsibility to correct himself...he is a professional...

The coaches can tell him what needs to happen, but if he doesn't do it, do they bench him?

When the Steelers have been so successful?

What would Art Rooney think about having his $100 million franchise QB on the bench?

Coaches are there to guide the players, but the players are professionals...

[feltdizz]

Many see the upside to Redman over Mendenhall and I do too if you compare desire of the two individuals. Redman just seems like he has the push or the want to in him more than Mendy. That being said, Mendenhalls to me is still more of a break away threat.

I'm curious if Mendenhall will recover from his injury fast enough, good enough for the Steelers to want him back. Having Redman is a pretty nice counter balance to the situation but, I still would like Mendenhall and Redman on the team if the dollars work out well enough.

As for Ben doing what Ben wants to do that, falls upon the OC and or the HC. If you guys think and are probably correct that Ben won't throw the underneath stuff then, that is his coaches responsibility to correct him.

The problem is you need to perfect play called for Mend to break away. He is too much like FWP. We kept talking about the threat to break something long but 95% of his runs aren't going to the house and he was below average moving the chains IMO.

[hawaiiansteel]

Too many overreact to Rooney II

Thursday, January 19, 2012
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Art Rooney II is pretty reliably a plain-spoken guy, most particularly for a lawyer, yet, when he offers his rare public analysis of the Steelers, you would think from the confused blowback that he had gone off on the potential implications of the complex jurisdictional issues in the $9.5 billion environmental lawsuit brought against Chevron by Ecuador's government.

Except that, in these matters, people actually pay attention.

When he mentioned after a 9-7 season in 2009 that he would like to see the club run the ball more consistently when it needed to, his audience extrapolated that to indicate a widespread playbook shredding and a total deconstruction of the Mike Tomlin-Bruce Arians mindset relating to offensive football.

By the time training camp came around, Rooney v. Passing Emphasis, 2010 was all but legal precedent, when, in reality, all Rooney meant was that when and if the ball is handed off, maybe there ought to be some running room.

This week, of course, Rooney mentioned to our own Ed Bouchette that Ben Roethlisberger might have to "tweak" his style of play "a little bit."

Right, a little bit.

That is an interesting if hardly portentous observation, but in the ever-roiling 24/7 Steelers news cycle, even the most benign observation from Art Rooney II ends up like a sparrow sucked into the engine of a Boeing 777.

So before the turbines rip every last feather into a billion shards and the endless media blab transforms a dead bird into a baby grand piano, here it is again:

"I'm not sure if I'd say change [Ben's] style of play," Rooney said. "He may need to tweak it a little bit, but Ben is Ben, and you wouldn't want to try to convince him to completely change his game. A lot of what he does is the reason he is successful. On the other side of the coin, he is turning 30, and we do need him to stay healthy and taking fewer sacks would probably help that equation."

Ben was sacked 40 times this past season, more than anyone except Alex Smith, who went down 44 times but somehow wound up playing in the NFC championship game Sunday for the San Francisco 49ers anyway. There is no point in arguing that the Steelers' long-term football fortunes would have a better prognosis were Roethlisberger not on the ground so often, but we might not be talking about any of this had Ben taken one fewer sack, the one that left him with a high ankle sprain the night of Dec. 8.

As it happens, there is a load of stale irony surrounding that moment.

Between April 30, 2006 and Sept. 3, 2010, the Steelers signed and waived former Penn State defensive tackle Scott Paxson six times. Had they just signed him for go-around No. 7, they might have saved their own No. 7 on that night and ultimately retained the ability to extend their season beyond the wild-card round.

Paxson broke into the pocket that Thursday in the uniform of the Cleveland Browns and recorded the only sack of his consistently undistinguished NFL career. Ben's passer rating that night was a season high 129.6, but, after that, he never exceeded 75.9. Charlie Batch, spelling him against St. Louis, posted a 79.4. After Paxson, Ben was Batch, minus a tweak or two.

Rooney's observations regarding his $100 million quarterback are otherwise perfectly modulated. You certainly would not want to change the way Roethlisberger goes about his football business in general.

He is one of only two humans to have won two Super Bowls before turning 27 (Tom Brady is the other) and one of only 10 humans to win multiple Super Bowls in a career (the balance of that trivia answer being: Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, John Elway, Bob Griese, Jim Plunkett, Bart Starr, Roger Staubach and Brady).

On the other hand, Ben's not God, and probably not even God's nephew, identified in the famous Tim Tebow Saturday Night Live skit as -- Tom Brady. Ben's not Tom Brady.

If you go by the league's final passer ratings, you can find three guys named Matt were better at this job this season than Ben: Ryan, Schaub and Stafford. There were another half dozen who rang up figures superior to Ben's 90.1. So let's not pretend No. 7 couldn't do with a "tweak."

The Steelers want him to get rid of the ball faster, the way teams that have studied Dick LeBeau's defense for years have found a way to do, thus avoiding the Blitzburgh factor that this year yielded only 35 sacks. That sounds like a pretty good idea.

That's all Art Rooney was saying the other day.

Naturally, by the time we get back to Latrobe, it'll seem like the entire point of training camp is deconstructing Ben.

Maybe they should start by having him throw left-handed. I've seen him do it in the portion of practice where cameras are allowed. Tell ya what, to my knowledge, Ben Roethlisberger has never been sacked while throwing a left-handed pass.

Hmmm.

Wonder if he'd wear No. 8.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12019/12 ... z1k3ySWTlS