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  1. #1
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    Starkey: The joke’s on the Steelers

    Starkey: The joke’s on the Steelers

    By Joe Starkey
    Published: Wednesday, December 26, 2012



    This Steelers‘ offense is an abomination.

    Worse, it‘s soft.

    They cannot run the ball. They do not score enough (2.2 touchdowns per game if, unlike them, you‘re scoring at home). Their red-zone approach stinks, and maybe most critically, their quarterback still goes sandlot too often and is getting his brains beaten in.

    Bottom line: Bruce Arians must go.

    I mean, Arians called for 25 passes in the first half at Dallas! He didn‘t use a fullback on several short-yardage runs against the Chargers! His third-and-1 handoffs take an hour-and-a-half to unfold and only work when Isaac Redman performs a miracle.

    The running game is laughable. Byron Leftwich, who couldn‘t steal a base off Rod Barajas, has the team‘s second-longest run of the season. Rashard Mendenhall doesn‘t even bother to show up anymore.

    The Steelers have lost their two divisional home games even though the opposing offense DID NOT SCORE A TOUCHDOWN. That‘s hard to do.

    Mike Wallace is now a possession receiver. Emmanuel Sanders can‘t take a hit. Antonio Brown has lost his mind.

    This group needs a coordinator with a backbone.

    Besides, Arians is too friendly with Big Ben. He‘s more like Ben‘s uncle than his boss. You can‘t have that. Players can‘t be friends with coaches. That‘s insane.

    It‘s obvious, in watching Ben play, that Arians isn‘t tough enough on him. Did you see the ridiculous interception that lost the Bengals‘ game? Typical Ben, doing whatever he wants out there and taking silly chances.

    The Steelers need a guy who‘ll get in Ben‘s face, for Ben‘s own good. The man turns 31 in March. He won‘t make 34 if this kind of punishment keeps up.

    What‘s more, Ben has misplaced his clutch gene. Behold his recent history in big games:

    • He was terrible in the 2010 AFC Championship.

    • He air-balled the last shot of Super Bowl XLIII.

    • He double-dribbled on the last regulation possession of the Denver playoff game.

    • He had multiple chances to finish off the Cowboys two weeks ago and the Bengals four days ago and came up empty every time.

    The magic is gone.

    So here‘s my suggestion for Steelers president Art Rooney II: Let it be known to Mike Tomlin that you‘d like to see Arians jettisoned. Leave the decision up to Tomlin, of course, knowing that any intelligent employee will take a hint from his boss (I sure hope Art and Mike aren‘t friends, by the way, because we‘ve seen how poorly that has worked out with Bruce and Ben).

    That‘ll be it for Arians, but the Steelers should let him down softly. Maybe disguise the firing as a “retirement.” It‘s not likely Arians would find work right away and make the Steelers look bad. Everybody knows Ben made him.

    Secretly, I‘m sure Arians still wants to be a head coach. Can you imagine that? With his luck, he‘d probably wind up in charge of a no-hope, 2-14 team.

    Once Arians is gone, Rooney II should tell reporters that Ben needs to “tweak” his game, even if Robert Kraft would never say anything like that about Tom Brady. The Steelers need to rock Ben‘s world. He‘s too comfortable.

    Look, it‘s past time the offense carried this franchise for a bit, but that‘s hard to do when you can‘t score. This sickly unit has reached 30 points once all season. The Seahawks score that many in a quarter.

    If the Steelers don‘t hit 30 against Cleveland on Sunday, it‘ll be the first time in 20 years that they failed to reach the number at least twice in a season.

    The bigger picture, though, is the quarterback. Ben must be tamed. He must be spared more bodily harm. My God, the man nearly speared himself to death with his own rib. Somebody needs to put him in his place — the pocket — and maybe even blow up at him once in a while.

    I don‘t know who the new guy should be, but I‘ve got a solid tip for Rooney II and Tomlin.

    I hear Todd Haley‘s available.

    [URL]http://triblive.com/sports/joestarkey/3188457-74/ben-steelers-arians#ixzz2GGR6oTIQ[/URL]
    Steel Maniac's Time-Based Prediction: Lamar Jackson will be a bust and total flop in the NFL.

    What Actually Happened: Lamar Jackson became the youngest two-time NFL MVP winner ever.

    Gloat gloat gloat


    Boom........

    Hahahahahahaha

  2. #2
    Legend

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    Maybe the writer is just so intelligent that his wit is above me, but what is his point?
    Trolls are people too.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
    Maybe the writer is just so intelligent that his wit is above me, but what is his point?
    I think the article was written with a huge dose of sarcasm...
    Steel Maniac's Time-Based Prediction: Lamar Jackson will be a bust and total flop in the NFL.

    What Actually Happened: Lamar Jackson became the youngest two-time NFL MVP winner ever.

    Gloat gloat gloat


    Boom........

    Hahahahahahaha

  4. #4
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    Arians wasn't the problem?

    That's my guess Shawn... Not sure though...b

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by feltdizz View Post
    Arians wasn't the problem?

    That's my guess Shawn... Not sure though...b
    apparently so. And if you look at the trail of evidence for the season, a reasonable person would likely conclude the same.
    Wow, were most of us BA haters THAT wrong in our assessment of him as an OC? or was there something else going on with the offense this season?

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by NorthCoast View Post
    apparently so. And if you look at the trail of evidence for the season, a reasonable person would likely conclude the same.
    Wow, were most of us BA haters THAT wrong in our assessment of him as an OC? or was there something else going on with the offense this season?
    I'll give one explanation; the Colts played a total of 5 games against teams with winning records this season. And in those 5 games they were 2-3. So at least BA continued the trend of beating up on bad teams, which even Haley was unable to do this season.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by NorthCoast View Post
    apparently so. And if you look at the trail of evidence for the season, a reasonable person would likely conclude the same.
    Wow, were most of us BA haters THAT wrong in our assessment of him as an OC? or was there something else going on with the offense this season?
    Arians still sucks as a OC but Ben is a big part of the problem as well.

    If you listen closely, Ben is probably taking another sack and taking us out of field goal range.
    Tomlin: Let's unleash hell and "mop the floor" with the competition.

  8. #8
    Pro Bowler

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    Quote Originally Posted by steelz09 View Post
    Arians still sucks as a OC but Ben is a big part of the problem as well.

    If you listen closely, Ben is probably taking another sack and taking us out of field goal range.
    OUCH, that hurts. Truth can. I hate when Ben does idiotic things. It's so embarrassing.

  9. #9
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    Maybe he's saying Ben's the problem. Or nothing's changed.

    This wasn't the most eloquent article. But there does seem to be a common theme with Tomlin teams. Nothing changes. There are certain units on the team that perform poorly year in and year out. It's almost like a curse. You can swap out players or coaches, yet the curse continues.

    The Tomlin curse could be our own Curse of the Bambino or something.

    I'm just typing gibberish because I have no idea what that writer meant. He probably shouldn't get paid for that kind of work. Maybe he was drunk or in the midst of a stroke when he wrote that?

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by flippy View Post
    Maybe he's saying Ben's the problem. Or nothing's changed.

    This wasn't the most eloquent article. But there does seem to be a common theme with Tomlin teams. Nothing changes. There are certain units on the team that perform poorly year in and year out. It's almost like a curse. You can swap out players or coaches, yet the curse continues.

    The Tomlin curse could be our own Curse of the Bambino or something.

    I'm just typing gibberish because I have no idea what that writer meant. He probably shouldn't get paid for that kind of work. Maybe he was drunk or in the midst of a stroke when he wrote that?
    Maybe true, but it's not like Tomlin is ignoring or hasn't tried making changes. canning the ST coach, bringing in a new OL coach. It just seems that his changes haven't panned out and maybe it is his lack of experience in evaluating coaching talent. Maybe he doesn't really know what a winning assistant coach looks like?

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