So, what was the one liner that Tomlin said? Where was all the tough talk?
"That's March talk. See us in the fall."
Wow. I cannot believe he said that...
I believe him.
Here are some excerpts from this article:
"We're a team in transition, as we always are. Players are ascending, players are descending. We're acquiring players and losing players. I think that's part of this time of year.
"I acknowledge that we have a ways to go in a lot of areas," Tomlin said Tuesday at the AFC coaches breakfast at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, site of the NFL owners meetings. [a lot of local media writers were there also]
At the same time, he never backed off from telling media members at his table that the Steelers "were an 8-8 team and we're not going to hide from that." [curious to see if it was not necessary to hit print as plain text before pasting copied text]
At the same time, he never backed off from telling media members at his table that the Steelers "were an 8-8 team and we're not going to hide from that.
---Anyone who takes a look at the players signed on the current roster might just say the same thing. There is a significant core of very solid players already and how can it help but get even stronger. March talk yes! I'm ready now. Bring on the season.---
Winning smooths everything out. We are all just jacked about the season is over, we are seeing change that doesn't seem to fit our scheme of things right now. We really don't know what to expect so it's frustrating. What the cool thing is, when we start seeing these young guys suprise us this new season it will be exciting. I really don't think the Steeler organization is going to waste having the caliber quarterback in Ben with not fielding a good team. I believe that is why they kept our older players around so long. They wanted to squeeze one or two more championships out of them.
Our last Super Bowl loss, I believed early that season some of the guys were out of their prime. The speed wasn't there, the desire wasn't there t seemed for some of the guys or maybe just worn out and injured too. Maybe that's the only reason of so many seasons of battle.
Anytime a Steelers team finishes a season with a sub-par record a throng of criticism usually follows. I'm not surprised at this, the reaction by Steelers Nation is normal, whats not normal is how we finished the season losing 5 of the last seven games.
We seldom see our team have sub-par seasons, winning as much as we did in past years creates an expectation. We were on the other side of that fine line in 2012 losing 5 games by 3 points, simply put we just wern't good enough, the good teams find ways to win those types of games.
Mike Tomlin knows when fans criticize the teams performance, its a valid response, as head coach his job is to correct the outcome of last season. Tomlins record stands on its own, since he's been head coach we enjoyed a few trips to the Super Bowl a couple of AFC title wins and playoff appearances. In my eyes thats damn good.
Now this paticular season coming up is going to be a challenge for the FO, coaches, players to be able to put a competitve team on the field.
Past history shows the Steelers usually meet their challenges after a sub-par season, now that doesn't mean we will in 2013 but before we hang the coach out to dry lets see where we are in January.
I think what Mike was referring to is the makeup of the team when he said, " see us in the fall not in March". What the roster looks like now may be different come opening day, the battles in training camp and the preseason will determine that roster.
None of us can predict what will occur in 2013, we could actually have a worse record than in 2012 but if I had to bet my guess is the Steelers will respond in a good way.
Go pittsburgh!
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