Both of the previous posts are indictments of the FO...
Both of the previous posts are indictments of the FO...
This is all about one word: TALENT. This team lacks talent. Blame the coaches all you wan't but it's hard to make chicken salad out of chicken sh!t. There's no need for knee-jerk reactions here either "Fire Tomlin! Fire Colbert! Fire the Rooney's!!!" Nope. This game is about cycles. Teams just can not stay great for a long time in this league.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is about a lack of quality talent and depth. Feltdizz was absolutely right in his post above. Sure, we have our share of top flight talent, but the lack of quality depth is what's crushing us right now. Injuries are a massive part of the NFL landscape. If you are paying your top-line players big money, you simply can't afford to have real quality depth on the team.
When a team like the Steelers has been good for a long time, they are forced to pay their top players a lot of money. When that happens, it affects the team elsewhere and you lose depth. For me, I'm happy to have a few down years as a trade-off for 3 Superbowl appearances and 2 Superbowl wins in the last 9 years. Obviously I'd like to win it all every year, who wouldn't? But that's not the reality in today's NFL. You can't develop young talent and stash them as depth anymore. When injuries or free-agent defections occur it's just not realistic to think that the replacement will be as good as the player he's replacing was. Can he develop into a better player than his predecessor? Absolutely! But it takes time to do so. That's what's happening now. Some of the younger players are playing some bad football (as young players almost always do) but that's how they learn. Back in the day the Steelers could afford to stash young guys on the bench and only install them as starters when the vets moved on. Much harder to do that now.
Last edited by Oviedo; 09-30-2013 at 12:10 PM.
"My team, may they always be right, but right or wrong...MY TEAM!"
I'm sorry but this is a complete BS argument IMO and just another excuse. Can you really say objectively that this team lacks so much talent that 0-4 is acceptable? The Jaguars lack talent. The same goes for the Giants. The Giants and Steelers are very similar this year. They both have some talent on defense. They both have a franchise QB. They both have some talent at WR. They are a combined 0-8 which is incredible. It's no more acceptable for the Giants to be 0-4 as it is the Steelers.
From a record standpoint, we are no better or worse than the Jaguars. The Jaguars! I'm sorry but we have more talent than several teams. I'm not saying we have talent to win a SB (obviously) but we are not bottom of the barrel from a talent perspective. However, our record is bottom of the barrel and worst in the league.... along with the Giants and the Jaguars. That clearly falls on player execution and coaching. I think we need some more talent (particularly o-line) but talent is not the #1 issue.
Tomlin: Let's unleash hell and "mop the floor" with the competition.
Great coaching can make average talent look good. Bad coaching can make good talent look ordinary.
In my opinion, the biggest problem is a leadership void on the team. Having gotten rid of Farrior and Harrison in the same season was a big mistake. Best to stagger the departures. The Steelers have always been good at that. Same goes for the OL. Look at who is the most tenured guy on the line, Foster with 4 years under his belt. There is not a single 'ironman' on the OL and it has been that way for a long time. When Starks started his career at RT, the rest of the line had a combined 24 yrs of experience!! Talk about mentorship, that's the key. Don't underestimate the value of having teammates able to mentor the young guys through these struggles.
A house cleaning after this season is in order. I hope the Steelers have Cowher's phone number.
Trolls are people too.
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