Toughest Off Season for Colbert and Tomlin

[tiproast]

Re: Toughest Off Season for Colbert and Tomlin

That said- the Steelers draft Defense last year- watch them go OL this year.

Last year's draft class was really good for QB and OL, with some good WRs and DL as well.

I'm no expert, but this year's draft doesn't seem to be as deep to me. And with Matt Barkley and Landry Jones returning to school, and Matt Flynn a free agent, there will be more teams picking big bodies in the first round instead of QBs.

Another reason it's not a good year to be trying to stock up on offensive linemen is this: every team will have figured out that protecting their QB so that he can throw for a ton of years is a good path to success. Expect to see lots of TEs drafted early, too.

Just my $0.02.

[SanAntonioSteelerFan]

Re: Toughest Off Season for Colbert and Tomlin

It's not even football, it's just common sense.

If you've allocated a huge amount of resources to acquire a strategic asset, the only reasonable secondary strategy is one that makes sure enough of your other resources are allocated in support of that asset, to allow it to succeed. Thus is achievement of the organization's goals most effectively realized.

Doing otherwise is foolish.

Organization: Steelers. Goal: Superbowl. Resources: $$. And, duh, strategic asset: Ben.

Ben is the man. The only right thing to do is put things in place to help him succeed. FIRST step, at a MINIMUM, we need to protect him in the pocket. Many of us PREDICTED that the SB run this year would end early because of O-line associated injury to Ben. Is it so crazy to say, OK, THAT didn't work out ... let's see what happens when our franchise QB has more than a 3rd string O-line? How many of our O-line players this year would even have PLAYED on one of the other playoff teams squads, much less STARTED?

And it needs to be quick ... what are the Vegas odds that Ben doesn't last next season due to injury? The season after that? I'm thinking doing this through the draft might not even be enough, in terms of Ben's shelf life. Can we go out and buy him an O-line? Not the Steeler way to develop a team with high $$ free agents? I'd propose it just might be. Where does it say the Steeler way HAS to be "controlling the game on the ground", or "suffocating defense", or any of the other things we've become so comfortable saying? The Steeler way, after all and bottom line, is only one thing - winning. Sometimes nostalgic attachment to specific strategies we've used to achieve that in the past can be counterproductive.

As Starlifter said (best post I've read in a while!) - forget throwing $$ at defense ... under Goodell's legal defense-oriented long term plan for rules changes, football scores will approach basketball's, and defenses will inevitably become laughably irrelevant. Heck, we don't even have to wait to see that happen - THIS year's 31st and 32nd ranked defenses in the NFL aren't doing too badly ...

Oh, and I agree with everything I say!

Signed,

SASF (Send Ariens to San Francisco)

[Oviedo]

Re: Toughest Off Season for Colbert and Tomlin

you guys need to accept the reality of the NFL according to Goodell. He doesn't WANT good defense. He is determined to legislate it out of existence. I suspect the superbowl this year will feature 2 of the worst defenses in the NFL. The old adage 'defense wins championships' is no longer true.

the rules say you need 11 guys on the field playing defense. common sense says as long as Roger is running the show - there's no need to waste a lot of resources on them. It won't matter - they are not ALLOWED to succeed.

every dollar wasted on defense is a lost opportunity for offense.

trust me. I hate it. this is not the NFL I grew up with and it's not the type of football I want to see. However, the last couple of years have proven to me that it's the NFL we currently have.

It's time to pay for 11 pro-bowlers on offense. and 10 no names plus troy on defense. 35 points a game average is what it's going to take. we're not there yet.

oh, and fire bruce arians.

that is all...............

Excellent post, however as I have said in other threads we have given LeBeau all the resources and tied up a significant percentage of the salary cap on the defensive side of the ball. The result this season were less sacks of the opposing QB and fewer takeaways. It leaves us trying to protect our most important player with a bargain basement OL.

We need to forget about Steeler tradition and use resources on what will get us to another Super Bowl...a healthy Ben.