Another "non-losing" season and winless playoff year.

[WindyCitySteel]

its an impressive stat that local fans loathe because they lied to themselves and believe we have been to 30 SB’s before Tomlin arrived.

Most national media folk, and most fans, are impressed because they all said we had no shot at the playoffs this year at 2-6 and all predicted our first losing season.

They were wrong, and most people are sensible and able to admit they were wrong instead of pivoting to his recent playoff struggles instead of admitting the team exceeded preseason expectations.

Local media folks pointing out other teams having as good or better 2nd halves, including Jacksonville and Detroit, perennial losers.

Tomlin's team accomplished less than last year and some of you want to throw a parade.

[feltdizz]

Local media folks pointing out other teams having as good or better 2nd halves, including Jacksonville and Detroit, perennial losers.

Tomlin's team accomplished less than last year and some of you want to throw a parade.

I asked this before and no one answered.

How many of these teams had a rookie QB playing the whole time during the turnaround?

Answer is NONE.

[LPMAN]

this is killing the Tomlin haters.

notice how a couple of them have yet to post since we beat the Browns?

I dislike Tomlin, but am super happy we ended 9-8 with a winning record. A real Steelers fan never roots against his team.

[Eich]

People can hate on Tomlin all they want and our playoff record does stink for the past several years. But we held on to Ben too long and now we have a rookie QB. No one can really say that we underperformed from the expectations this year. If I'm the Rooney's, I don't consider a change at head coach without giving Mike Tomlin at least 3 years with Kenny to see if things improve (with this season not even counting as a full year). The turn-around this season from the bye was impressive. It would be absurd to move on from Tomlin now.

People point to the coaching tree of Tomlin and how few have moved on to higher positions. I'd agree this doesn't reflect well on Tomlin's direct reports. But at the same time, if the Rooney's were to fire Tomlin now, he'd have a new Head Coaching position as quickly as he wanted it. He'd be aggressively sought after. Tomlin is a very good head coach overall.

That said, I do feel that Tomlin needs to admit weaknesses with his coaching staff and make at least one change asap.

[crushedspirit]

What's weird honestly is to celebrate the 11th longest current streak in the NFL without a playoff win.

Let that sink in for a little.

[papillon]

I'm trying to figure out the beef, this was an exciting year of football.

HOF quarterback retires
DPOY out for 6 weeks
Brought in a QB to hold the fort for a couple years
Draft the future QB (hopefully)
Start 2-6 with MT going 1-3 and KP going 1-3
Finish 7-2 with rookie quarterback showing the bright lights can't be bright enough
Trade a WR that showed potential but fell off the radar completely and received a 1st round pick (1.32)
Oline came together and the running game picked up the final -4 games of the year
Harris & Warren proving their worth, Pickens is a damn menace to CBs and safeties
Steelers have two 1st round picks his year
Lead the league in INTs, Leal looks like a keeper, Cam was playing his best at the end of the season, hopefully he has a couple more years in him because the team is ready to compete for a SB
Finish at 9-8 and a whisker away from making the playoffs with the team on the uptick
Yea, this all really sucked because we didn't win a playoff game.
smh

And, to boot, next year the Steelers get a 3rd place schedule, looking forward to a good draft and getting 3 of the top 50 players

Pappy

[feltdizz]

What's weird honestly is to celebrate the 11th longest current streak in the NFL without a playoff win.

Let that sink in for a little.

I think you are the only one seeing this celebration.

Well, I’m sure some Tomlin haters also see it your way but normal folks see a rookie QB finishing 7-2 after the bye and like where this team is headed.

[Steel Maniac]

People can hate on Tomlin all they want and our playoff record does stink for the past several years. But we held on to Ben too long and now we have a rookie QB. No one can really say that we underperformed from the expectations this year. If I'm the Rooney's, I don't consider a change at head coach without giving Mike Tomlin at least 3 years with Kenny to see if things improve (with this season not even counting as a full year). The turn-around this season from the bye was impressive. It would be absurd to move on from Tomlin now.

People point to the coaching tree of Tomlin and how few have moved on to higher positions. I'd agree this doesn't reflect well on Tomlin's direct reports. But at the same time, if the Rooney's were to fire Tomlin now, he'd have a new Head Coaching position as quickly as he wanted it. He'd be aggressively sought after. Tomlin is a very good head coach overall.

That said, I do feel that Tomlin needs to admit weaknesses with his coaching staff and make at least one change asap.

I definitely don't think we underperformed. Most knew this was a transitional year and most knew we weren't going to make the playoffs. It's all a part of the process and I suspect it's going to be a while. I don't think there is anything to celebrate either way; All we can do is hope we found our QB for the future. If we did, that's a huge piece of the puzzle that we've found and gotten out of the way.

[feltdizz]

I'm trying to figure out the beef, this was an exciting year of football.

HOF quarterback retires
DPOY out for 6 weeks
Brought in a QB to hold the fort for a couple years
Draft the future QB (hopefully)
Start 2-6 with MT going 1-3 and KP going 1-3
Finish 7-2 with rookie quarterback showing the bright lights can't be bright enough
Trade a WR that showed potential but fell off the radar completely and received a 1st round pick (1.32)
Oline came together and the running game picked up the final -4 games of the year
Harris & Warren proving their worth, Pickens is a damn menace to CBs and safeties
Steelers have two 1st round picks his year
Lead the league in INTs, Leal looks like a keeper, Cam was playing his best at the end of the season, hopefully he has a couple more years in him because the team is ready to compete for a SB
Finish at 9-8 and a whisker away from making the playoffs with the team on the uptick
Yea, this all really sucked because we didn't win a playoff game.
smh

And, to boot, next year the Steelers get a 3rd place schedule, looking forward to a good draft and getting 3 of the top 50 players

Pappy

sorry pappy.. you are using common sense and didn’t view the season through hatin ass hater glasses for the first year without Ben.

The same people who predicted 5 or 6 or 7 wins are mad because we didn’t win a playoff game.. with a rookie QB.

The same people who said “can’t blame Ben now” are now mad that we finished with the same exact record as we did with Ben.

Its a clear case of the doom and gloomers being upset their predictions didn’t come true so now they complain about missing the playoffs even though they didn’t even predict a winning season.

[Northern_Blitz]

It's weird how it seems like some fans are taking Tomlin over the team. I just want what is best for the Steelers, not what is best for Mike Tomlin. 6 years now and counting without a playoff win, 10 out of the last 12 years and no playoff win, that is a decade of football lol. It's kind of crazy actually. Steelers purgatory. Maybe the team is actually cursed in it's own way now, not cursed like the Browns but cursed in a different way, never bad enough to make actual changes but never good enough to make it past the opening round of the playoffs if the team even makes it there.

As is always the question here...why do you think changing Tomlin (a coach who's been successful) for another coach (most of whom fail pretty miserably) would make the team better? Teams under this coach have always played hard till the end of the season. There is no "lost locker room" or whatever narrative people say about coaches. You can see that clearly this season after the team rallied following a horrible first half.

I get the "no playoff wins in 6 years" argument (thanks for getting the math right!). It sucks that it's been that long. And I think we "should have" won a game or maybe even a few games in there.

But when you look at those 6 years, I think it's only really the Jags year that's a real disappointment. That was the only year in this span where I think we had a genuinely competitive team...at least until 50 got hurt.

The fashion we lost the Browns game was also incredibly frustrating. But I think that one is way more on execution (the worst snap ever, and a ridiculous number of ints and total turnovers) than it is on coaching. And given how that team ended the regular season, the end result of losing wasn't really that surprising.

At least half of that 6 year timeline (Mason / Duck year, last season, and this season) were seasons where I think most reasonable people didn't expect much from the team. And those are all years where we probably overachieved the talent level on the team.

I get that people think that "we're the Steelers and we should be a very good team every year". But that's just not been the case for most of the 6 year time period you're talking about. Maybe 2 of those years we should have been really good...maybe just 1? And our best chance year we had a catastrophic injury to our best player on defense...and that loss was another one where we win if we didn't surrender a DTD (which is an execution fail).

But all of this is broken record stuff and we've had these conversations a million times on here before.

[Northern_Blitz]

I saw this coming two years ago; you’ve got to take it in stride. We will be in ground hog day for a long time.

Because we need to replace a QB, not because of the coaching. Tomlin is average at worst and almost certainly still above average.

Most coaches fail pretty miserably.

[Steel Maniac]

As is always the question here...why do you think changing Tomlin (a coach who's been successful) for another coach (most of whom fail pretty miserably) would make the team better? Teams under this coach have always played hard till the end of the season. There is no "lost locker room" or whatever narrative people say about coaches. You can see that clearly this season after the team rallied following a horrible first half.

I get the "no playoff wins in 6 years" argument. It sucks that it's been that long. And I think we "should have" won a game or maybe even a few games in there.

But when you look at those 6 years, I think it's only really the Jags year that's a real disappointment. That was the only year in this span where I think we had a genuinely competitive team...at least until 50 got hurt.

The fashion we lost the Browns game was also incredibly frustrating. But I think that one is way more on execution (the worst snap ever, and a ridiculous number of ints and total turnovers) than it is on coaching. And given how that team ended the regular season, the end result of losing wasn't really that surprising.

At least half of that 6 year timeline (Mason / Duck year, last season, and this season) were seasons where I think most reasonable people didn't expect much from the team. And those are all years where we probably overachieved the talent level on the team.

I get that people think that "we're the Steelers and we should be a very good team every year". But that's just not been the case for most of the 6 year time period you're talking about. Maybe 2 of those years we should have been really good. And one of those years we had a catastrophic injury to our best player on defense...and that loss was another one where we win if we didn't surrender a DTD (which is an execution fail).

But all of this is broken record stuff and we've had these conversations a million times on here before.

Your forgetting about the year we lost to the Ravens...at home. Joe Flacco. Just saying....

[feltdizz]

I definitely don't think we underperformed. Most knew this was a transitional year and most knew we weren't going to make the playoffs. It's all a part of the process and I suspect it's going to be a while. I don't think there is anything to celebrate either way; All we can do is hope we found our QB for the future. If we did, that's a huge piece of the puzzle that we've found and gotten out of the way.

We’ve found him SM. You can move
on to other areas of the team. As much as the analyst wanted to bash Pickett last game (yeah, he missed a few throws) he even had to point out when we really needed a throw on 3rd and 8 or longer Pickett made that throw EVERY TIME on that critical drive late in the game when up by 6.

Still some house cleaning to do on Pickett’s part but trust me, he isn’t going to get worse at this with more reps in the offseason…

and he would’ve had 2 passing TD’s if DJ had some moves and wasn’t tackled at the GL. That dude.. lol.

[feltdizz]

Your forgetting about the year we lost to the Ravens...at home. Joe Flacco. Just saying....

and losing to the Ravens is the end of the world?

[Northern_Blitz]

Your forgetting about the year we lost to the Ravens...at home. Joe Flacco. Just saying....

Maniac,

I think this demonstrates how people that make these kinds of arguments get sucked into the black hole of negativity.

Here, we are talking about the last 6 years. I'll wait while you look up the year of that Raven's game.

I do admit that losing that game to the Rats sucked. All playoff losses suck. Especially to division rivals.

I think this one gets chalked up to two big things. Bell was hurt. I'll let people try to guess who our 2 leading rushers were in that game. My guess is that very few people even remember these guys were ever on the team. I know I didn't (before looking it up). The second (cover your ears NJ), is that Ben had more INTs than TDs...sadly a common refrain when he was forced to throw lots of passes (45) in playoff games against good defenses. Conversely, Flacco had 29 attempts, 2 TDs, 0 INTs.

The common refrain that we should have won more playoff games usually hinges on the "we had better fantasy football players than they did". But our three headed monster lost a head (Bell) and the most important "Bee" couldn't carry the team to victory because we asked him to do to much. I think I said this before, but in your 10 year timeframe or whatever I think we only won games when we had >130 yards rushing. When we needed the passing game to carry the day, we lost.

Again...this is all broken record stuff (including you not getting the dates right )