I have a sense of optimism about the Pittsburgh Steelers, however dimmed by the ongoing Aaron Rodgers fiasco.<\/p>\n
Not to do great things this year, but to build a foundation for beyond. Big-picture thinking, perhaps accidentally. Diluted by employing a geriatric quarterback. (I hear Rodgers is in town for a cornhole tournament. Or maybe it\u2019s pickleball.)<\/p>\n
A good offensive line is being built. (It\u2019s probably a year away from emerging. First-round pick Max Iheanachor is a project, and Troy Fautanu will likely move from right tackle to left tackle.)<\/p>\n
Third-round choice Drew Allar is the biggest talent and best bet the Steelers have had at quarterback since Ben Roethlisberger quit.<\/p>\n
Allar is no sure thing, certainly not for this season. But he\u2019ll be working with new head coach Mike McCarthy, a hands-on quarterbacks guru.<\/p>\n
Hiring McCarthy is the most significant upgrade.<\/p>\n
Mike Tomlin hadn\u2019t been a good coach for a long time.<\/p>\n
Despite his overhyped record of no losing seasons \u2014 which belongs to Roethlisberger more than Tomlin \u2014 Tomlin had long since prioritized megalomania over coaching excellence.<\/p>\n
That should have been obvious when he ran off coordinators like Bruce Arians and Dick LeBeau.<\/p>\n
Arians \u201cretired\u201d in 2011, or so the Steelers said, then got NFL Coach of the Year in 2012 and \u201914 and won a Super Bowl in \u201921. The Steelers should have fired Tomlin and promoted Arians. LeBeau left in 2014.<\/p>\n
The Steelers have won three playoff games since 2014.<\/p>\n
Tomlin didn\u2019t want anyone on his staff who could challenge him for football expertise.<\/p>\n
Imagine thinking you know more about defense than LeBeau, maybe the greatest mind ever on that side of the ball.<\/p>\n
But Tomlin did, then bossed a defense that too often betrayed its talent and payroll. With a defensive coordinator (in name only) available to take the fall, most recently Teryl Austin.<\/p>\n
Tomlin had zero offensive acumen.<\/p>\n
The NFL is an offensive league. Score more, faster.<\/p>\n
McCarthy gets that, and says right up front that he\u2019ll be calling the plays. That\u2019s Pittsburgh-style accountability.<\/p>\n
Tomlin became more of a CEO. McCarthy is a coach.<\/p>\n
Tomlin had a lot of success: He won a Super Bowl, lost another. Never had a losing season.<\/p>\n
He had failures, too: No playoff wins in his last nine seasons and consistently underachieving despite lots of star-caliber players.<\/p>\n
T.J. Watt has zero playoff victories in his nine NFL seasons. Him and Tomlin are a chicken-egg thing.<\/p>\n
Tomlin\u2019s teams came out flat, seemingly unprepared: outscored by a cumulative 73-3 in the first quarter of the Steelers\u2019 last seven playoff games. The Steelers haven\u2019t scored more than seven points in the first quarter since Week 1 of the 2022 season. That\u2019s the last 70 games of Tomlin\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n
With McCarthy replacing Tomlin, it just seems better.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t be perfect. Not this year. It\u2019s tough to truly move forward with Grandpa Game Manager at the helm.<\/p>\n
But it will feel more like the Steelers.<\/p>\n
That will never be more evident than when you see Tomlin do TV: impressive word salad but horse manure just dripping off the screen. His substance disintegrated long ago.<\/p>\n
Tomlin became the wrong guy.<\/p>\n
McCarthy is the right guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have a sense of optimism about the Pittsburgh Steelers, however dimmed by the ongoing Aaron Rodgers fiasco.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-646492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}