How Far Away?
I say the Steelers are one dominant pass rusher and a solid center away from being a championship team. You look at a team, and there are so many holes, but not all of them get exposed every game, or even exposed in critical ways. They are solid at QB/RB/TE/LB/DB, but need real help at OG/C/DL. The secondary rarely gets any help, and the Steelers have placed such a premium (or gotten awfully lucky) with centers that they have almost as few centers (Mansfield, Webster, Dawson, Hartings) as coaches in the Noll/Cowher span.
But then you have to factor in coaching, and the Steelers seemed determined to mess that up. After their amazing 1st drive down the field against Jax, you never saw them come out like that again, even though it worked. And Tomlin calling himself "a gambler who plays to win" doesn't make sense in the context of a) the 2 point conversion from the 12 and b) the turtle play on 3rd and 6 with the game on the line. Unless by "a gambler" he means someone who bets too much on long odds and too little on short odds. Which makes him a loser.
At the beginning of games, it's the players and how well they execute. At the ends of games, it's the coaches putting their players in a position to win. You can play the supposed percentages all you want, punt the ball and put it in the hands of the defense and make them drive the length of the field, or half of it, or only 30 yards because of a shitty punt--or you could go with the player with the hot hand and let them win it for you. Don't put them in a bad position, then blame them for not executing. Too much of that happens in the Steel City.
2 comments:
I'm not convinced we have a dominant RB, but he's definitely a strong piece of the puzzle. I'd feel more comfortable if we had, in addition to Willie, a big beefy back to cram the football straight down your throat. That said, I agree we need a strong pass rusher, and you've convinced me we need to switch to the 4-3, which might help us utilize what we already have but just don't know it yet. All this said, I think we need to concentrate on our first priority: our Swiss cheese O line.
With Woodley and Harrison as OLBs, the 3-4 could remain strong in Pitt. However, where's the depth behind them? And having good passrushing OLBs doesn't solve depth problems on the D-line or age and ineffectivness at ILB. That being said, I would LOVE to see Harrison at Middle linebacker in a 3-4 or 4-3.
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