Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Well, to be fair, if you want to consider the Pittsburgh Steelers “mighty”, you do have to go back 15 years to their last Super Bowl championship run. Since then, Pittsburgh has been chasing that spot at the mountain top, which has proceeded to elude them for well over a decade. They got close in 2010 with a dynamic offense paired with a stout defense, only to get outdueled by the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV. They had one of the best offenses in the league from 2014-2017, the combination of the Killer B’s striking fear in the hearts of opposing defenses. Still, they never got back to the dance after 2010, and have continued to trend downward in recent seasons.
Part of that has to do with a changing of the guard at quarterback with Ben Roethlisberger retiring, the franchise going to Kenny Pickett as Pittsburgh’s hopeful long-term franchise quarterback. However, Marcus Spears mentioned on First Take Wednesday that Pittsburgh’s lack of competing in the AFC the last few years has been Mike Tomlin’s inability to get with the times and where offenses have been going in the National Football League.
“I think Stephen A. hit the nail on the head because what we’re watching now is Mike Tomlin and Bill Belichick not going to where the NFL is,” Spears said on video from the NFL on ESPN’s YouTube channel. “Like we see it’s always hard to talk about coaches like this ’cause they’ve had so much success and we hang our hat on that. Bill Belichick runs an archaic offense.
“Now, we no longer can go out on the field and stop people and think that we gonna score 20 and run the ball 40 times and win football game. You just don’t win like that anymore. And I think both of these coaches have not acknowledged that at this point. It doesn’t mean they can’t coach; they just haven’t acknowledged the fact that we have to be explosive. Like do down in and down out as an offense. We have to be explosive.”
It’s interesting to see Spears lump Patriots head coach Bill Belichick into the same place as Tomlin as both coaches have been known for running the AFC for the better part of two decades. Belichick is the game’s most successful coach of all-time, having won six Super Bowls with the Patriots while being the constant thorn in Pittsburgh’s side dating back to the early 2000s.
While both coaches are well-respected for their past accomplishments, they both find themselves in new waters, trying to keep their teams’ heads above water and remain relevant in the AFC. The Patriots have struggled on offense, much like the Steelers have, since Tom Brady left town, running a similar style of offense that they always had as Belichick remained rooted in his way of playing winning football.
Tomlin has done the same, stating that he wants to have a physical team that can control the clock with a steady run game to take pressure off his quarterback, leaning on his defense to keep the score down and win games late in the fourth quarter. He may not be able to control the fact that he has a young quarterback at the helm, but Tomlin zigging when everyone else is zagging with the high-flying passing attack with an explosive outside running game designed to get athletes in space is getting exposed. Pittsburgh has had to rely on a dink-and-dunk passing game the last several years, putting no fear in a defense that can load up the box and sell out against the run.
Tomlin and Belichick will both make the Hall of Fame one day, but even coaches need to be able to adjust on the fly and recognize what worked in the past might not always work going forward. Tomlin may want to play a style of football where the Steelers can milk possessions and lean on their defense, but when you are playing the likes of the Chiefs, Chargers, Bills, and Bengals in your own conference, you must be able to score 30-plus points if the game does become a shootout. The safe, conservative approach on offense doesn’t work anymore as we’ve seen with Pittsburgh’s results the last several years as the Steelers need a spark to go from a pop-gun offense to a legit threat to opposing defenses.
Changing the offensive coordinator/scheme would be a place to start, but it transcends just that. It comes down to who is leading the team at quarterback and Tomlin’s overall philosophy of playing to stay close in games on offense or playing to go win games. The Steelers must look themselves in the mirror after a dreadful start to the season offensively, deciding if they want to stick with what they’ve been doing, or look to make necessary changes to elicit a positive change.
