Talking heads are going to talk. You have to expect it. It’s their job, after all. And it’s my job to write, occasionally, about what the talking heads are saying. Today’s talking head is Adam Schein, who weighed in on the “culture” conversation currently surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And he came down on the side of former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, who on his latest podcast, questioned if “The Steelers Way” is done. “Needless to say, Big Ben is right. Steelers history and tradition is done”, Schein said.
“This is a Steelers team that just lost two consecutive home games to teams that were eight games under .500 each”, he pointed out, not that any of us have forgotten. “I think that the nuggets of futility here for the Pittsburgh Frauds are kind of telling. It’s a complete and utter mess”.
In addition to the history-setting low mentioned above, Schein also points out four consecutive games scoring 18 or fewer points, only two-plus offensive touchdowns in five of 13 games, and only one game in which a quarterback has thrown multiple touchdown passes. It’s pretty dismal stuff, even if somewhat selective. And as he would argue, symptomatic of deeper problems.
“The message from Tomlin is stale. Defense is good, it’s not great. Mitch Trubisky’s awful”, he said. “Warren’s done nothing, and Harris has done nothing, and Diontae Johnson’s not falling on loose footballs. He’s celebrating when they’re down three scores, and George Pickens is just running aimlessly. It’s a mess with the Pittsburgh Steelers”.
He didn’t forget the futility of the Matt Canada tenure as offensive coordinator either, of course, though he did not note that his in-season firing marked basically a first in franchise history. You have to be really remarkably unproductive to be canned in November in Pittsburgh.
Last week was awful, there’s no debating that. The real question is what comes next. As we saw on Thursday night with the Las Vegas Raiders, you don’t have to be the team you were the week before. After losing a 3-0 game, they put up 60-plus points on the Los Angeles Chargers.
And the Steelers, before last week, responded to every loss with not one but two wins. There are times when they’ve looked better than others. There have been signs of hope. The first game after Canada’s firing had people talking about them potentially vying for the number one seed, even after scoring just 16 points.
Well, things have gone in a different direction since then, needless to say. And there’s no guarantee that they suddenly get the ship back on course. It won’t be easy while deploying a backup quarterback, for as many faults as QB Kenny Pickett might have.
But are we jumping the gun with all of this “the culture is done” talk? It feels like we’ve been having similar conversations for decades whenever they lose a couple of bad games. I remember for years before he retired, every time former New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera blew a save, the conversation the next day was, is he done? Well, he wasn’t. And maybe the Steelers tradition isn’t done yet, either. It just needs nurturing.
