Losing five straight games to close the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers went out with a whimper in what appeared to be a very promising season.
Now, following five straight losses, which included an embarrassing exit from the postseason with an AFC Wild Card loss to the Baltimore Ravens, changes could — and should — be coming for the Steelers.
For SiriusXM’s Adam Schein though, none of those changes will matter until the Steelers make a change at head coach. Appearing on Mad Dog Radio Thursday, Schein praised head coach Mike Tomlin as a future Hall of Fame head coach.
However, he stated that nobody can look at the Steelers right now under Tomlin and truly believe it will get any better because the team has no real path forward to improve at quarterback.
“There are teams that don’t even have vacancies right now that would fire their coach to hire Mike Tomlin if Mike Tomlin was available. The New York Jets, as a quick example, would do anything and everything for Mike Tomlin to be their head coach. I wanna acknowledge when it’s all said and done, how good of a coach Mike Tomlin has been for a long period of time,” Schein said, according to video via Mad Dog Radio on Twitter. “Sometimes it’s over and I don’t know how you could objectively look into the crystal ball and say it’s going to get better in Pittsburgh.”
With how the season ended, it’s hard to find any positives. Things took a drastic turn in December for the Black and Gold, and on both sides of the football, too.
The defense struggled to create turnovers and couldn’t get stops on a consistent basis. The offense stopped creating splash plays, couldn’t run the football and certainly couldn’t pass protect either, doing something the Steelers didn’t even do during the Matt Canada tenure: fail to score more than 17 points in five straight games.
Much of the criticism for the Steelers entering the offseason centers on their lack of an answer at quarterback. Many are seemingly giving Tomlin a pass there, with the common thought being he did more with this roster than expected. That’s fair, but Tomlin plays a role in the shaping of the roster, so he’s culpable there, too.
For Schein, it will be tough to address QB moving forward because of the team’s current outlook, picking No. 21 in the first round of the draft and not having many offensive weapons to attract a top target. Though Schein does admit he could see Sam Arnold or Aaron Rodgers in Pittsburgh next year, it won’t change the fact that the Steelers are a mess.
“Now, Mike Tomlin is very much involved when it comes to player personnel. Doesn’t have the GM title, but obviously everything runs through Mike T and he wanted Russell Wilson,” Schein said. “He benched Justin Fields for Russell Wilson. This is another offseason post-Ben Roethlisberger, where you have to ask yourself objectively knowing the answer, is the quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers next year on the roster? And the answer should be absolutely, positively not. Could I see Sam Darnold in Pittsburgh? Absolutely. Could I see Aaron Rogers in Pittsburgh? Absolutely.
“I look at this roster and I think this team is a mess. I look at the feel around this team. I think it’s a disaster.”
He’s not wrong in how things feel right now in Pittsburgh. It’s another year of getting to the playoffs, not having a losing season, and bowing out in the first round in embarrassing fashion. It’s another year of offensive struggles overall, with the Steelers wanting to play old-school, safe football, rather than adjusting to the new age of football across multiple levels.
Things don’t feel great right now. We’ll see what changes happen and what quarterback is brought in or retained. But a lot more needs to happen for the feel around the Steelers to improve.
