After another disaster in the playoffs for the Pittsburgh Steelers, many of the same questions remain that were present last offseason. None of the questions were definitively answered, and many of them have gotten worse.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. The Steelers made some drastic changes last offseason, bringing in a new offensive coordinator and multiple new coaches on the offensive side of the ball. They brought in an entirely different quarterback room. They also revamped their offensive line and bolstered their defense with some relatively expensive free agent additions. But the more things change, the more they stay the same.
One of the biggest questions after 2023 was the lack of leadership on offense and a lack of accountability on the team in general. One former NFL general manager says that question still remains.
“There’s nobody in there that’s going to grab somebody on the facemask and hold them accountable,” Doug Whaley said via The Black & Gold Zone on WPXI. “And it’s not obviously happening in the coaching staff because there’s a saying in football: you’re either coaching it or allowing it.
“When you listen to these guys talk in the locker room, they don’t know what the problem is. They talk about execution but they’re not executing. So at some point, either the coaching staff or someone in the locker room has to hold them accountable.”
The Steelers lost five games in a row, including the playoffs. During the losing streak, players repeatedly pointed to shoddy execution or a lack of communication as issues. The communication issues were self-proclaimed to have been resolved, so that leaves execution. They can’t just point to a lack of execution in five straight games. At some point, coaches or captains need to start holding players accountable.
To be fair, we don’t know what goes on behind closed doors other than on HBO’s Hard Knocks, and that doesn’t show all of what goes on. Anybody who watches a handful of Mike Tomlin press conferences will see that he has a way with words, but a lot of his sayings have been said hundreds of times over at this point. Could his message have lost its luster in the locker room?
Multiple players defended Tomlin’s leadership after the playoff loss. But until the Steelers can pinpoint where the issue is, it’s hard to make any meaningful changes.
Bringing in a veteran QB like Russell Wilson, who has been a team captain every year but his rookie season, was also a play to help improve the leadership of the team. It all ended with the same results, right down to the record and the first-round exit in the playoffs.
It isn’t an easy issue to fix unless the Steelers completely clean house with Tomlin and likely the rest of his coaching staff. Young players will need to start taking more ownership, too. Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt won’t be around forever.
