Not renewing secondary coach Grady Brown’s contract was a rather shocking move by the Pittsburgh Steelers, especially after Brown was very clearly one of the top up-and-coming young coaches on their staff.
Brown was starting to generate some defensive coordinator buzz in recent years after getting the opportunity to do so at the Senior Bowl in 2023 and then getting an interview with the Atlanta Falcons this offseason for their vacant coordinator role.
But now, he’s without a job in Pittsburgh after the Steelers did not renew his contract and hired Gerald Alexander as their new defensive backs coach. Alexander returns to the Steelers after one season in Las Vegas, and gives the Steelers an experienced, fiery coach in the secondary again.
The decision to do that over Brown remains puzzling. But for Steelers insider Ray Fittipaldo, who appeared on the North Shore Drive podcast Wednesday with host Christopher Carter, the move to not renew Brown’s contract was head coach Mike Tomlin’s decision alone, and it is a signal that the communication issues last season in the secondary were the biggest issue.
“You gotta trust that Mike Tomlin knows what he’s doing here. This was Mike’s decision. How many blown coverages did we see late in the season? And actually throughout the season? I mean, you go back to Indianapolis and Dallas, it was an issue that never really got fixed,” Fittipaldo said of the decision to not renew Brown’s contract, according to video via the Post-Gazette on YouTube. “And really, I don’t know this for sure, only Mike will be able to address this the next time we talk to him, but Aaron Curry was part of that, too. Patrick Queen was the hub of the defense. The communication between the second and third levels, the defense really were off all season.
“So, I don’t know if both those guys were scapegoated, but it certainly seems like those issues that were ongoing throughout the season that were never fixed, it looks like it cost Grady and Aaron Curry both of their jobs.”
The communication issues were a major issue in the second half of the season, particularly from Weeks 16 on as the Steelers’ secondary just blew coverages left and right. Guys were exasperated with each other, leading to some in-fighting after the Christmas Day loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Though at the time Tomlin stated he was glad the guys were frustrated and bickering because it showed they cared, the communication issues were a major problem that never really got fixed. As Fittipaldo pointed out, they also occurred at times early in the season, too, including in losses to the Indianapolis Colts on the road and the Dallas Cowboys at home.
So, with communication issues at the center of things in the secondary, not to mention some regression from the likes of Joey Porter Jr. and Minkah Fitzpatrick. Tomlin seemingly wanted to change things up, and that cost Brown his job.
As Fittipaldo speculated, too, it might have cost Curry his job as well, considering in the first year with the Steelers wearing the green dot, there were issues with Patrick Queen and his ability to communicate and get everyone lined up correctly.
“When you put it together, who are the two units that played most off-ball coverage on the Steelers that led to those problems? And it was the linebackers and the defensive backs. And so maybe that was part of it. Mike Tomlin said he was gonna do a year-end review and they were gonna assess what went wrong in the tail end of the season,” Fittipaldo said. “Maybe this is telling us what the Steelers found when they were looking over the whys and the hows at the end of the season as far as why things fell apart, especially on defense.”
From that vantage point, that all sounds reasonable. It’s just a shame it came to this with Brown, if that ended up being the case. He was up and coming, and then just like that it’s over. We’ll see if Alexander can right the ship in the secondary and is part of the solution Tomlin envisions.
