There’s been all kinds of praise heaped upon Steelers Offensive Coordinator Todd Haley lately and certainly since the end of last season. After all, his offense was one of the most prolific in the league and his trio of Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell were easily the best group of three in the NFL.
Before we appoint Haley the next Mayor of Pittsburgh however is it too much to ask for a win in the postseason?
The last time Todd Haley was a coach of a team that won a playoff game he was the offensive coordinator in Arizona. Since then, he’s been the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs where he was 0-1 in the playoffs and now enters his fourth season as the OC in the Steel City. His playoff record for the Steelers is 0-1.
Many will say the aging and weakening defense is largely responsible for the Steelers’ lack of postseason appearances as well as playoff failures and they’d have a point.
But Haley has struggled to get this team better in the red zone and he’s been guilty on numerous occasions of ‘over-thinking’ things. Both of those issues have cost the team points and valuable timeouts, especially when too much tinkering with personnel has occurred.
What really surprises me is that I’ve always known fans in Pittsburgh to measure greatness and success by one thing; championships.
We’ve often laughed at other fan bases who touted their high-powered offenses and great defenses yet had nothing in the way of trophies or rings to show for them. Is that what we are becoming? Are we suddenly settling for the Dan Marino-Dolphins or Peyton Manning-Broncos who gained thousands of yards yet couldn’t win the big one when it mattered?
Haley has done two things that Art Rooney II wanted him to do when he was hired. He has gotten the ball out of Ben Roethlisberger’s hand faster and the running game has improved. I can’t deny either of those things. What I want though is results that end in playoff victories and I could care less how many numbers are put up in the process.