Long before Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch or Demi Moore was rebuilt with plastic, they starred in a movie with legendary actor Jack Nicholson called “A Few Good Men.” It was a military thriller that gave us one of the best lines in recent movie history when Nicholson’s character, a respected Marine General barked, “You can’t handle the truth!”
With a couple of days to take in all of the anger, outrage and disappointment on social media I’ve come to a very stark conclusion that we as Steelers’ fans are struggling to handle the truth.
They say the truth often hurts and what follows will because we don’t want such facts to ever be said about our beloved black and gold. That said, there are hard truths about this team that we need to accept.
The truth is…
…That this team is a mess. From dysfunction among the coaches to weak relationships among players.
…This team is 3-3. It could easily be 4-2 and could easily be 2-4 but it isn’t. At 3-3, the season is far from over.
…Dick LeBeau has been unable to make the changes necessary to accommodate his players. Instead, he expects them to adjust to him and that’s not good coaching in my opinion.
…The Steelers on a 2nd and nine play in the second quarter rushed one defender. Yes, ONE defender.
…The Steelers were forced to call a timeout immediately after the Browns did because the Steelers had too many men on the field.
…Ben Roethlisberger looks less and less interested every week.
…The signings of Mike Mitchell, Cam Thomas and Lance Moore have been to this point total failures.
…This draft class has failed for a myriad of reasons and so far it’s a bust.
…Heath Miller has lost a step especially when it comes to blocking.
…That Mike Tomlin may hate the tag of ‘players’ coach’ but right now he is the definition of one.
…That Cortez Allen couldn’t cover a bed with 40 x 40 tarp.
…That all eyes will be on Art Rooney II if this continues through the season.
…That Lawrence Timmons plays his tail off every week.
…The offensive line is struggling much more than we envisioned under Mike Munchak.
…That gaining a ton of yards means nothing unless you can score in the red zone.
…That it’s hard to be a Steelers’ fan right now but you wouldn’t give it up for anything.
I could probably go on and on here but you get the point. There is still plenty of time for this team to right the ship but there are just too many issues for us to think it can happen.
The question is whether you are willing to handle the truth or not. To believe otherwise would be living in a world of fantasy kind of like the one Tom Cruise is in.
Marc Uhlmann writes for and co-owns www.steelcityblitz.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteelDad and the website @SCBlitz. Check us out on Facebook at facebook.com/steelcityblitz and on Fancred.com. You can hear him weekly during the season on game day on the Trib-Live Radio Steelers Pre-Game
2 comments
I can handle what your telling us as fans but let me ask you this: Why do you even bother? ART II wanted Haley and nobody had a say in that. The D just has to play the young guys even though by the time the end of the season it probably won’t matter. The Offense is centered around a run-first idea that is not meant for the 2014 NFL but the owner won’t understand that cause he’s just stubborn. What can you honestly ask LeBeau to do differently? He only knows 1 way to coach, he never had to deal with this situation before in his career. If you look at the WR core there trying to fit a slot WR in Wheaton into there No.2 option(square peg in round hole reference) when everybody knows your No.2 WR has to compliment the top WR or he has to be a different breed of WR so that you force to pick and choose who to cover but they don’t want Ben to have what he wants as far as personal cause the owner won’t let go of the Georgia situation from 2010 in ART’s mind he is punishing Ben and he feel great comfort in that he is making his QB’s life a living nightmare(he double hockey sticks is what should be there but I doubt this site would allow it) Fix the owners dumb a** attitude and things would go a lot smoother or they would get worse.
Here Here. I think all Steelers fan handle the truth, but the organization can’t. I agree that Art Rooney is still punishing Ben and that trend will likely continue. No one minded jumping on the Big Ben bandwagon when times were good, but as soon as it hit the skids, the Steeler organization from the head down couldn’t jump off the train in the middle of the night fast enough. The players need to take ownership of the rest of the season. Fix what doesn’t work; get rid the stupid offensive penalties that stall a good drive; make ALL coaches accountable for their players; and, stop blaming Ben for EVERYTHING. Yes we all know he is high risk and high reward, he has always been so. One of these days the Steeler organization is going to look around for #7’s can to kick and he will have taken it elsewhere and who would blame him. All true Steeler fans will continue to take the heat because we know something good is cookin’ around the corner.