Home Steelers 2015 Season The Steelers’ Coaching Staff Deserves Some Credit

The Steelers’ Coaching Staff Deserves Some Credit

by Steelbydesign

I’m not sure why I do it nearly every Steelers game, but particularly late games when I tend to be up late watching games by myself I look on twitter to get live reactions from Steeler Nation.

Monday night against the Chargers… the reaction was not good for about 59 of the 60 minutes of gameplay.

I saw a ton of comments about how the Steelers were “playing scared” by not letting Michael Vick throw the ball more. I saw a ton of comments that were essentially “why did they even sign Michael Vick if they don’t trust him in this situation.” Many made it sound as if the Steelers announced that they’d been incredibly lucky to grab such an electrifying playmaker and game changer right off the street when Bruce Gradkowski was lost for the season.

To every one of those people I asked; “who would you have signed that’s better?”

I didn’t get a single name.

There was actually a very large number of fans calling for Landry Jones to take the field. Funny how short peoples’ memories are. Landry Jones has yet to look functional even against guys in late pre-season games that aren’t making NFL rosters.

One of my favorite tweets of the night came from @JustinOnslowNFL who said “It’s okay to see a problem and acknowledge there isn’t an answer. Vick is a problem. Landry Jones is not the answer.” He really nailed it.

 

Look everyone… The Steelers coaching staff saw Vick run this team for 10 days in practice and they know that he’s a turnover machine. They know he can’t read a defense. They know he is painfully inaccurate.

Unfortunately he’s the only guy available with any NFL experience whatsoever. And having experience in these situations matters.

I tweeted yesterday afternoon “@Steel_By_Design I’m not sure if @ can beat the Chargers defense completely on his own, but I hope Todd Haley let’s him try tonight.

That’s exactly what Todd Haley did… It was frustrating, boring, risky, conservative, lucky in the end… but it worked.

Were the Steelers playing scared? Sure, if you want to call it that. I call it smart.

 

How many of you screamed after the Ravens game… “Why do you take the ball out of the best running back in the league’s hands in favor of Michael Vick?!?”

I realize Bell was running against 8 man fronts all game long, and that Antonio Brown was in man to man coverage most of the night. I also realize Vick is just not capable of getting the ball to Brown consistently without turning it over.

Three times in the second half (before the last 2 drives) Vick threw the ball longer than 10 yards 3 times, and all 3 times Vick threw an interception that was dropped. Michael Vick easily could have had a 4 interception game last night which gives them 0 chance of winning.

Mike Tomlin and Todd Haley played it smart, and within the flow of the game. They had a defense that was playing extremely well after the first series, and were never more than 1 score out of it. They played it conservative, and hoped that Bell could break a big run or their defense could get them in position for an easy score.

It worked. Antwon Blake snatched a pick-6 to put the Steelers ahead in the 3rd quarter. Oh, and for all the “conservative” talk they certainly were not defensively. Keith Butler has brought back “Blitzburgh.” Butler sent pressure at Rivers all night long, and while Rivers sniffed out a lot of them and threw checkdowns, you can’t argue with the results. Especially late in the game, while they didn’t get sacks there were two instances where blitzers knocked down passes on key downs.

Then, when Antonio Gates scored his second touchdown late in the game, with the team down 7, it became clear that the offense had to get more aggressive in the play calling… and they did. Taking a shot deep to Markus Wheaton to tie the game.

IT. WAS. PERFECT.

They played the game to not let Vick kill you with turnovers, until they had to let him loose and he made just enough big plays to seal the win. That is what you have to do to win with Mike Vick under center.

 

Oh… and the playcall at the end of the game? How’s that for playing scared?

I’m not sure about the play that was called (but hey, it worked), but I was rooting hard for them to go for the win, even if it meant there wouldn’t be time to call a timeout. That was the only time in the entire game the offense saw the redzone. The defense was completely gassed. They had to live or die on that play.

And back to the playcall for a second. Much of Steeler nation was predictably upset with the amount of wildcat formation used in the game. I’ve never been a huge fan of it personally… but I like that Todd Haley is trying to find creative ways to move the ball without #7 in there.

And as much as you all hate it. Le’Veon Bell ran out of the wildcat 4 times… He picked up 6 yards, 6 yards, -4 yards, and the 1 yard game winner… That’s really not bad.

 

I’m extremely pumped up that the team grabbed what could be a crucial win in the AFC wildcard race late in the season. After the comments I saw last night I just wanted to give a shout out to Mike Tomlin, Todd Haley, and Keith Butler for a great gameplan going into Monday night football.

What I saw was a coaching staff that knows it’s strengths, and it’s weaknesses and worked to their strengths last night, and they managed to steal one on the road despite not having their best player on the field. For all the grief they get, they deserve some credit today.

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1 comment

bob graff October 14, 2015 - 1:17 am

I think a special shout out goes to coach Ben. He really has become quite the leader of this team.

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