Tim Benz: More of the same old arguments during the Steelers’ upcoming offseason
It happens like so many others have in the recent past as the Pittsburgh Steelers begin their 2024 offseason.
• Following an 8-8, non-playoff season, there were concerns in the offseason of 2020 regarding Ben Roethlisberger’s quarterback performance following surgery on his elbow.
• The 12-4 season that concluded with a double-digit home loss to Cleveland in the first round of the playoffs and concerns about how the Steelers could modify Roethlisberger’s contract to retain him at quarterback came to an end in the offseason of 2021.
• The 9-8 season that ended in a double-digit loss in Kansas City’s first round of the playoffs and uncertainty about the quarterback position after Ben Roethlisberger left was concluded in the offseason of 2022.
• The 9-8 season that concluded without a postseason trip and raising concerns about Kenny Pickett’s ability to start at quarterback concluded in the offseason of 2023.
Now that the 2024 offseason has begun, there are doubts about whether Pickett should truly take back the starting quarterback position following a 10-7 season that concluded with a double-digit loss in Buffalo during the first round of the playoffs.
The same old situation with the Steelers. The old Steelers arguments.
Among them are the questions of how much praise or blame coach Mike Tomlin should receive for steering the team to its 17th straight winning season without losing and how much criticism he should receive for not leading the team to a seventh straight postseason victory.
Mike Greenberg, Kimberly Martin, Jeff Saturday, and Marcus Spears took the typical route that most members of the national media take during an episode of “Get Up!” on ESPN last week. That is to simply celebrate Tomlin’s professional achievements, disregard the failures of the previous seven seasons, and make fun of anyone in Pittsburgh who has the audacity to believe that the Steelers should have achieved more since the team’s last went to the Super Bowl 13 years ago
That amounted to nothing more than a greatest hits album of cliches—overused, low-hanging fruit, Tomlin defense.
• Tomlin will find another job in five minutes if he decides to leave the Steelers.
• Who will the Steelers get to replace Tomlin if they allow him to leave?
• Because of the mess that is the quarterback situation and the poor offensive coordinatorship of Matt Canada, Tomlin should take full credit for any success the Steelers have and bear little responsibility for mistakes.
Naturally, all of that overlooks:
• Whether it makes sense to keep Tomlin in Pittsburgh indefinitely is irrelevant given that he will likely find employment elsewhere soon (see “Reid, Andy” and “Eagles, Philadelphia”).
• That the Steelers were able to insert Bill Cowher in place of Chuck Noll and Tomlin in place of Cowher
• That Tomlin hired Canada in 2020, promoted him in 2021, and kept him on the team through the middle of this season; that Tomlin is crucial in building the roster, especially at quarterback.
Give credit to Kyle Brandt of the NFL Network for being one of the few members of the national media who is willing to offer an alternative viewpoint on Tomlin’s situation.
“They make it to the postseason and have their doors blown off,” Brandt stated last week on “Good Morning Football.” “They went 0–5 in their last five playoff games, and they were absolutely destroyed. You can see that they simply get destroyed too soon. It appears as though they choose not to attend.Brandt had not finished.
“The whole ‘we never have a losing season’ thing is getting old. I know there are a lot of people in the media who don’t want to cross Tomlin or love Tomlin, and I have no problem with Tomlin. Because if you don’t, you lose the wild card round and are eliminated. It’s sufficient,” Brandt went on.
Then Brandt talked about the main source of annoyance for Steelers supporters, who are tired of hearing the national media act like sheep in response to Tomlin’s unbeaten season streak.
Many teams would kill for it, according to Brandt. “Teams like the Raiders, Chargers, and Browns say they make the playoffs every year. As the head coach of the Steelers, you cannot approach me and declare, “Well, we’re in.”
Particularly when your unofficial team motto is “The standard is the standard.” These days, that standard is extremely common.
Of the 32 teams in the league, 14 advance to the postseason. Nine teams had eleven victories or more in the end. Furthermore, ten out of thirty-two teams in the league had nine or ten victories at the end of the season. It is impressive to have finished 17 seasons in a row at.500 or above. It is not to end 11 of the previous 13 seasons without a postseason victory.
Whether the Steelers will be better off without Tomlin in the future is a topic we could discuss for a lifetime. And that’s what we’ll most likely need to do. Because that conversation will remain completely hypothetical once Tomlin receives his anticipated contract extension this offseason.
The Steelers have been a remarkably average team for the past six seasons, winning between eight and ten games in five of those seasons and going without a postseason win. That much is undeniable, though.
Thus, Pittsburghers can be made fun of by ESPN presenters for wanting more than that meager “standard” all they want. I will support those both locally and nationally who have called them out on their erroneous and repetitive narrative.
