It sounds like they’re riding the 3-1 momentum and the rejuvenated run game. He’s the #2 so he’ll play more this season. RGIII has already played in at least two games because Jackson got hurt (concussion protocol and ankle injury).
*And that’s the biggest problem with Jackson, Raven’s are losing by 3 in OT to the best offense in the league and Jackson’s on the sideline hurt. He’s an explosive player, but all that running is a liability and he is not even remotely a pocket passer.
He has the talent to and tools to be a good pocket passer. His problem is that he has a run first mentality with little patience, instead of progressing through his reads he just bolts at the first sign. I agree, big liability.
The talent is definitely there. He might develop into a phenomenal player, but that seems to always be the case with a lot of run first qbs. Time will tell, I just foresee another RGIII. Once he takes that first big hit…
Cough…Cam Newton… cough.
Ya, but he’s built like a linebacker.
I think McNair could have been special if he didn’t get murdered.
McNair was a good player for sure.
This is true of every fan base.
I grew up near Philly and remain an Eagles fan, but I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for almost 15 years now. I’ve come around as a casual Steelers fan (it’s fun when the hometown team is good, means you get to see more good games). I don’t have a lot of emotional investment but I like it when they’re good.
The amount of shit Mike Tomlin takes in this city is utterfuckingly unbelievable to this casual fan. After EVERY Steelers loss, there’s “Don from Baldwin” on the radio about how the Steelers need to just fire Tomlin because he’s holding the team back.
A few fun facts:
Mike Tomlin is in his 12th year coaching the Steelers. He has ten winning seasons, two 8-8’s and zero losing seasons.
Tomlin’s career winning percentage of .653 ranks 7th all time (behind John Madden, Vince Lombardi, George Allen, Bill Belichick, Don Shula, Tony Dungy) among guys that coached at least 100 games in the Super Bowl era.
Belichick is the only active NFL coach with a higher winning percentage. Let’s repeat that: Belichick is the ONLY active NFL coach with a higher win percentage.
Basically, he’s not just one of the most successful coaches in the NFL today; he’s one of the most successful NFL coaches ever; and get Steelers fans NEVER SHUT UP about whether it’s time to move on from Tomlin. They were 13-3 last year!
For people who say that it’s not just about the team record, it’s that they occasionally choke away winnable games, that’s true of every single team in the NFL (see also: Dolphins 34, Patriots 33).
Somewhat like LSU eventually ran Les Miles out of town for not being quite as good as Nick Saban, I think Tomlin is ridiculously/unfairly criticized because Steeler fans are jealous of the Pats; they don’t want to blame the players, so it must be that Tomlin isn’t a good enough coach. Unbelievable.
(I feel the same about John Harbaugh & Andy Reid, by the way: criminally under-appreciated by their own fanbases; when you have a prolonged run of success with a good coach, you forget what it’s like to root for a team that sucks. Make them be a Browns fan for a couple years, they’d be begging to have a Tomlin or Reid back)
Uh, McNair got murdered when he was 36, after he retired from the NFL. That didn’t shorten his career. He was already done.
EDIT: also re “could have been special” - McNair was 91-62 as a starter over like 13 seasons, went to a Super Bowl, and made three Pro Bowls. He was one of the top, I don’t know, six QB’s in the league at his peak? I think it’s fair to say he was fairly special.
Yes, he was a good player, but he wasn’t that much of a “run first” QB. McNair was a very good athlete early in his career, but only ran more than 100 times in a season once and after age 28 or so was basically a standstill pocket passer.
Donovan McNabb followed a similar path: came into the league a fleet-footed scrambler, over the course of his 20’s learned to use his mobility to keep plays alive rather than just taking off, and by 30 was more pocket passer than scrambler.
We’re starting to see this with Russell Wilson now, too,
At his current pace, even having missed 3 games, it’s possible/likely that Josh Allen will finish this year with more rushing attempts & yards than McNair or McNabb ever had in a season.
As for Lamar / running QB in general, it would just require such a radical change in thinking from the way today’s game is being played that I don’t see it. I read a pretty good article awhile ago that delved into the Tebow era Broncos and why they were able to be successful despite Tebow being a sub-replacement-level passer; it argued that pairing an awesome defense with a punishing running game and a QB that never turned the ball over (because they threw so infrequently and he did have a low INT rate), you had a zig-when-everyone-else-is-zagging recipe that could conceivably work if your QB (Tebow) was durable enough to hold up and play that offense full time.
Instead, they signed Peyton Manning and kicked ass for a few years with a modern NFL offense, which was probably easier, but I’d have loved to see an NFL team go all in on running Tebow with spread / read option, keeping the ball on the ground 85 percent of the time and trying to win with defense and ball control. Most fans would be bored as hell, but I would have found it an interesting experiment.
That’s pretty much what they’re doing in Baltimore with Jackson, Dixon, Edwards, and Montgomery. Strong defense (which has shocked me tbh) and pounding the ball. They’re 3-1 this way, but all four teams have a defense in the bottom 5-10. I just don’t see it working against better teams.
A defensive juggernaut that pounds the ball? I think half of NFL fans would love to watch mahomes run for his life and get kept off the field by 9 minute drives on the other side.
I miss the run game in the pro game and watch more college ball, because of it.
Of course, Big 12 is pretty pass-happy too.
Every year the top two people in the DIVISION have gotten a spot in the fantasy playoffs. This year the league owner changed it so the record and PF determine playoffs. I didn’t know this, ended up 3rd in my division but 4th overall in my league, so I thought I wouldn’t make the playoffs, stopped setting my lineup and lost by 4 points in the playoffs because my best players were on my bench from byes.
As a Pat’s fan I enjoy watching Steeler’s games even when the Pat’s aren’t playing them. Always have. Interesting stats on Tomlin. Always thought he was a good coach - even if he’s a whiney bitch when he loses in Foxborough
I think that an offense like that would work for maybe 2 seasons before teams figure out how to stop the run game. But I think the main issue would be finding willing receivers to run block for 90% of the game. I can see top receivers asking to be traded or not even willing to meet with the team during free agency. You can get guys who would block but can’t really catch. This would be a big problem for when you’re forced to throw the ball.
Full stop, not just in Foxborough. It’s always the ref’s fault, field conditions etc… this week he blamed the X-ray machine at the Coliseum for him keeping his first ballot HOF quarterback off the field in the second half. The truth is he had the lead against the raiders and slept on them.
He’s the winningest regular season coach next to Belechik out of current coaches. Nobody really cares about that though. He’s had Big Ben his entire career in the NFL and has one ring, and no playoff success in the past 5 seasons IIRC. Contrast that to Noll/Bradshaw, Belechik/Brady.
Tomlin is underperforming.
He was supposed to be a defensive coach, but he and Colbert have wasted a bunch of first round draft picks on the defense and almost all of the picks in the secondary have been dumpster fires. Has there ever been a more aptly named professional cornerback as Artie Burns?
All the minority owners of the Steelers and fans want him gone. But the Rooneys are only allowed one coach per generation.
I don’t see how it can work long term in the NFL where the rules favor high powered passing offenses. The Ravens Chiefs game is a perfect example. The Raven’s defense held the #1 offense to 27, but that wasn’t good enough and the number of penalties on the Raven’s defense was pretty high (11 for 112 yards).
Yes, the Raven’s are 3-1 using this formula, but the defenses they’ve played all have bottom of the league defenses. The best defense Lamar has faced is ranked 26th (Atlanta). The Chargers will be a good test they’re #11 in run defense and #6 in total offense.
People always say stuff like this, but it just seems short-sighted to me. Manning barely managed a second ring after consistently tearing the AFC up for a decade. When he won it with Denver he didn’t even play the whole season (iirc) and basically handed the ball off in the playoffs. Rodgers only has one ring is that because McCarthy has underperformed (I know he’s been fired). Favre only won one ring. A lot of really great qb’s only won one. Bradshaw is an anomaly and, while Brady is extremely good and maybe the best of all time, it doesn’t hurt that they play in the worst division year over year in the NFL.
We can all take a second to appreciate this, though.
That’s every coach in the NFL, when they lose anywhere.
College too.
Haven’t you watched any other press conferences?
LOL, I knew this was coming. I was about to pop back in and post something to the effect of “Tomlin being successful doesn’t mean he’s immune from criticism - no coach is or should be - but you might want to be careful what you wish for with the time-to-fire-him talk.”
It’s fair to criticize Tomlin. What wiser, stronger man do you suggest to take his place?
Yes, this is a fucking insane and short-sighted way of thinking. Some days I hope they do fire Tomlin and turn into the fucking Browns for a decade just so the Steelers can appreciate what they had.
They wouldn’t get it, of course, but people really underrate some of the most consistent-winning coaches with such ridiculous justifications like “But he hasn’t won a ring in ____ years.”
Sean Payton has had Drew Brees his entire career, only has one ring, and has had no playoff success in the last five years. FIRE HIS ASS!
As for “he’s had Big Ben his entire career in the NFL” - similar to Belichick being the only active coach that’s been more successful than Tomlin, Brady is the only active QB with more than one ring.
(checks notes)
Besides Eli Manning.
Anyways, the point is, usmc is right - several great QB’s retire with “only one” ring (or in some cases zero rings; I’m still kind of hoping the Chargers might pull one out of their ass in the next year or two because I think Rivers has been an underrated player; but that also competes with my desire that Andy Reid wins a ring with the Chiefs and sets Mahomes off on a path of league destruction for the next decade).
All love to you, Basement Gainz, but Steelers fans that think Tomlin should be fired are fucking morons.
I’m sure zero minds are being changed here, but I still have to point out: that approach from the Rooneys has made the Steelers the most consistently successful franchise in the League over the past 50 years. Hell, people wanted Cowher gone a couple of times before he finally broke through and won a Super Bowl. I’m not surprised they want Tomlin gone - I just don’t think the average fan appreciates how hard it is to build a consistent winner, nor is it realistic to expect a coach to be fired every time a team doesn’t win a Super Bowl for __ years.
This is like sitting in the stands at some of my high school’s games when I’m visiting home (with a coach that has a 2012 state championship, career record of 300-83-1, one losing season in 30-some years, and hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2004) and listening to fans grumble that the playbook is too predictable because they KNEW we were going to run the ball on that play and that’s totally why it got stopped.