I wanna see an attacking defense again. Look what Baltimore did against us with less at CB just by pressure and most of it was just the look. Dicks exotic blitzes were not working anymore and he didnt change. Sorry. I am fully behind Coach Butler and ready for 2015.
no one said anything about obligations. no one on this board is even obligated to be a fan of this team, but we are.Originally Posted by Dwinsgames
not sure why you are comparing a PFW linebacker coach of the year replacing one of the best defensive minds ever, to dri archer replacing chris rainey/larod stephens-howling, but amusing to say the least.
boy you must have hated bill cowher an awful lot because you live in a world where legends are forbidden from departing from this team.
There's a difference between legends departing, and the front office unceremoniously dumping/screwing someone who'd given the team so much. If this is how it's going to be, at least man up with an explanation.
how dare you infer that dick lebeau didnt necessarily get the best bang for his buck out of this unit! he's the best ever and he can't make any mistakes ever!
Which they won't.
i agree with you completely. but lets be realistic. they wont, thats just not how this organization has operated since Art took over. all we can do as fans is move on or stay pointlessly angry and not have it really accomplish anything
Array title="SteelerFanInStl has a reputation beyond repute">
I like Coach LeBeau as much as anyone but he simply wasn't getting the job done the last few years. The defense has been terrible.
If we would have missed the playoffs again this year, I would have been fine with the whole coaching staff getting replaced, except for Munchak. As it was, the team turned it around because of the offense. The offense carried the defense all year.
Fox was fired from Denver and his team was in the Super Bowl last year and the playoffs again this year. It's a tough business.
“I believe the game is designed to reward the ones who hit the hardest. If you can't take it, you shouldn't play!” - Jack Lambert
I tend to agree...however, let's be honest, the talent hasn't been that great either.
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Maybe the Rooney's thought and were hoping Dick would retire/resign a few years ago. Maybe they thought with all the effort to keep Butler in the fold, Dick would say *I'm 77 years old, I've got a few SB rings, HOF and a load of other awards, I'm going to step aside and give this young man a shot* Maybe Dick didn't want to hear what they were trying to say, and we have what we have. While I have questions about Butler, I'm sure going to give him a few years to prove himself. I think Dick has proved himself pretty selfish imo, legend or not.
he has been coaching on 1 year contracts for several years now by his choice because of age and uncertain health moving forward at an advanced age , health hasnt been an issue , if they did not want him back a few years back he would not have been back ( so there goes that theory )
How did Lebeau prove himself as selfish by wanting to continue coaching ? please do explain
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It doesn't matter how many 1 year contracts he had. I can see the Rooney's giving him more years than they wanted, hoping he would bow out gracefully, hoping they wouldn't have to ask him leave. He could still coach. How about switching positions with Butler, how about coaching DB's, how about taking a position as a mentor to all the players with the wealth of experience he has, how about being a stable force in some of these unstable young players lives? That may be the problem, Dick wants to continue to coach and that is all he can see. I don't think he's selfish because he wants to coach, I think he's selfish because he didn't know when to hand the mantle over to a younger man.
if that " younger man fails " ( and he very well could with no exp , a roster lacking talent at key spots ) , then who was selfish and who was just stupid ?
as a side note I refuse to subscribe to the notion Lebeau was being selfish by signing contracts offered to him by the team that is as ludicrous as anything I have read to date ( no offense bud )
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Sure can't fear failure, the real world would stand still if that happend.
when you fail to learn from history you're doomed to repeat it ... we have been here done that before ... Jim Haslett or Tim Lewis ring a Bell ?
i know this isnt addressed to me but i think this discussion is getting interesting so im going to jump in. i dont necessarily subscribe to lebeau being selfish at all. i think that is presumptive and hyperbolic, and ultimately i disagree. however, i see where shoes is coming from with his opinion. very interesting to say the least.
as for saying keith butler has no experience, thats absurd. pretty much every NFL coordinator of any kind started out as a position coach in some capacity before taking an OC or DC position. yeah, he has no experience as a DC at the NFL level but he had experience at the college level, was mentored by the best DC of all time, and held as impressive a pedigree as anyone as a position coach during his long tenure teaching linebackers how to get it done.
this guy has turned down/been denied interviews 4 times over the course of several years during his time in pittsburgh. and we promoted him to DC after only 4 days of Lebeau getting fired/leaving and without the precaution of taking a look at other DC candidates. if that doesnt scream "maybe this guy knows some shit and were damn confident about it" from the front office's perspective, then i dont know what will. thats part of the reason why i have optimism, albeit cautious optimism, in this promotion.
im going to at least wait for butler to give me a reason to piss me off before i actually do.
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Butler is nearly 60 years old and has been working/learning with Dick for over 10 years. I sure don't see any doomed history in this, thats the way the world turns.
Look I hope he is a kick ass DC , but there is PLENTY of room for doubt ...
I absolutely HATE the way it all went down , In my mind Lebeau has not lost his touch , his passion for the game or his mental ability to coach it , what he lost was the talent needed to do so at the level we have come to expect ...
while we where abysmal as a pass defense you have to look no further than the men in coverage to see why , pretty much everyone here has claimed more times than I can count Mike Mitchell sucks ....Pretty much everyone here has stated Troy is washed up /done/ old and slow/ ( or some form or fashion of all the above ) Nobody here wants Ike back for the same reasons as Troy and Cortez was injured ( perhaps mentally as well as physically ) and played horribly until benched ... so of the 4 starters in the def backfield at the season start not 1 of them was worthy of snaps all season long ....
Leading to scrap heap players of Blake and McCain ( neither of which anyone was excited about when signed ) and most didn't give a chance at making the team let alone getting snaps as starters and big time role players , Long time whipping boy William Gay went from Nickle backer to starter opposite a guy nobody thought would be here ... so yea we had more than our fair share of troubles in the def backfield ( could perhaps say and be accurate our worst starting group in 40 years on paper ? )
at linebacker we expected Worilds to be a difference maker based on the last 8 games of 2013 and gave him a ton of money to be that guy problem is he did not show up and was invisible more often than not ... Jarvis Jones gets hurt week 3 , your top pick and penciled in starter at ILB goes down early and for all intensive purposes ends his season for the most part , 3rd year Player Spence and second years player Wilians are forced to play ILB when 1 was lucky to even walk let alone play the game again and the other was so porous in aspects of his game we had to play Troy at the LOS the year before to help cover him up .. signed an over the hill ( others words not mine ) James Harrison to be a def star on the team and it worked starting just 4 days after inking a deal !! mixing in first year player in this system Moats in the mix as well with some good results leaving just 1 Linebacker with any amount of proven consistency on the field that was expected to play well in Timmons ....
of the front 3 we have a guy most do not consider good enough manning the most important spot of NT and was often injured during the process and Cam cant Thomas and mixed in a raw rookie when possible ...
started a dud player in cam thomas half the year that most of the free world disliked before the ink was dry on his contract
started a rookie 2nd round pick the last half of the season with mixed results but lots of promise and valuable exp came from it ...
this is what Lebeau had to work with and while the pass def sucked ( and after review why wouldn't it suck ) we still wound up the 6th best run def in the league in yards rushing allowed
this is what it is nothing we can do about it but make no mistake the reason why Dick Lebeau was pushed out is not because Lebeau has lost his touch , its because Lebeau did not have the pieces needed to operate the second and perhaps most important part of that was Bulters contract was also up and Butler wanted to be the DC .
Nobody has come right out and said it but make no mistake I can all but guarantee you Butler said he was moving on if not given the Job , he was tired of waiting for Lebeau to die or retire ( perhaps rightfully so from his perspective who could blame him for wanting to advance ) but that does not make what the organization did to Lebeau any more forgivable , they did not provide him with the parts necessary to be effective then can him when he was not and did not have the balls to own it was their decision to move on ....
many will disagree , many may flame but THIS is what I see as what happened by the coy end around that has happened and nothing less than a face to face with Lebeau telling me otherwise will change my mind ( that is not likely to happen ) not going to argue this with anyone as my mind is made up and it will do nothing but end up as a battle of words on the forum and nobody needs that ...
sorry If I pissed anyone off with this but I can not help how I feel on the matter .................
Really, the only thing I disagree with is saying that Mike Mitchell sucks. I'd like to see one more season with him on the defense before I say he sucks. Ryan Clark was pretty bad when he arrived in Pittsburgh. Mitchell looked a little better when Troy was off the field...so there could be something to that. Like I said, I'd like to see one more season before I said he sucks...and honestly, maybe he really does suck, but he played decent when Troy wasn't there so maybe it had something to do with communication and with a guy like Troy, that's understandable.
While I'm not as sad to see LeBeau go as some (aside from the way he was dumped!),
I'm not sure how you can say "hey we had a pretty good year for being in the middle of a massive rebuild" and then turn around and say "LeBeau wasn't getting it done."
We didn't have players on the field, ultimately LeBeau isn't responsible for that; Tomlin was busy scrounging longshot CBs from his alma mater anyway.
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Why can't you? We had a pretty good year BECAUSE OF THE OFFENSE. The defense was terrible.
I'm not buying all of this talk about LeBeau not being responsible for the players on the field. Are you (not directed at you but a general "you") trying to tell me that our DC has absolutely no say in who gets drafted, who makes the team and who plays? I think that's a load of crap. A guy that's been with a team for as long as LeBeau was is going to have a say in all of that.
He's also the one who's responsible for calling the defensive plays that put us in prevent and plays the CBs 10 yards off the line of scrimmage on 3rd and 5, rushing only 3 on 3rd and long, etc.
Acting like LeBeau has no responsibility in the decline of our defense is just hogwash.
“I believe the game is designed to reward the ones who hit the hardest. If you can't take it, you shouldn't play!” - Jack Lambert
Array title="Shoes has a reputation beyond repute">
I didn't say he was selfish for taking contracts that were offered to him, I said he was selfish because he didn't know when to hand the mantle over to a younger man. No offense ever taken my friend.
very easily. our offense carried this team. when it failed, we lost pretty much every single time unless we were facing a team with an extremely pathetic offense. there were games where our defense had the benefit of being able to pin their ears back and really tee off (or try their best to) because of a lead we built. and they still didnt have a good year.
you can blame personnel all you want, but people should really stop acting like we were the only ones who dealt with crappy players and injuries on defense. i expect a man who i consider the best and most innovative defensive coordinator ever to get creative, adapt, and overcome in these situations.
Todd bowles, Jim O'Neil, and Dean Pees had more injuries and/or poor play from key positions and still pulled out good defense. Defenses far better than ours. In a situation of less duress and the aid of a vastly superior defensive mind, i thought we would have fared better.
I think another factor that played into all of this was possibly Dick Lebeau hanging onto old veteran players in favor of young promising ones. Not necessarily having a factor in bringing them back, but also playing them when it was clear that we have better options. People can blame Tomlin on that all they want but I don't know if I can completely buy that. These defensive players, especially the veterans are like his kids for god sake. They call him Coach Dad for a reason.
That being said, its gotten harder and harder to point fingers since Art took over. It does seem like the Steelers as an organization have been getting increasingly stubborn at admitting mistakes. Imagine where we would be now if Stephon Tuitt, Will Allen, Brice McCain, and William Gay started all year in place of Cam Thomas, Troy Polamalu, Ike Taylor, and Cortez Allen. The obvious thing to notice between those 4 vs. 4 player comparisons is the far bigger salaries of the latter 4 players.
I wish we'd just go with the best players we have regardless of salary. Sometimes owning up to personnel mistakes can make good things happen. Imagine if the Seahawks had started Matt Flynn years ago just because they paid him starter money instead of Russell Wilson. Those cry babies would still be looking for their 1st ring.
And before you say they could have still won with that defense and run game, remember that a certain QB in the black and gold had similiar naysayers for the same reasons even though he was an integral part of our success
I don't think LeBeau was selfish, but I do think he too often favored veteran players, even ones that were clearly past their primes. Right now the Steelers do not need a defense that takes 3 years to learn.
@SiriusXMNFL: "I think we're in for a 10 million dollar jump in cap space this offseason." - Tom Condon #BusinessSeason
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