Why the Steelers’ 8-8 record isn’t so bad
It’s no secret that Pittsburgh Steelers fans are spoiled. REALLY spoiled.
After the team’s 8-8 season, many fans have demanded that the team “Fire Mike Tomlin”. Others have said that the Steelers should cut ties with Mike Wallace, Larry Foote, Troy Polamalu, James Harrison, LaMarr Woodley, Max Starks, Ramon Foster, Willie Colon, Rashard Mendenhall, and many others. I agree with some of those assessments. I disagree with others. And I’ll be writing an article soon to talk about who I think the Steelers should keep and who they should cut ties with. But that’s not what I want to talk about today.
What I’d like to discuss is why an 8-8 record isn’t the end of the world. 8-8 basically says that the Steelers are a “middle-of-the-road” team. They lost to as many teams as they beat. They’re “average”.
For Steelers fans, being average is perhaps the worst sin that the team could possibly commit. Steeler Nation has come to expect better than average. And we expect the team to be “better than average” every single year. Even though that expectation makes no sense.
The problem with consistently being a playoff team is that you consistently get to draft in the latter portion of the draft. And that’s not good.
But that’s exactly what’s happened to the Steelers over the years. They’ve been a victim of their own success. How can a team infuse their roster with top talent if they consistently have to make their draft selection in the latter portions of each round?
Sure, you can draft the best guard, or center, or tight end in the entire draft with the 30th pick. But you can’t get the best cornerback drafting there. After all, there are certain positions that can only be replenished with top talent if a team is drafting near the top of the draft. For example, a team simply isn’t going to get a franchise quarterback drafting 30th. And they’re not going to get a shutdown cornerback drafting 25th. And it’s highly unlikely that a team will find a Pro Bowl caliber left tackle with the 32nd pick in the draft.
Sure, there are sometimes exceptions. Some players do slip through the cracks. Tom Brady is the example that is most often cited. But those instances are rare. Typically, if a team wants a shot at the best players in the draft, they have to lose more than half of their games. And the Steelers seldom do that. 8-8 is about as bad as it typically get for the Steelers. Pittsburgh doesn’t know what it’s like to go through a 2-14 season.
The harsh truth is that an occasional bad season is actually a GOOD thing for a team. If the Steelers hadn’t gone 6-10 in 2003, we never would have been able to draft Ben Roethlisberger. Just think about that for a moment.
Similarly, if they hadn’t gone 6-10 in 1999, they wouldn’t have been able to draft Plaxico Burress in 2000. If they hadn’t gone 8-8 in 2006, they wouldn’t have been able to draft Lawrence Timmons in 2007.
This year, the Steelers will draft 17th. That’s not a bad draft position. It’s not as good as drafting 1st, but it’s definitely better than drafting 30th. And I really don’t think that Steeler Nation would be willing to tolerate the type of season that it takes to earn the 1st pick in the draft. So 17th will have to do.
Go Steelers!
I am a life long diehard Steeler fan and of course was disappointed with this year’s season. But, I don’t think getting rid of anyone is the answer. Tomlin has been there a short time and already gotten us to two Superbowls – do you really think he deserves to be fired?? The players had a bad year; it happens to the best of them but you don’t abandon them and demand firing. Heck, I have bad times and thank God those around me don’t want to get rid of me for them! Our Steelers will be back – let them heal and move on to a better 2013 season!!
1@Missy Jo,
2I couldn’t agree with you more. Steelers fans can be a tough group. But once they cool down, they usually realize how lucky we are to have a team that has enjoyed the prolonged success that the Pittsburgh Steelers have.
People really need to calm down. This season was going to be rough from the start given all the injuries we had. Also we had some bad luck with that last game involving the temporary refs. Yes, we made mistakes towards the end. Yes, we need to collectively look at things that need to be tweaked before next year both on and off the field. But for everything that happened, we had a better year than I initially thought we would. Good job.
3Due to the Steelers’ cap situation, a lot of older players will be let go. And I’m okay with that. I get the feeling that the Steelers will be a surprisingly young team next year.
This year was infuriating for a lot of fans due to how the Steelers failed to make the playoffs: Inconsistency, the defense and offense not clicking at the same time, penalties earlier in the season, turnovers late, Ben injured again and questioning playcalling, Wallace admitting lacking focus and yet wanting more touches (even though he dropped 765,456,214 passes this year), etc. It was all a storm of disorganization that is usually associated with teams like the Cowboys and Raiders, but not our Steelers! And yet, the Steelers lost to both teams. Ugh.
There is still a lot of talent on this team, and I believe Tomlin can right the ship. Think of it this way: his worst season was 8-8. Another year under Haley should help the offense gel, provided no more key players get hurt or hold out (MIKE.). Heath is already hurt, I’m hoping for an AP style comeback, but it probably won’t be to that degree, as Peterson is a freak. I didn’t mind Haley’s schemes, but the players need to execute with him.
The D just needs to get younger. I think we can all guess what players are getting cut at this point. You can only restructure contracts so many times before it bites you in the backside, which is what the Steelers are looking at now.
It will be an interesting offseason in Pittsburgh. I’ll do what I usually do: not worry about the Steelers signing many free agents, and trust Colbert to do his thing. Can’t wait till the draft! I’m a huge draft junkie, so I’ve been looking at prospects for months now.
4Dan,
Mike Wallace only dropped 765,456,213 passes. Don’t exaggerate.
I also liked Haley’s offense. It controlled time of possession and kept the defense fresh. The only thing that I didn’t like was that he didn’t go deep to Wallace enough. Wallace really isn’t at his best when he’s used as a possession receiver.
The Steelers will definitely be getting younger next year.
5I just want to say thank you to those that are actually intelligent enough to realize Haley’s offense is a good one and is world’s above what Arians could ever scheme up. It takes a little while for the system to work, and it was just clicking when Ben got hurt… if we can stay healthy next year, we will be fine!
6I think the cap situation requires a hard look at our outside linebacker situation. Woodley had an awful year and takes a lot of cap room. Harrison’s compensation is also no longer commensurate with the level of performance he is able to muster at this stage of his career. On the other hand, we don’t have top guys waiting in the wings like when we released Joey Porter to play a cheaper James Harrison. I think Keenan Lewis is the guy we need to pay first if he will accept a reasonable contract and then see who else we have room for under the cap. This cannot be determined based solely on ability because much will depend on each player’s cap value but given what I think certain guys can get in the market, I think the following are the more obvious candidates for new teams: Mendy, Wally, Foster, Colon, Starks (assuming those three can get starter money elsewhere) and Snack.
Look forward to your position-by-position assessments!
7@Steve,
That’s the thing that Steelers fans don’t seem to understand. Haley’s offense was working wonderfully. Ben was on course to have one of the best seasons of his career. But then he got hurt.
IMO, the offense will be much better when we have a healthy #1 running back in the system. I still don’t believe that Isaac Redman or Jonathan Dwyer are #1 NFL running backs. And of course Mendy battled injuries and fumbling issues, so he wasn’t the same running back that he’s historically been.
I don’t know if the team will cut ties with Mendy (I think they will), but if they do, then they are going to have to get a true #1 running back.
And let’s not forget about the injuries to the offensive line. If Haley had a healthy offensive line, his offense would work even better.
8@Dan R.,
I don’t want to get into who the Steelers should cut and who they should keep just yet. That’s coming soon. But I agree with you that we don’t have a starter-in-waiting behind either James Harrison or LaMarr Woodley, so the Steelers are going to have a tough time parting ways with either of them. Jason Worilds looked better this year, but he still didn’t look like a dominant starter.
If people thought the Steelers made some tough decisions last off-season, I think this off-season is going to be even tougher.
9I have to agree and disagree.
First, I agree that we shouldn’t do anything rash or take an “off with their heads” approach. Thankfully, we have an ownership that isn’t as volatile as some fans.
I disagree, however, on the overall assessment. 8-8 is VERY disappointing. When you already have a franchise QB, then yes you do expect to be above average every year and you can live with draft picks in the 20-30′s and continue to excel (Indy did it with Peyton and NE does it with Brady). When was the last time they missed the playoffs? Answer: for the past 10 years, they only missed it when their QB missed the entire year due to injury.
Yes we had a lot of injuries this year. But we did last year and other teams had worse injury problems this year and still made the playoffs.
What bothers me more are the last 4 games. After Ben came back we lost to SD, Dallas, and Cincinnati in succession – with the season on the line. And we simply did not look prepared or focused (and more than just Wallace) in those games. That points to coaching.
No, I don’t think we should fire any of the coaching staff but this was NOT a good year for Tomlin and co. Hopefully they do some tough self evaluation and fix thee problem going into next year.
An elite QB is almost a necessity to make it to the SB – currently we have one in the prime of his career but there are only so many years left. We can’t afford to waste those years with seasons like this one.
Finally, on a “healthy offensive line”…when was the last time we’ve had a healthy offensive line? Seriously, what is up with our o-line being perennially beat up? Given past experience, I have no faith that our o-line will be any healthier next year.
10You assume Tomlin is better at drafting than coaching , he’s not.
11John,
Excellent post! And I agree that 8-8 is disappointing. It’s particularly disappointing when we remember that we beat Baltimore, and should have beaten them twice. Yet they’re going to the Super Bowl.
We had an awesome roster at the beginning of the season, and my expectation was for much better than 8-8. And I really can’t explain the losses to bad teams.
But despite that, it’s good to get a higher draft pick every now and then. That’s why I say that 8-8 isn’t a bad thing. I’m assuming that we’ll get better players choosing 17th than we would choosing 32nd.
Even though New England is always in the playoffs, they do a much better job than the Steelers when it comes to manipulating the draft. The Patriots are the only team that I know of that can go to the Super Bowl and still end up with 2-3 first round picks. As much as I hate to give them credit for doing anything well, the Pats are better than any other team when it comes to trading and accumulating draft picks.
12Fred,
Kevin Colbert runs the Steelers draft, not Tomlin.
But when you look at the draft picks under Tomlin, they’ve actually been pretty good. Colbert has always been kind of bad with his 4th-7th round picks, but he’s as good as anybody in the league in the 1st three rounds. But in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 drafts, the Steelers got help in rounds 1-7. Kelvin Beachum, David Paulson, and Baron Batch were 7th round picks, and Jonathan Dwyer and Antonio Brown were 6th round picks. That’s pretty good use of late round draft picks.
You may have an issue with Tomlin, but it’s not fair to say that he hasn’t done well in the draft.
13Fire him!?! Are you people retarded? Who thinks they have the chops to do better? Now Haley, not a fan.
14Spoiled? Definately. However, look who made it to the SB…the same Ravens who typically draft somewhere around the area we do.
15i felt verry strongly steelers should have lost that last ball game now how is it benifeting them now/// da… that was stupid, on steelers part, they probly would have been up a feww notches but stupid//// da wasnt thinkin on draft. if they were trying to win what about dal/ cinc/ baltamore/ stupid .becouse they probly would have been 11th in the draft if they would have lost to clevand.tell me tomilan when u fired arian first mistake number 2 u should be fired ur responsible team is falling apart it is what it is / best thing to do is 80/percent def , wile labou is still their before he retires truthfully ps steelers will lose more ground next year wait and see then colbert will be on chopin block yall cee whiss ya best
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