Todd Haley-Arizona?

**Omicron** · 01-03-2013, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by Harrison92

Before his injury, Ben was having a career year and the Steelers were rolling. Problem is from a personnel perspective, the Steelers were not capable of running outside at all unless Mendenhall was in there and he wasn't. The line was shreaded with injuries so the pass protection broke down. Ben got hurt and Lefty and Batch are not Ben.

Yes these are excuses, and while I do not completely agree with some of the play calls, was Ben ordered to run those plays or did he have the freedom to check out of them? How many times were the Steelers in 3rd and 2 from the 5 yard line and Ben throws a fade, which is a low percentage play? It's not like the Steelers were 5-11 this year. They were about 6 total plays away from being 12-4. If Haley comes back, I believe he will have a better understanding of what he has to work with and I look for a more expanded playbook in 2013. Throw away some things that don't work and implement some things that did.

Believe me, Haley is the least of the Steelers offseason issues.

Yep, another year for the OL to jell and hopefully keep as healthy as possible. I think that is the first thing to fix.

**Get7With7** · 01-03-2013, 07:09 PM

The emphasis needs to be on scoring next season, not possession. Playing close to the vest is a big part of the reason why the Steelers ended up 8-8. Let Ben try to win the games early next season. You don't see guys like Brady and Manning being handcuffed for the majority of the game only to be called upon to pull miracles out of their asses at the end.

**Goodfrom55** · 01-03-2013, 08:12 PM

Originally Posted by Get7With7

The emphasis needs to be on scoring next season, not possession. Playing close to the vest is a big part of the reason why the Steelers ended up 8-8. Let Ben try to win the games early next season. You don't see guys like Brady and Manning being handcuffed for the majority of the game only to be called upon to pull miracles out of their asses at the end.

It goes hand in hand with defense. If the Steelers can get out to a sizeable lead in a game and the defense can hold the lead, then they can become conservative in the 4th quarter, chew up clock and who cares if they score or not. It's kind of like an offensive prevent; not really tying to score, but are more concerned with killing the clock. They were not in great position to do this in 2012 in large part to the inconcistency of the running game and overall success on 3rd down conversion in the 2nd half of the season. I said this in another post, take care of the O-Line, and the rest of the offense will take care of itself. Even Brady is worthless when he is getting the tar beat out of him. And they're not a down the field offense either.

**Crash** · 01-03-2013, 10:40 PM

That's what we did for 6 years. Kick *** early and then run the ball.

But because we didn't want to admit our 2009 4th quarter defense sucked, everything on offense has changed.

**LatrobePA** · 01-03-2013, 10:59 PM

Stats are all towards the bottom. Scoring O needs to improve in a bad way!

**Get7With7** · 01-03-2013, 11:36 PM

Originally Posted by LatrobePA

Stats are all towards the bottom. Scoring O needs to improve in a bad way!

Scoring offense was actually better in the 2009 season than it has been the last 3 seasons. The problem is, Art Rooney II tried to blame the offense for that season when it was actually the defense blowing 4th quarter leads. Maybe someone needs to let the football people take care of football.