11/9/16-Time To Question Mike Tomlin

By: Mike Pelaia

4-4, that’s the record of your Pittsburgh Steelers at the halfway point in the season. Quite honestly, it’s a disgraceful record and one that the entire team should be ashamed of.

Mike Tomlin needs to recognize that his team has vastly underperformed so far this season and in particular over the last three weeks, going 0-3, twice to two AFC teams who were once again below .500.

This last loss in Baltimore however was the epitome of ineptitude and while Ben Roethlisberger struggled mightily for the first three quarters of that game, the loss needs to fall on the shoulders of the coaching staff, starting with of course, Mike Tomlin.

Listen folks, he’s just not a good game coach, when your teams consistently fall to sub .500 teams on a weekly and yearly basis, there is a problem. His messages appear to be falling upon deaf ears. His status as the head man doesn’t seem to be respected considering all of the discipline issues the team continues to have both on and off the field. When you commit 13 penalties the first game after a bye week, discipline is clearly at the forefront of the teams problems.

It’s nearly impossible to be as unprepared as the Steelers were against their biggest rival this past Sunday on any occasion but specifically coming off of a bye week. It really has to make you wonder what in the world Tomlin and his staff are doing to prepare for games, doesn’t it?

The defense is a mess as the secondary can’t cover anyone and the linebackers can’t apply pressure. The frontline can’t stop the run and the team fails to get off the field on major downs. While they have talent, it’s obvious that schematically Keith Butler is in over his head and should never have been promoted. Tomlin chose to push out Dick LeBeau, one of the best defensive minds of all time in favor of this guy.  That’s a major failure on Tomlins part. But don’t forget that when Butler was hired, Tomlin vowed to be more involved on the defensive side of the ball as that’s his background.  Well, the unit, despite all of its’ talent has failed miserably. It’s a coaching issue, a preparation issue and a discipline issue.  It’s a Mike Tomlin issue.

It’s getting old having to preach this same thing week in and week out but the Rooneys won’t do anything about it. They don’t fire coaches and they won’t fire Tomlin.  There’s still time in the season for Tomlin to get things turned around but he better start this coming Sunday against the 7-1 Cowboys, if he doesn’t, this season could go down in flames and several of the guys he has on his staff will need to burn with it.

I don’t think the Steelers have any reason to be thinking Super Bowl at this juncture but Ben Roethlisberger has come out and said “follow me”, in an effort to calm the troops. He’s been down this road a few times and I do believe in his ability to lead this team but we all need to hope that Mike Tomlin doesn’t get in his way.

But there are two consoling thoughts you all can have right now about the black and gold; 1) the season is only half over and there is plenty of time to right the ship and 2) if Donald Trump can be elected as the President of the United States of America then truly anything is possible and perhaps the Steelers can duplicate that miracle and turn things around under Mike Tomlin.