Steelers have to have to shake issues up, for serious this time

Unbelievable.

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How quite a few periods have you stated that considering the fact that you woke up, acknowledging that, yes it truly is true, the Steelers did drop to the Browns? The “hadn’t been to the playoffs in 18 yrs” Browns, the “hadn’t genuinely practiced in 2 months” Browns, the “Head Mentor home with Covid” Browns, the “minimal brother” Browns.

But like a lot of very little brothers more than the several years, the Browns last but not least received theirs, having gain of almost each and every Pittsburgh blunder (and goodness understands there have been a great deal of individuals), punching their cocky huge brothers in the mouth, 48-37, and it was not even that close.

Unbelievable.

But was it genuinely?

This year, they imploded down the stretch. Just as they had the year prior to and the year before that.

#Steelers very last 3 a long time:

2018: Started 7-2-1, finished 9-6-1

2019: Commenced 8-5, finished 8-8

2020: Started out 11-, concluded 12-5

They are 5-11 in December and January in excess of the past 3 seasons.

— Josh Rowntree (@JRown32) January 11, 2021

At the very least the final time they created the playoffs they only gave up 45 details.

You saw the initially enjoy of the game. As Maurkice Pouncey airmailed the shotgun in excess of the 6-5 QB and the Browns fell on it for a touchdown, I will wager you reported it – “Unbelievable.”

Cris Collinsworth kind of did on NBC – “you in no way see that come about.” But, of program, we have observed that materialize more than a couple moments in latest decades so it was not unbelievable.

Then that ugly Ben Roethlisberger floater on the up coming series? Unbelievable! But, no, we have viewed a few of those people in new weeks.

Robert Spillane and Vince Williams seeking to go over Jarvis Landry? Unbelievable? Nope. Opposing groups have taken edge of that WR/LB mismatch with some regularity.

Other things that may well usually tumble into the “unbelievable” group – punting from the opposing 38-garden line when trailing 28-, punting on 4^th-and-1 around midfield and down 12 at the begin of the fourth quarter, and going for an pointless 2-position PAT then kicking when they ought to have absent for 2 – totally plausible since we would noticed these flawed techniques in advance of.

The Steelers have plainly recognized a late-season pattern of not just coming up small but failing and – in the instances of 2017, 2018 and now 2020 – failing miserably when it truly is mattered most.

When I asked Mike Tomlin right after the video game how he ought to be held accountable I got Tomlin at his “inventory respond to” finest. “It is what it is,” he answered. “Our report is our document. Our performances are our performances.

Never operate away from that.” (You know, like Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt did from his protection.)

What essentially would be unbelievable is if Tomlin gets fired. That is not going to transpire but plainly a employees shake-up is in order.

It is really so clich? to go just after the coordinators but this may well be the ideal time to shift on from Randy Fichtner and Keith Butler, equally extensive-time Tomlin associates.

Matt Canada and Teryl Austin are in location and have coordinator expertise but would either convey fresh new strategies and actual adjust or would it be far more of the very same, primarily on protection in which Tomlin may well have been calling lots of of the shots, in any case.

Steelers management – i.e. Chairman Art Rooney II – will not overreact and he should not. But even right after he takes a action back, the pattern is painfully apparent. It’s as unpleasant as Ben Roethlisberger’s $41 million cap hit in 2021, which nonetheless just isn’t as painful as watching Ben his very last 5 video games (the remaining 20 minutes towards the Colts notwithstanding).

Roethlisberger has reported if he feels he are unable to aid the workforce win any for a longer period he’ll stage absent but how would he respond if the Steelers advised him which is how they sense? Getting a 19 million greenback cap hit is preferable to shelling out more than 2 times as much for below-the-line functionality.

If Ben goes, imagine Jacksonville (with tons of cap area) may like a veteran Professional Bowl center to assist crack in Trevor Lawrence? Maurkice Pouncey is from Florida, after all, and if his QB is long gone, he could possibly go for it.

That would offset a first rate volume of the cap space they’d be utilizing at QB.

We knew the end of an era was creeping up on us but, based on the final 6 weeks (and basically a couple of ahead of that), that conclusion is a total large amount closer than we imagined. In actuality, seems like it truly is presently listed here.

Feel it.