Hard to pintpoint the blame anyone place.

1) The offensive line personnel isn’t great, that’s for sure. We’ve got kind of a journeyman at center who’s actually doing better than expected but is still nothing even close to approaching dominant. Chris Kemoeatu (Guard) is a bulldozer in the running game but pretty suspect in pass protection. And on and on. The one silver lining has been the play of G Darnell Stapleton, who’s filled in for the injured Kendall Simmons. National columnists refer to Simmons as ‘our best offensive linemen’ but he wasn’t. He’s been awful for two years now. Stapletons been a ball of energy and really helped quite a bit.

2) The play calling was awful to start the year. Way to many slow developing vertical pass plays that required exquisite protection.

3) BUT, perhaps part of the problem was Ben holding on to the ball too long.

So it’s hard to really lay the blame at the feet of any one person or unit. It definitely is a problem though and it wouldn’t surprise me if your speed rushers had some success Sunday getting to Ben or Byron.

It depends on which aspect of special teams you are referring to. Our return game is awful, simply awful. The steelers are 30th at kick returns with an avg of 20 yards and our punt avg is worst in the league with an average of 5.3. We have tried varied personnel returning but just can’t get it done. Last game we blocked a punt, and personally I’d like to see us try that more, but it probably won’t happen too often.

On coverage we are pretty dominant. We have had a lot of injuries to gunners and other special team tacklers, but we have had a lot of people on the practice squad that stepped up. Then they got injured, and the guys that we put back on the practice squad came back up to play. We have basically shut down any returners faced thus far. This is a huge worry for steelers fans because of last year though, so we still cringe every time a ball is caught for a return. But so far, knock on wood, there has been little cause for concern in coverage.

Our FG kicker is a machine and seemed like he might go out for part of the season. He seems alright now.

Now, the good stuff. At the beginning of the year our draft choice punter from last year went on IR. We brought in two punters to compete and chose Mitch Berger. He was doing okay, not great, but okay. Then two weeks ago he pulled his hamstring against the NYG. The same game, you might have seen it on SNF, our long snapper was injured. The next week we signed a new long-snapper who is with the team and doing fine. This last week our punter was still injured, so we brought in our third punter of the season, the one who lost the competition in the pre-season. I am Paul Ernsters lease enthused supporter. You guys might get lucky with a 10 yard punt, but we’ll see.

I think defensively, we would be perfectly happy if we retained all of our current coaches, from Dick Lebeau to all of the position coaches, for the rest of their days.

The offense, and I think Blitz will agree with me, is a different story. Our OC has no clue how to call a game, and our O-Line coach, while suffering for the fact that our line is cobbled together from spare parts and cast-offs, is no great prize either.

Tomlin, in my esteemed opinion, is doing great. He presents the right image to the players, is intense, which is something we require from our coaches in Pittsburgh, and walsk a tightrope between being a Marvin Lewis-type players coach (too soft) and a Tom Coughlin-type drill instructor. I think he’s got the right mix of pressure and sympathy, but the most important thing is how he backs the players on the field. He sells out for them every week, and they feed off of the energy that he’s putting in.

my ¢2

To answer from a generic steelers fans point of view:

A few people really like Tomlin, a few people really hate him, and most people are cautiously optimistic about future success and think he has potential. I’d say about 90% want to see him stick around.

As for our OC, I’d say about 1% of steelers fans want to see him stick around. That goes for the Oline coordinator too. Opinion is pretty much unanimous that these two must go. It is not simply the performance of their units, but the transparency of poor coaching on O-line and poor gameplanning of the coordinator.

If Bruce Arians isn’t the worst offensive coordinator in the league, I pity the team that employs the worst. He was bad last year, despite putting up average numbers, and he’s been an absolute piece of shit this year. Sorry for the language, but I don’t know how else to describe it. Larry Zierlein probably shouldn’t be blamed for the state of the OL (which has actually improved as the season has gone on), but it’s hard to say he’s doing a great job either. Basically it’s hard to say anyone is doing a good job coaching when the offense has a decent amount of talent and is as inept as it’s been.

On the defensive side of the ball, we’re pretty set, although there have been rumors that LeBeau could retire after his 50th season. Keith Bulter or John Mitchell, who are the LB and DL coaches, would probably take over for him if he did. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those guys got snagged as a DC somewhere.

Tomlin is growing into his job. He didn’t look great last year, and he held onto Arians, which I was pretty upset about. However, the defense has made huge strides, particularly in the passing game, and even the special teams coverage has been vastly improved. I’m pretty sure Arians is getting fired at the end of the season regardless of what happens, and Tomlin’s choice of a replacement will make or break him as a coach in my mind.

I agree for the most part with other Steelers posters, but I guess I would be one of those on the Fringe in the area of LOVING Mike Tomlin. I would be hard pressed to think of a coach in the league I would rather have in charge for the forseable future. Tomlin seems to be a great motivator and is highley respected by players, his staff, and other coaches around the league.
It also appears that this team has actually bought into his way of thinking, week in and week out Tomlin expects the 52 men who suit up to play at a high level and to be ready to compete regardless of which professional football team we match up against this week.

I would agree that the majority of educated Steelers fans are ready to get rid of Bruce Arians and to a lesser extent Larry Zerlien the Offensive line coach. With solid skill position players and a average O-line we should be moving the ball much better than we currently are.

The short passing game, especially from the spread, seems to be the only way to move the ball with success or regularity. If our linebackers have a shortcoming its in pass defense, and our corners don’t play the pass close enough to take away the short routes. But I wouldn’t call it a “weakness” as much as it would maybe be the weakest link in the chain.

It really is tough to find a weakness with this defense. We lead the league in both longest running play (22y) and passing play (35y) given up. The biggest weaknesses I’ve noticed are covering RB’s and TE’s, and quick passes to the WR’s when the CB’s give big cushions. Last week was a classic example of the former: Cooley and Portis were the top 2 receivers. We can also be a little soft at times on intermediate routes. We are down a starting CB, so a guy like Gonzalez could test our depth.

However, I’m sure by now Indy fans are used to seeing different looks than usual from defenses, and that won’t change this week. Polamalu, Townsend, or Timmons may trail Clark and/or we may play a safe 2 deep thing the whole time, so some of those weaknesses may disappear while others appear. If we play Polamalu in man coverage, we could be a little more susceptible to the deep pass.

The thing I’m most sure about is that Addai could have a decent game catching the ball, since he’s probably not going to be a focal point for our defense. Him on Foote or probably even Farrior is a mismatch.

in these parts, QB’s have been know not to make it to their 3rd read… :)

I’m trying really hard not to be a homer, but as objectively as I can see it, Polamalu is the best safety in the league right now. This year, I’ve seen him throw a TE into the RB, dive under a FB and tackle the RB, fly into the flat to destroy screens and dumpoffs, fly across field to deflect several deep balls, and be relatively successful in man-to-man coverage against Kellen Winslow for most the the night.

A lot of safeties accel in coverage, but aren’t huge in the running game (e.g. Ed Reed), while others accel in stopping the running game and get by in coverage (e.g. Adrian Wilson). I really think that right now, Troy is exceptional in both roles, and I can’t think of another safety that has a more complete skill set. Obviously I’ve watched more of him than of other safeties, though.

I like Sanders a lot (went to a rival school in Erie), and he was definitely the better player last year. Troy was fighting through injuries in 2006 and 2007 and when he’s at 70-80%, he can be a liabilty. Both guys have had a lot of troubles with injuries, but whenever they’re healthy, they’re close to the top of the league. I think Troy has a great shot at DPOY this year although he’ll have to beat out a slew of current and former Steelers’ LB’s for the honor.

Moore has played exceptionally well when given the chance, but our idiot OC doesn’t run as much with him in there. I’d say he’s certainly capable of running for those numbers; as a starter this season, he’s averaged 101 yards and a td per game with 5.4ypc against Jacksonville, Cinci, and the Giants. He’s a bigger threat than Parker out of the backfield as well, not that we ever pass to our backs.

I’m not convinced willie parker will be out, by the way. It’s friday and we’ll see how practice goes today, but I don’t think he’s officially been listed anywhere and from what I have read he wants to play. You find any reports BM besides espn sportscenter?