The Steelers best laid plans sometimes go to waste
Steelers Nation has been banging a drum since the AFC Championship game. There are several questions which came up during that game, and throughout the 2016 season. Fans demanded answers, but what if I told you the team had the answers.
Only those plans fell apart, unfairly creating those issues?
Let’s take a look at each scenario and see how the Steelers best intentions turned sour.
2nd receiver
The first topic gets the most of my sarcasm: as if the Steelers didn’t think they were well off from the start of the 2016 offseason?
The first blow was Martavis Bryant getting suspended for the entire season. Then the hits kept coming. Markus Wheaton was limited in training camp with a shoulder, which progressed into the regular season and limited him to three games before going on IR. Sammie Coates set the world on fire in his first five games, before busting his hand and disappearing from games.
That’s Bryant, Wheaton, and Coates all gone. Do we think the Steelers had the best-laid plans at receiver besides Antonio Brown?
Yet, somehow, they made it the AFC Championship game with a band of pass-catchers like Cobi Hamilton, Demarcus Ayers and Darrius Heyward-Bey. So the next time someone says they didn’t have another receiver besides AB, or Mike Tomlin and Todd Haley can’t coach, point to this example!
Tight end
Heath Miller and Matt Spaeth retired! What are they going to do?!
The Steelers signed Ladarius Green! Woohoo! They made a free agent signing! They’re going to score 40 points per game!
Boo! Green is the worst signing ever! How can they not plan to have someone else?
Yeah, those are some “abbreviated” comments I received from fans who suffer from short term memory loss. Green was to be the “be all” and “end all” at the tight end position. Jesse James, a fifth-round draft pick in 2015, was not expected to be the starter but played among the most of any offensive player in 2016.
The other cogs in the machine was a journeyman practice squad player Xavier Grimble, a former seventh-round pick who was brought back to Pittsburgh (David Johnson) and… Green. (When he was available.) The Steelers tried as they might, but the Green signing didn’t work out. I might remind everyone of how the season ended with this group helping secure an AFC North division title and conference championship appearance, but I did that above with the wide receiver unit.
Again, the Steelers best-laid plans went to waste…
Backup running back
Remember when LeGarrette Blount was signed to back up Le’Veon Bell, and then left Pittsburgh?
There was a to-do over that situation, where the Steelers played the Ravens in a home Wild Card playoff game with running backs Josh Harris and signed-off-the-streets Ben Tate. The sentiment was that the team didn’t plan better. That carried into 2015 when the Steelers played a Wild Card game with Jordan Todman and Fitzgerald Toussaint in the backfield.
Why aren’t they addressing the running back position?
Well, they did. It’s that DeAngelo Williams, who lit the world on fire when he was on the field, wasn’t always able to be on the field. That occurred in the 2015 postseason, as well as last year. Bell went down against the Patriots and Williams wasn’t enough to answer some other issues which faced the team in that game. That doesn’t mean management ignored the position: it means their intentions didn’t come to fruition.
We’ll see what happens this year as the team added James Conner in the draft and Knile Davis in free agency, to help spell Bell. (Right now, we think it’s going to work, but those plans and how they change…)
Pass rush
Remember when Pittsburgh had trouble getting to the quarterback for half of a season? Then they had a similar issue with the Patriots?
Yeah… I call that missing Bud Dupree and Cameron Heyward (albeit at different spots throughout the season). How do you replace two of the most productive players on your defense? (Hint: you don’t!) I think we can also agree that a rotation of a underwhelming first round pick (Jarvis Jones) and a second-year sixth-round selection (Anthony Chickillo) wasn’t going to help make up for Dupree.
The defensive line, however, seemed to be okay without Heyward (thought it took time). L.T. Walton is not Heyward, but he played respectably when called upon, and rookie Javon Hargrave also filled in as an end when he was selected to play tackle as well. (Ricardo Mathews was the other player in rotation, but was not re-signed for 2017.)
The Steelers had to think they were in good shape until Dupree and Heyward went down. When Dupree returned, things turned around. This year, it should be even more stable with the additions of Tyson Alualu and T.J. Watt, with the departure of the underperforming Jones.
Let’s hope those plans hold up!
Secondary
In 2015 the Steelers were the 30th ranked pass defense out of 32 teams. In 2016, they improved to 16th behind their first two draft picks CB Artie Burns and S Sean Davis.
Still, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. The Steelers started the year giving up 283.4 passing yards per game in their first seven games. During the final nine, they improved to allowing only 210.8 per game. That figure would’ve placed them in the top five in the league in pass defense. It was also a major improvement on the 271.8 yards per game they gave up in 2015.
Their 20 passing touchdowns during the 2016 season put them fifth overall, up from 29 surrendered in 2015 (21st in the league).
Still, the improvement wasn’t enough to vanquish the Patriots, and the Steelers secondary sucks! What will they do to ever fix it?!
I think Burns and Davis were big improvements, but it’s not as if they knew they’d lose 2015 second-round draft pick Senquez Golson to IR in two straight seasons. The team also tried to patch the secondary with trades for Brandon Boykin and Justin Gilbert, both players who had high expectations but didn’t pan out.
Keyword again: high expectations… or “best intentions”.
Conclusion
Don’t fault the planning of the Pittsburgh Steelers for things that are out of their control. No one can consider every injury option. There’s a reason some players are backups. Sometimes it’s because they’re not good enough to be starters. Others, it’s a lack of opportunity to show they have the talent.
Regardless, backups generally have a lack of experience and are almost always have nowhere near the same level of talent as the player they are replacing. There may be rare instances, but those are… rare.
Instead, understand that sometimes the best-laid plans can go to waste. As illustrated above, the Steelers planned for better than they had and still finished with one heck of a 2016 season, plus three straight postseason appearances.
Now imagine if those plans remain intact…
