by largegarlic on Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:23 am
A couple thoughts...
1. What's really frustrating to me is not that the team loses, but that they lose in the way they do. There are just so many mental mistakes and failures to do basic things (e.g. using sound tackling technique). I'm OK with them losing because of injuries or lack of talent (and both of those have certainly factored into things), but it's painful to watch them throw away winnable games through their own stupidity.
2. I don't have any problem with Haley. It seemed like he (sensibly) came in thinking that the o-line can't be counted on to run block or pass protect, so they needed to focus on shorter passing routes that got the ball out of Ben's hands quickly. This had the added benefits of getting the ball to the real threats on offense (Brown and Wallace) at a higher frequency and allowing the Steelers to control the clock, even with an anemic run game. And it seemed like this worked for the middle part of the season; the o-line and running game even improved for a bit too. Then, all the key injuries happened, players started fumbling like crazy, Mendenhall started pouting, etc.