Uneasy lies the head that wears the headset

By Gerry Dulac, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When Tony Dungy was named head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1996, he reached out to one of the assistants with whom he had worked on Chuck Noll's staff to be his offensive coordinator. But Dick Hoak, who was a running back coach with the Steelers for 35 years, declined the offer.

It is a decision Hoak never has regretted.

Why?

Because, of all the jobs in the National Football League, none should carry a health warning or occupational disclaimer as much as offensive coordinator, the Mr. Yuk of coaching positions.

"If you did something wrong in a game, they don't look at the 59 plays you did right," Hoak said. "They looked at the one play that went bad."

Offensive coordinator might be the most reviled position in professional sports. They are second-guessed more than a weatherman, and their play calls get more scrutiny than a campaign promise. Want to start a discussion and see a talk show break out? Just mention offensive coordinator.

In stadiums routinely filled with 65,000 or more people, the offensive coordinator is the only coach who needs to understand that 64,000 of them think they can do the job better.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12029/1206761-66-0.stm?cmpid=steelers.xml#ixzz1kpLEDUeF

Based on reading the article I conclude that we are all idiots and we should beg BA to please come back. We didn't mean it. After all 50% of us like you.

I love football, and I love food, and furthermore I love my wife. Now loving something makes me no expert, and out of the three I mentioned food is the easiest to dissect followed by football and then my wife.

I have posted elsewhere that unless the posters on this board are retired or current NFL, College, and to an extent HS coaches we are not qualified to understand the finer points of football. Unless we look at game film and break it down , we look at a failed play and go "Oh , my God what an idiot", when in truth the plan was perfect but one player (out of 11) misses his assignment and the whole play blows up.

I am a fan of football, but more so the Steelers. I am somewhat an "expert" in Steeler history, remember most of the biggest games, players, and moments that have stayed with me due to their importance in my life. Could I be the OC , sure, if I want the players to lose all respect for me in about 30 seconds after I open my mouth. The thing is I do not play Madden or video games so that basically eliminates me from being an offensive minded genius.

While we may be knowledgeable about the Steelers and football, We as a group are pretty dumb when it comes to the world of professional football. We know the terms you hear on the sports talk, (we know those guys are smart, see Cowherd,Bayless, and any number of ex-jocks.) We all have opinions on what should be done and some even on how, but (and this just my opinion) some plans of action have to do with what personnel we have and what we go against. So, when I read why do we not run more, its most likely not that simple. Same goes to drafting and signing FAs we as fans love to put our two cents in, I do, and sometimes over the course of these thoughts we will hit a homerun and we feel great. In truth the Front Office in relationship to most teams do an excellent job of scouting and while good they do fail on some picks. We as fans once again zero in on those failures.

I will close with the post that I believe it is OK to voice our opinions, question the front office, question the coaches decisions, and the players skills. But we are here to barter more with ourselves and ,if smart, listen and learn from each other. And one more thing, I for one will be glad when this Arians thing is put to rest, what is done is done, time to move on. If he had not signed so quick with another team this would be behind us sooner than later, now in the coming year if the Colts have any success it will be brought up many more times, not just by the media either.

I'm not a director. I don't know the first thing about making a movie. I know you yell "ACTION" to start it and "CUT" to stop it. That's the extent of my knowledge. Yet when I watch a movie, I can tell you if it's good or if it sucks. And the quality of the movie is a reflection of how good the director is. If the same director puts out 5 good movies, I'd say he's a damn good director. If he puts out 5 straight turds, I'd say he sucks. Sure, you can blame the actors, or the budget, or the studio. Hell you can blame the guys holding the sound mics if you want. But at the end of the day, the director is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the movie. And when I watch it, I'll know if it's good or not. When I watch a horrible movie, I might not be able to tell you exactly what's wrong with it or how to fix it, but I can tell you that it sucks.

Don't know why I'm bothering to post this since it will probably be deleted too, but anyway.
I would like to know when 2 sb, 2 afc championships, 3 12-4 seasons in 5 years became known as sucking. Oh wait it was done in spite of the OC. It will be interesting to see what the Arians bashers come up with if Luck does well.

supytalpeht wrote:

Don't know why I'm bothering to post this since it will probably be deleted too, but anyway.
I would like to know when 2 sb, 2 afc championships, 3 12-4 seasons in 5 years became known as sucking. Oh wait it was done in spite of the OC. It will be interesting to see what the Arians bashers come up with if Luck does well.

If there's no personal attack, you have nothing to worry about.

Buddha Bus wrote:

supytalpeht wrote:

Don't know why I'm bothering to post this since it will probably be deleted too, but anyway.
I would like to know when 2 sb, 2 afc championships, 3 12-4 seasons in 5 years became known as sucking. Oh wait it was done in spite of the OC. It will be interesting to see what the Arians bashers come up with if Luck does well.

If there's no personal attack, you have nothing to worry about.

huh?

supytalpeht wrote:

Buddha Bus wrote:

supytalpeht wrote:

Don't know why I'm bothering to post this since it will probably be deleted too, but anyway.
I would like to know when 2 sb, 2 afc championships, 3 12-4 seasons in 5 years became known as sucking. Oh wait it was done in spite of the OC. It will be interesting to see what the Arians bashers come up with if Luck does well.

If there's no personal attack, you have nothing to worry about.

huh?

Check your PM box.

Wallace108 wrote:

I'm not a director. I don't know the first thing about making a movie. I know you yell "ACTION" to start it and "CUT" to stop it. That's the extent of my knowledge. Yet when I watch a movie, I can tell you if it's good or if it sucks. And the quality of the movie is a reflection of how good the director is. If the same director puts out 5 good movies, I'd say he's a damn good director. If he puts out 5 straight turds, I'd say he sucks. Sure, you can blame the actors, or the budget, or the studio. Hell you can blame the guys holding the sound mics if you want. But at the end of the day, the director is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the movie. And when I watch it, I'll know if it's good or not. When I watch a horrible movie, I might not be able to tell you exactly what's wrong with it or how to fix it, but I can tell you that it sucks.

Your movie analogy is good, but if a director takes a less than stellar script, less than star quality actors, and on a limited budget he can be the best director ever and still put out a crap product. How bout if the star while being a quality actor shows up drunk and it shows through on screen. Just points to ponder.

The problem we had with Arians was two fold. First his offense while being productive in so many ways did not reflect it on the scoreboard, second his way seems to take too much time to develop a play resulting in the lines inability to hold blocks. Honestly what do fans what in their offense, score points. But to be honest that is not just all coaches what. They want to control the game clock to rest their defenses, they want to eliminate mistakes and make a few "splash" plays that are game changing. I will give you an example this year we scored 20 points per game and I believe we gave up around 15 a game. We increase our scoring to a whopping 30 ppg but in doing so we are scoring in bunches and rapidly. Now our defense with some older guys still in key positions are on the field more and while tiring out give up 20-25 points a game. We finished 12-4 this year with a ton of injuries to both sides of the ball, now even with more points in the a fore mentioned scenario do we expect to win any more games.

Another point that I find problematic is I read posts that we need to return to Steeler Ball. I for one think we still play Steeler Ball, but we have changed with the times. As far as points we are our worst enemy, we shot ourselves in the foot so much this year it was frustrating, penalties, turnovers, missed opportunities, and I will be taken to task for this but being last in causing turnovers contributed to the offenses mediocre scoring. Reason this if the offense turns over the ball in our end of the field giving the opponent a short field does not those points count against the defense even though they were put in a bad situation. By NOT creating turnovers you force your offense to constantly have longer field in which to try and score. Causing turnovers has been a part of "Steeler Ball" as much as a power running game. While some see it as an added bonus I bet LeBeau and his defensive players would tell you different.

supytalpeht wrote:

I would like to know when 2 sb, 2 afc championships, 3 12-4 seasons in 5 years became known as sucking. Oh wait it was done in spite of the OC.

Yes, I believe the team has had success in spite of Arians.
Speaking of Super Bowls, lets look at the 2005 Super Bowl season under Whisenhunt and the 2008 Super Bowl season under Arians.

In 2005, we had the 15th ranked offense and were 9th in scoring with 24.3 points per game.
In 2008, we had the 22nd ranked offense and were 20th in scoring with 21.7 points per game.

We scored more points in 2005 despite running only 960 plays compared to 1,015 in 2008.

Now lets look at how Ben performed in each season ...

In 2005, Ben was the 3rd ranked QB. He threw 268 passes, completing 62.7 percent of them for 2,385 and an 8.9 yards per play average. He threw 17 TDs, 9 INTs, and had a rating of 98.6.

In 2008, Ben was the 22nd ranked QB. He threw 469 passes, completing 59.9 percent of them for 3,301 yards and a 7 yards per play average. He threw 17 TDs, 15 INTs, and had a rating of 80.1.

I saved the most important stat for last ... sacks.
After we beat Seattle in the Super Bowl, the first thing Ben said was "who's laughing now O-line?" Ben made that comment because our O-line was horrible, just as it is now, and everyone bashed it all season long.
But in 2005, Ben was sacked only 23 times compared to 46 in 2008.

Going by just the stats in those two Super Bowl seasons, Ben played much better under Whisenhunt, and the offense as a whole performed better under Whisenhunt. The big difference between the two seasons was Ben's passing yards (2,385 in 2005 compared to 3,301 in 2008). Ben's increased number of attempts and passing yards didn't equate to a better offense than in 2005, but it certainly equated to twice as many sacks behind essentially the same crappy O-line.

Under Arians, we scored fewer points and Ben was sacked twice as many times. Same QB who holds onto the ball too long. Same crappy O-line. Different OCs.

Wallaced cannot argue you on any of your points, but I will have to point out that Ben's "who laughing now" quote was after the 2008 SuperBowl. I thought I was sure but I checked it out to be positive.

riccosuavez wrote:

Wallaced cannot argue you on any of your points, but I will have to point out that Ben's "who laughing now" quote was after the 2008 SuperBowl. I thought I was sure but I checked it out to be positive.

It's hell to get old.

Thanks for pointing that out.
Our line was definitely better in 2005. Faneca alone made a difference. Then again, I already established that I'm old and forgetful, so maybe it was just as bad.

EDIT: Anyone have a good source for comparing offensive lines from year to year?