Firings Continue

According to the Post-Gazette, Special Teams Coordinator, Bob Ligashesky, has been fired. It really should not come as a surprise since our coverage and return units were both ranked near the bottom of the league. Although Logan did set the record for return yards for the Steelers he almost never had decent running lanes. As mentioned in the article, Bobby April is available who would be an awesome get for the Steez.

Arians in; Zierlein out

According to the PG, Bruce Arians will be kept on as offensive coordinator next year.

Sad face.

According to the same report, offensive line coach Larry Zierlein will be fired.

I don't think this makes much difference unless some talent is added to the line.

Offseason Questions

The Steeler offseason began Monday and the first change was announced yesterday. Ken Anderson, the QB coach, is retiring. Other changes have been promised. As we enter the offseason, I've created a list of questions that I think need to be answered. In the next few weeks, we'll explore these questions in detail.

1. Will Bruce Arians be fired?
1a. Who would replace Arians?

2. Which free agents will be retained?

The current list of pending unrestricted free agents (via Mondesishouse) going into the 2010 season is as follows:

QB Charlie Batch, LB Rocky Boiman, S Tyrone Carter, S Ryan Clark, DE Nick Eason, NT Casey Hampton, DE Travis Kirschke, RB Willie Parker, K Jeff Reed, CB Deshea Townsend, and WR Joey Galloway.

RFAs (restricted free agents) include these players:LB Patrick Bailey, OT Willie Colon, RB Carey Davis, DB Willie Gay, P Daniel Sepulveda, TE Matt Spaeth, and G Darnell Stapleton.

Santonio Holmes and LaMarr Woodley will be entering the last year of their contracts.

3. How will the negotiation of the collective bargaining agreement affect free agency?

I'm no expert, but some major changes take effect if we enter 2010 without a new CBA. There will be no salary cap. Certain players, i.e. Willie Colon, will be restricted free agents as opposed to unrestricted. I think each team will have two franchise tags. Etc.

4. Will the Steelers get serious about special teams? Bobby April, one of the best special teams coaches in the league, was recently fired. Any chance the Steelers pursue him?

5. How will the team address the declining performance and increasing age of the defense? James Farrior, Aaron Smith, Brett Keisel, James Harrison, Chris Hoke, Travis Kirschke, are all 30+. The secondary lacks talent. The depth at linebacker and safety is thin.

6. What positions will be targeted in the draft?

7. How will Joe Burnett, Kraig Urbik, Keenan Lewis, Limas Sweed, Ryan Mundy and Frank the Tank develop over the offseason?

8. Will the offensive line ever get an infusion of talent?

9. Who will be on the cover of Madden next year?

10. Will Kevin Colbert leave the Steelers to follow Bill Cowher if Cowher takes a coaching job?

What did I miss?

Why We Aren't in the Playoffs

I am encouraged to see our team fight to the end. We closed out the season with 3 big wins, two against playoff teams (GB and Balt). Tomlin and the boys showed me something which is encouraging heading into the offseason and for next year. We needed a ton of help yesterday to get into the playoffs. It didn't happen. It would have been nice to get in but it would have hurt alot more to blow 4th quarter leads to lose in the playoffs. Here is why we aren't going to the playoffs this year:

1) Coaches inability to accept the fact that Farrior has lost about 4 steps and put Keyron Fox in to replace him. I understand Farrior is the leader of the D and makes all the the play calls but he routinely got beat by TE's and RB's out of the backfield for game killing plays.

2) Injuries-Troy missed most of the season. Dennis Dixon started a key game against division rival Baltimore. Aaron Smith missed the majority of the season. That stuff catches up with you. Smith and Troy are our two most important defensive players. We couldn't over come it this year.

3) Poor coaching-Tomlin, Lebeau, Arians, Zeirlein and Ligashesky failed to have the team ready to play on a week to week basis and the passion just wasn't there for most of this season. Don't be surprised if a few of these guys are gone pretty quick.

4) Losing close games-Last season we won almost every close game we were in. This year it was the opposite. If we win one of these games, we make the postseason:

Chicago loss by 3
Cincy loss by3
KC, Balt, Oak losses by 3

That's 5 losses by 3 points. Most of those games we should have won but couldn't get it done for whatever reason.

It was an interesting season to say the least and we will have more in the coming days but those are the biggest reasons I see for our failures this year. What are your thoughts?