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?