The Steelers at the Quarter Pole

I have been meaning to write this post for the last two weeks, ever since the Steelers loss to the Vikings in week four of the NFL season, but other things, mainly the Pirates run into the MLB Post Season, got in the way.  The title of this post is now somewhat irrelevant since most NFL teams have played five games, but I like it, and I'm sticking with it.

OK, so now I'm going to write about the Steelers, the 0-4 Steelers, and where do I begin?

We all know by now that this is the first time since 1968 that the Steelers have been 0-4, and we all have some cultural or personal touchstone to relate to that fact.  You know, things like Lyndon Johnson was President, Barack Obama was only seven years old, I myself was a senior in high school, gasoline was thirty-four cents a gallon, and you could mail a first class letter for six cents, but I like this one, courtesy of Gene Collier: The last time the Steelers were 0-4, the Beatles were not only still together, they had yet to release the White Album!  Ob-la-di-la-da!

It seems to me that there have been a couple of predominant themes when discussing the 2013 Steelers:

1. Injuries to key players (which happen to every team, by the way).  
2. There appears to be a schism on the team between the older veterans, defined as "guys who played on the '08 Super Bowl champs", and the younger players, defined as "everybody else".
3. Locker room turmoil over who gets to use the ping pong, pool, and shuffleboard tables
4. The Steelers can't run the ball
5. The defense has yet to force a turnover (that is mind-boggling in and of itself)
6. The offensive line stinks and will eventually get Ben Roethlisberger killed.
7. And in perhaps the best development of all, defensive captain Ryan Clark points the finger and blames offensive captain Ben Roethlisberger for the teams woes. (Remember, Clark is the captain of a defense that has produced no, as in zero, turnovers in four games.)
8. Todd Haley gets in the news for all the wrong reasons and needs to go.

Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that read and hear about when you are discussing bad football teams.  In years past aren't these the kinds of things you expected to read about the Bengals or the Dolphins or the Jets?  Face it, folks, what we have here is a bad football team.  

Why are they bad?  Simple answer, poor drafting and not enough good players, and how is that for insightful, cutting edge commentary?

How do you fix it?  Again, I'm being simplistic, but you need better players, and that won't happen overnight.  There was an interesting story in the Post-Gazette this morning about how when Chuck Noll came to the Steelers after that historic 1968 season, he basically said "you guys just aren't good enough, and I'm going to have to get rid of most of you."  I sure hope that these Steelers aren't that bad,  but maybe they are.

One of the things you don't do is get rid of Mike Tomlin, who has taken this team to the Super Bowl twice in his tenure.  I will say this, though.  After the Steelers went 1-13 in Noll's first season, I recall players saying, upon reflection, that Noll "never lost the locker room" despite all the losing.  How Tomlin handles what appears to be cracked, if not fractured, locker room over the remainder of the season will be a big test for him.

As for today, the Steelers take on the 3-2 New York Jets.  Who could have imagined when the schedule came out that the Steelers would be 2 and 1/2 games worse than the Jets when they played this one.  And I am not overly confident that they can win this game unless the defense, are you listening, Ryan Clark?, can take a hand in forcing the outcome.  This is what it has come to - wishing and hoping for a win against a crummy team like the Jets.