Butler Admits Tomlin Has Been Calling D Signals Since LeBeau’s Time

[Coryea]

Also I huge indication aside from actually watching what the defense was doing, we used more zone than any team in the NFL LeBeau's last couple seasons and everyone was bitching that he game passed LeBeau by, why is he using so much zone, blah, blah. He "retires", but suddenly goes to Tennessee where they were top 3 in the amount of man defense they played.

 

[wig]

Tom's point interested me so I did one of my statistical dives. I went to ProFootballReference and looked at NFL defensive rankings from 2021 all the way back to 1995. (Lebeau was first promoted to DC in 95.)

I then charted defensive rankings for the Steelers in the following categories across that entire span.

Points Allowed / Yards Allowed / Pass Yards Allowed / Rush Yards Allowed

(Generally, yards allowed is the standard measuring stick for overall defensive performance, but I wanted to see where the Steelers and their coords excelled and perhaps needed some improvement.)

And now, the crunch. Across the 4 categories, I averaged the rankings for our coordinators (or groups of coordinators) against the number of years they lead the defense.
The following shows "league ranking average" for the 4 categories over their tenure.
Lebeau
Points Allowed: 5.9 / Yards Allowed: 3.3 / Pass Yards Allowed: 9.4 / Rush Yards Allowed: 3.4

Tomlin
Points Allowed: 11.6 / Yards Allowed: 12.1 / Pass Yards Allowed: 12.4 / Rush Yards Allowed: 15.4

"others"
Points Allowed: 9.4 / Yards Allowed: 8.1 / Pass Yards Allowed: 13.3 / Rush Yards Allowed: 8

Given the above numbers, I think it is VERY fair to surmise that Tomlin DID take over defensive playcalling for Lebeau in his last 2 years as the defensive rankings in that year PLUMMETED from Lebeau's average. In fact, the worst ranking (Yards Allowed) Lebeau ever had with the Steelers was 5th (in 2009). In 2013, when Tomlin presumably took over, the Steelers dropped from 1st place the year before to 13th place. And the following year (Lebeau's last here) the Steelers dropped further to 18th place.

By NO stretch of the imagination could anyone arrive at any conclusion other than the fact that Mike Tomlin is an average defensive coordinator at best.

 

[wig]

Now, one can certainly argue that the team shifted its focus around 2013 to build a more offensively minded team while essentially abandoning the defense. I'd have to do some more research before I could really consider that. But from the defensive side alone, I think I would suggest that the Steelers did themselves no favors by dropping one of the best coordinators to ever do the job and not make any attempt to find even an above-average replacement.

 

[wig]

More fun statistical stuff. Over the last 27 years the Steelers never dropped below the middle of the pack in yards allowed on defense. That is until Tomlin took over the defensive playcalling.

Since then (2013) the Steelers have been in the bottom half of the league in defense 3 times, (1/3 of his defensive coord tenure).

 

[bermudasteel]

Look, I'm not happy with the direction of the team anymore than anyone else on the board, but it seems this board likes to conveniently ignore facts to prove a point. The consensus is that Tomlin sucks at calling the D, and we are no longer a dominant defensive team. Well, if you go just by this past year, sure... but if you ignore the amount of injuries we had on the DL, and at ILB, and at OLB, and at CB, then sure it's easy to blame Tomlin and how he calls the D.

But if you do a bit of research, it's not that clear cut.

If you say he took over the playcalling on D in 13-14, then yeah, we had a middling defense for the next four years, but we also had a top ten offense in 5 of the next 6 years. You tend to give up some yards when you are up double digits, and in the prime of the killer B era, that's exactly what we did. Teams played from behind a lot and got a lot of garbage yards.

But then things started to change, the offense was less dominant, but the D started to come around, and from 2017 to 2020 we had a top 10 D in yardage and only finished outside the top 10 in scoring D one of those years. We've allowed 20 pts or less in 5 of the last 9 seasons, and in that 17-20 stretch, the one year we finished outside of the top 10 in scoring D, we allowed 22.5 pts, and averaged 27 pts on offense. It's not like our D has been weak.

The loss of Tuitt and Alualu were HUGE this year, like it can't even be put into words how much they were missed. And then you add in the injuries to Watt, Highsmith, Bush, Haden, and the games missed with Covid... it was a lot to overcome, especially with the inept offense we had that consistently put the D back on the field far too many times.

The number one scoring D in the league just gave up the same number of points we did against the very same team... As much as I want Tomlin gone, it's not because he's calling the D... it's what he's allowed to happen on the other side of the ball

Damn common sense...you're spoiling the agenda, man!!!

 

[wig]

Tomlin's defense ranked in the top 10 2017, 2018, 2019 & 2020.
The defense was the worst compared to the league it's ever been in 2021, but generally, he was trending up.

However, his defense ranked badly from 2013 to 2016. (Badly is relative here. They averaged around 16th in the league over that period. Not terrible, just mediocre.)

I suppose if you want to look at it as glass half full, the defense definitely has trended UP 4 of the last 5 years.

 

[stuntmanmike]

Listening to cook and joe podcast… damn just roasting the hot steaming mess that is the Steelers! Mahomes and Brady combined, Mahome 14 tds in 3 games, Brady 22 TDs no picks.. lol thats just insane! giving up and average of 42 points last 4 playoffs maybe last 2 I lost track… geez what is their plan to beat the good teams and be a top tier team again? Will not happen with Tomlin calling the defense that is getting us fire bombed! Where’s the improvement going to come from? From hiring a guy that was fired in 9 games for a defense that gave up over 500 yards? crickets coming from the Rooney’s

 

[troymania]

Tomlin could be fired on his clock management skills alone over his entire career. That is all on the HC. You have ALL-Pro's on all three levels of the defense, Minkah, Heyward, and Watt. Burns and Edmunds had no business being taken in the 1st round. Jones was an outright bust. Dupree didn't develop until his contract year and has been either injured or negligible in Tennessee. That is a lot of misses in the first round. Tomlin's fingerprints were all over these picks.

 

[Paul G]

So wait ..........what are you saying ....... The Butler Didn't Do It

Someone should show Tomlin ........The Door

 

[SteelerFan448]

More fun statistical stuff. Over the last 27 years the Steelers never dropped below the middle of the pack in yards allowed on defense. That is until Tomlin took over the defensive playcalling.

Since then (2013) the Steelers have been in the bottom half of the league in defense 3 times, (1/3 of his defensive coord tenure).

I think part of the decline is the defense doesn't have a true philosophy. The LeBeau defenses had to have every player execute their job. Heyward and other defenders have talked about the lack of attention to detail from teammates and that the coaches had good plays called, the players didn't execute. However, philosophically, you knew LeBeau's defenses wanted to first and foremost stop the run and secondly prevent the big play. Our current defenses seem to be get to the quarterback and hope for turnovers. They are terrific at rushing the quarterback. Part of it is because they have two studs and allow them to rush and the other is they scheme pressure pretty well. I'm not sure rushing the QB is a true philosophy. It's the same with offense where a lack of schematic advantage or philosophy has, IMO, hurt over the years.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

I remember the D got worse in LeBeau's last two seasons here.

 

[Tom Lynn-Zadeusch]

Tomlin's stupid *** stripped Dick of his play calling?

Hey Tomlin. On behalf of the city of Pittsburgh, how about you eat a f'n dick and piss off to some other franchise that is stupid enough to allow you to degrade it.