2019 NFL off-season thread

Agreed. The smartest thing Mike Tomlin ever did as a head coach was to stick with the 3-4 when he took over the Steelers even though he was a 4-3 guy. He played what fit his personnel and ended up sticking with it. Forcing the Chiefs into a new system at the cost of one of their best players doesn't make sense. I say one because I think Houston is very much in decline, but Ford was outstanding in 2018. (Though he did take a penalty that probably cost the Chiefs the AFC Championship, but I digress.)

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...4d6b7840b82_story.html?utm_term=.09a4705aa190

Statistical studies consistently show there is pretty much zero correlation between a strong showing in the “Underwear Olympics” and success in the NFL.

 

The combine has very little to do with the results of its drills. It is a lengthy and many times humiliating series of exercises to determine how much a potential player will accept the total regimentation of NFL life. Why else ask questions for which the only proper response is to smack the questioner right in the chops?

 

Going to pittsburgh, where linebackers have been iconic, and trying to switch to a 4-3 would have marked him as a moron from the jump.

 

You all will have to pardon the latest Steelersjack, but you seem to be forgetting that the first group of iconic linebackers in Pittsburgh was Andy Russell, Jack Lambert and Jack Ham. They earned that status and two of them made it to the Hall of Fame and they played in a 4-3.

History wasn't the issue. The talent on the team was the issue. The Steelers had a strong defense at the time and they had players better suited to the 3-4. It wasn't as if they were a bad team that had to rebuild. They were a year removed from the Super Bowl and the offense had fallen apart much of 2006 in large part due to Roethlisberger's health issues. That was the year of the motorcycle accident.

 

The Steelers have played the 3-4 base defense since 1982, longer than any team in the NFL. That's a quarter century or so before Tomlin blew into town. He didn't have the bonafides to switch it, and he probably (as you point out) didn't have the personnel, either.

On the Steelers: Signature 3-4 defense is a thing of the past

 

I am aware of that. They were actually one of the last teams to make the switch, then they stuck with it when most of the league swung back to the 4-3.

If Mike Tomlin cared about the history too much to make a change he believed in, then he never should have been hired in the first place. That isn't what happened. He was smart enough to see that he had a good defense, but one that was built to play the 3-4.

It had nothing to do with a history of iconic linebackers, in part because that history began with two Hall of Famers who were playing in a 4-3.

 

And what has he done to try to change that philosophy of the 4-3? Nothing. He was consistently thrown good money after bad. In 12 drafts under Tomlin, the Steelers have taken 5 LBs in the first round, with mediocre returns overall. Of course it's not entirely his fault that they whiffed completely on Jarvis Jones and to a lesser extent Bud Dupree. But that's a lot of ammo to expend on one position. They've been consistently awful in takeaway-giveaway during his tenure, ranking 28th last year and only cracking the top 10 twice under him. A lot of these linebackers have simply not been playmakers. Either draft better or change your philosophy. I fear the Steelers are looking at like five-six years of mediocrity unless they can pull a good haul from trading AB (Rosen and Larry Fitzgerald?) and also nailing the draft.

 

I'm not sure what this all has to do with the discussion of what Tomlin did when he took over, but sure, let's go further down the rabbit hole.

I doubt they are trading for Rosen, though the Cardinals certainly got some rumors started by failing to fully commit to him.

You can't really look at just the first round when evaluating draft picks. Tomlin's first draft brought the Steelers two long-term starters at linebacker, Timmons in the first round and Woodley in the second. Of five linebackers the Steelers took in the first round, you can argue that three were good players. I don't think it is reasonable to hold Shazier's freakish injury against the team. Watt has proven to be an excellent choice. Dupree is mediocre and mediocrity would have been a big step up for Jones.

 

Might wanna revoke that bail now...

Kellen Winslow Jr. Arrested After Allegedly Inappropriately Touching 77-Year-Old Woman

https://deadspin.com/kellen-winslow-jr-arrested-after-allegedly-inappropria-1833069078

Per the Union-Tribune, Winslow went up to a 77-year-old woman while they were exercising near each other at a Carlsbad gym on Feb. 13 and began touching himself, asking her if she liked it. Prosecutors say he returned to the gym and harassed the woman again on Feb. 22. While she was in a hot tub, he got in wearing nothing but a towel and started touching her arm and foot.

Before his arrest, Winslow was out on $2 million bail after being charged with multiple counts of forcible rape and kidnapping last summer. Coincidentally, Winslow has a court date today with Vista Superior Court Judge Blaine Bowman regarding his pending rape case, as well as another charge brought against him by a woman who says he raped her back in 2003, when she was 17. Winslow is also facing an indecent exposure charge, reportedly for exposing himself to a 50-year-old woman in her yard last May.​

 

A lot more supply than demand on the safety market. Wow