FanPost

Change Was Inevitable




We made the playoffs Nation! That's great, but that is not necessarily the goal. Let's look at our 10-7 season realistically and not through our Silver and Black lenses. Even with all the distractions of Gruden, Ruggs, Arnette, mid-season coaching change we managed to have 6 walk-off wins and 4 straight wins to get into the playoffs. But, who did we really beat in that 4 game stretch? A beat up Browns team that's not very good. A Denver team with bad coaching and 3rd string QB. A Colts team that was good but didn't make the playoffs (they also lost to a putrid Jacksonville team). And we beat a Charger team that had so many bad decisions (who goes for it on 4th down from your own 18 yard line?) they practically gave the game to us. From our 10-7 record we could've easily been 5-12; it took some herculean efforts by Maxx and even Carr on some days just to beat bad teams. We have a turnstile at RT and a #1 pick at RG who can't remember the snap count most days.

Yet, we finished 10-7.

It's not that we're not a good team, we are. But we've fallen into the fools gold of being the middle of the pack 10-7, 9-8 worst of the best / best of the worst in the AFC. Take a look at that monster KC has put on the filed the last 3 seasons; they aren't going anywhere. Look at what they are building in Buffalo. They're for real. And Pittsburgh is only a mobile QB away from being contenders again. We have to build a culture of winning and it starts with the right guys in the front office who put the right coaches and right players on the field. We don't need motivators; we need innovators.

My biggest complaint with our current team is when we need that "play" or that "drive" we often times come up empty. We almost have to play a near-perfect game on all 3 levels just to be competitive against the great teams and when we don't we end up with the one-sided losses. Maybe I'm just full of post season blues but I'm tired of being out coached and out schemed. Nobody works harder than us. Nobody plays harder. I don't think there's a guy on this team who doesn't give full effort......it's just we don't have that IT factor that's required to be consistently great in sport where CULTURE IS CRUCIAL. I think firing Mayock was Mark's way of fixing the culture from the top. He never should've hired Gruden in the first place.