The Blitzburgh Report

Ben Roethlisberger put in another gutty performance last Sunday against the Jaguars. He has almost single-handedly won some close games for the Steelers this year. He is emerging as a leader for the offense, someone that the guys can rally behind.

But it makes me wonder-just who is the leader on defense? I’m not so sure that they have a true leader. They have a number of guys like Troy Polamalu, Casey Hampton, and James Farrior who are great players, but more of the lead by example type. I am starting to think that they need more of a vocal leader.

The defense has the talent and coaching to be the top defense in the league, that has been proven. But the times that the team has needed the defense to step up most, they haven’t. How many times this season have we seen the opposing team march right down the field, quickly even, when the team needed a huge stop? It happened last Sunday on the Jaguars’ last drive. It happened against the Browns (luckily they missed the field goal). It happened against Denver where they kicked the game winning field goal. It happened in the Jets game where they went down the field and tied it to send the game into overtime.

That’s where I think a vocal leader is needed. Someone to rally the players, get them pumped, and get them focused. You can say what you want about Joey Porter, but being a leader was a large part of what he brought to the team. The Steelers were right in getting rid of him, as proven by his play with the Dolphins. However, they still ended up losing the defense’s leader, if not the team leader at that point.

There just hasn’t been anyone who has taken his place. He may have looked foolish sometimes, or gone too far at others. But you can see the power he had just by looking at the 2005 playoffs and the effect he had on the team during their Super Bowl run. Remember the “weak Colts” and Jerramy Stevens?

Bill Cowher being gone is another lost leader, I believe. He was the so called “players coach”, someone who showed a lot of emotion, especially for defense. Mike Tomlin is quite the opposite in this regard. I understand that there are different approaches to coaching, and pros and cons to each. I’m not even sure I could tell you which method is more effective and this is not a knock on Tomlin’s style. But, when the game is on the line and the pressure is turned up- I want to see the guys fired up and ready to take someone’s head off.

The defense is good; they wouldn’t be number one in the league for most of the season if they weren’t. But they have had so much trouble stepping up, being physical, and showing emotion when it matters most. I really think that is when guys like Joey Porter or Bill Cowher shined, and the team really misses that. The Steelers are going to need someone to step up and be the person that the defense rallies behind.

Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated wrote a great piece about Ben Roethlisberger and how he is playing this season for Terry Hoeppner. Big Ben was extrememly close to Hoeppner, his coach from Miami of Ohio who died earlier this year from complications from a brain tumor.

Adam Schein of FOXSports.com gives the Steelers an “A” for their midseason grade.

Bill Cowher says that if the Patriots continue running up the score, “At some point if this continues, someone’s going to take a cheap shot.”

Levon Kirkland and Hardy Nickerson are new additons to former Steelers players and staff in the running for the Hall of Fame.

D.C. Steeler Nation takes a look at why this week’s Ravens game should be different then the beat downs from last year.

Former Steelers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt is 1-2 so far as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. If history tells anything, former Bill Cowher assistants have not had much success as head coaches in the NFL and Whisenhunt may have his work cut out for him. Let’s take a look at some stats:

-Including Whisenhunt’s record so far, former Bill Cowher assistants are a combined 174-229 as head coaches.

-Former Cowher assistants are a combined 2-5 in the playoffs.

-Only two have winning records- Chan Gailey (18-14) and Marvin Lewis (36-31).

-In their first game against the Steelers, they are a combined 2-3.

Coach	Reg. Season	Playoffs	First Game Against Steelers
Chan Gailey	18-14	0-2	Never played Steelers
Dom Capers	48-80	1-1	W 18-14
Jim Haslett	45-51	1-1	W 32-29
Mike Mularkey	14-18	0-0	L 24-29
Marvin Lewis	36-31	0-1	L 10-17
Dick LeBeau	12-33	0-0	L 0-15

Wishenhunt has a chance today to even the record of the coaches in their first game against the Steelers. The Cardinals are tough to get a read on because they can just as easily be 0-3 or 3-0 because of their last second finishes in each game. Whisenhunt is going to have a lot of incentive to beat his former team today, but don’t think that the Steelers players want to get shown up by him either, especially Ben Roethlisberger (who’s friction with the former OC has come to light over the off season). Either way, it should be a lot closer game then the first three for the Steelers.

I can’t help but feel that the Steelers’ trade for return specialist Allen Rossum might be one of Mike Tomlin’s best moves so far as a head coach. The value of having someone back there who knows what they’re doing has been highlighted with just how bad things were last year.

Which leads me to this thought- for someone who made his start as a fiery special teams coach, Bill Cowher sure was bad with special teams. Really bad at times. The two that stick out most in my mind are the 2001 AFC Championship game, and of course the disaster that was special teams last season. Games, including very important ones, were lost because of poor special teams play.

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I hate having to preface all my posts right now with “It is still early but…” or “the Steelers haven’t really been tested yet but..” however, it goes with the territory of only having played two games against underperforming teams. I’ll probably be able to stop saying it if they put up another good performance against the 49′ers, but for one last time:

It is still early but, Mike Tomlin’s more hands-off approach to his coordinators might be paying dividends. The Pittsburgh media had two articles this week explaining how Tomlin is letting his coaches do their thing and not micromanaging.

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The Post-Gazette has a short blurb today about former Steelers Coach Bill Cowher predicting that that team will finish third in the AFC North, behind the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals:

Now that he’s no longer coach of the Steelers, Bill Cowher apparently feels free to play the what-if game.

He predicts the Steelers will finish third in the AFC North behind Baltimore and Cincinnati.

“Those two teams, I think they’re still the top two,” Cowher said Tuesday on the NFL Network. “And still I think Pittsburgh, they’ve got a chance with their schedule to get off to a good start, they’ve got a chance to be a team to be contended with.”

I am surprised that Cowher would come right out and say that the Steelers are only the third best team in the AFC North. I realize that he wants to appear objective because of his new commentary gig, and he obviously doesn’t want to sound too enthusiastic about the guy who replaced him. Maybe he he thinks that the Steelers just can’t be all that great without him leading them anymore.

Just more motivation for the team.

Mike Tomlin did something in his first preseason game as an NFL head coach that neither the great Chuck Noll or Bill Cowher were able to– he won it. Chuck Noll debuted in 1969 with a 27-12 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1992, Bill Cowher lost his first game 35-33 to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Does it mean anything? Probably not, but winning is never a bad thing and Mike Tomlin’s team sure looked impressive last night in its first showing.

Profootballtalk.com has a rumor up suggesting that there is talk in league circles that former Steelers coach Bill Cowher is angry our Ben Roethlisberger’s recent comments that their relationship wasn’t that great:

COACH CHIN NOT HAPPY WITH BIG BEN

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger recently said that his relationship with coach Bill Cowher “wasn’t great.”

Cowher’s reaction to the comment “wasn’t great,” either.

Talk in league circles is that Cowher is very unhappy with Roethlisberger’s comment. Cowher supported and nurtured the young quarterback during their three years together, and Cowher never spoke out negatively about Roethlisberger after he nearly died as a result of a motorcycle accident in June 2006.

Said Roethlisberger last month: “It’s going to be definitely different, because coach Cowher was, obviously, here before I got here, so our relationship wasn’t great just for the fact that he was here so long before I got here, and I was just a young kid, a rookie, when he got here. Coach Tomlin and I are both, in a sense, rookies together. So, I think we might have a little bit better relationship.”

The fact that the statement from Roethlisberger was plastered onto the team’s official web site not long after the comments were made also is a slap, we believe, at the former coach, whose wishy-washiness in 2006 regarding his future with the team chafed some within the organization.

I believe it. One thing fans have learned after being with Cowher with 15 years is that the man has a pretty big ego himself and I doubt he takes such comments lightly. There have been rumors all along that Big Ben and Cowher weren’t the best of friends- not that they disliked each other but that the relationship with very much business.

All of this seems to play into those rumors. Some say that Big Ben was not Cowher’s choice, or even that he may have resented Ben’s lightening fast climb to stardom. Some even say finally having a good quarterback (one he might not have wanted) is what allowed Cowher to finally win the big one.

What ever it was, it is time to move on. Cowher is no longer the coach. Everything so far indicates that new coach Mike Tomlin and Ben have really hit it off; a relationship that will hopefully bring more titles to Pittsburgh very soon.

The votes are in and the nation thinks the Steelers should take Paul Posluszny in the upcoming draft.

Bill Cowher is enjoying his retirement.

The Steelers offense is learning the new playbook.

Coach Tomlin plans to talk with guard Alan Faneca.