Commentary
Blame Steelers’ 6-10 season on their personnel PITTSBURGH – No need for moving vans at Steelers headquarters.
Bill Cowher put out the word Monday that he did not anticipate making any changes in his coaching staff.
Dan Rooney had asserted much earlier that Cowher wasn’t going anywhere, so it’s obvious the Steelers blame this year’s 6-10 season on the personnel.
Not a bad theory.
It took half a season to get the offensive line to function and about the same length of time to get some acceptable play from the secondary.
Even then it’s hard to judge how much better things got because the Steelers were mostly playing bad teams down the stretch.
The upcoming draft is supposed to be rich in cornerbacks and the Steelers, picking 11th, should be able to get a good one. The problem is corner is a tough position to learn at the NFL level so perhaps the Steelers are better suited shopping the free agent market.
The dilemma there, of course, is you aren’t always able to get the player you target.
The position of need that’s easiest to assimilate a rookie is running back. Maybe that’s where the Steelers can focus their draft attention.
They’re in desperate need of fresh legs and they also need to add depth behind whoever the starter turns out to be. It almost certainly won’t be Jerome Bettis, although he could fill a back-up role in a revamped backfield.
Heading into the offseason, call cornerback and running back equally important priorities with offensive line running a close second. (That’s assuming center Jeff Hartings’ knees allow him to return, as he has projected).
If the Steelers learned one thing from this season, it’s that no matter how they structure their offense, the need to run the ball is a constant.
Tommy Maddox has occasional games where he can’t throw with any accuracy and a strong running game becomes the only alternative.
The Steelers need a workhorse back who can make that viable. Bettis isn’t that player any more and neither is Amos Zereoue, who shouldn’t be back.
Speaking of people who shouldn’t be back, it’s time to cut ties with Dewayne Washington, Mark Bruener and Jason Gildon.
The dollar value for each of those players is out of balance and the salary cap is unforgiving.
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Watching safety Chris Hope weave his way through traffic after catching a pass on a fake punt made you wonder if the Steelers don’t have him on the wrong side of the ball.
Hope, a former high school running back, had the most impressive run of the season in Sunday’s game at Baltimore.
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Cowher can probably be grateful that the Rooneys run a stable organization.
Since the season ended Sunday night, coaches Gregg Williams (Buffalo) and Dick Jauron (Chicago) were fired.
The Bills matched the Steelers’ 6-10 record and Jauron’s Bears were actually a game better at 7-9.
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The Penguins played the Chicago Blackhawks Monday night and drew 16,120, the second-largest crowd of the season.
Monday is generally a bad night for the Penguins, and the Blackhawks are a terrible opponent – a bad team filled with no-name players.
The game was awful, too, a festival of missed scoring chances because of the low skill level of the players.
So why did it attract 5,000 more people than usual?
It must have been the bobblehead giveaway that featured team mascot Iceburgh.
If that’s the case, the Penguins ought to be scrambling to order more bobbleheads. They have a lot of tickets to sell for equally unattractive games.
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If you watched the Steelers game, you probably feel like you should send a thank-you note to Eric Dickerson.
Seemed like we spent the whole night in his living room.
The idea was good – have a live hook-up with Dickerson as Jamal Lewis tried to break his single-season rushing record.
But we would have been fine with half as many visits. It became obvious Dickerson didn’t have much of value to say (didn’t he prove that when he was a sideline reporter on Monday Night Football?) and it became awkward after a point.
And we didn’t even get any nachos.
Sports correspondent John Mehno can be reached online at: johnmehno@lycos.com