Khan’s job is personnel. Tomlin obviously has a say being head coach and has been around forever. But it is Khan that leads the scouts and does the homework at dissecting film and other on prospects. Tomlin would do some, but most likely Khan and his crew would put the research in a package and game plan for who/how to target for Tomlin to review. Tomlin in preseason and in season wouldn’t have the time to do any of that when do focusing all efforts in game planning and other in season work. There is a clear difference from Colbert to Khan. Although overall results aren’t showing it, “Khan’s guys” don’t seem to be the problems, meaning the guys he brought in. Granted, half of them are hurt, and some did have durability concerns.

Khan would have very little if anything to do with game planning and any sort of coaching. Although, I would think the GMs would know the system well, since they are tasked to look for players that would be a good fit. If Khan can keep bringing in the personnel that he has, it could really mask Tomlin’s coaching.

Even though we've always had the Turnpike rivalry of the Steelers and the Browns, somewhere in my inner self I've always wanted the Browns to do better; ie making it to the top of the division or at least getting a wild card playoff spot. Yesterday, the Browns, riddled with injuries and a myriad of mistakes, put a nail in the coffin of the Chicago Bears with seconds left to play and won the game. As opposed to the Steelers, the Browns showed resolve, and despite Flacco throwin' 3 ints and getting sacked 3 times, they proved that a team that wants to win can win. Go Browns!

Mitchell
Even though we've always had the Turnpike rivalry of the Steelers and the Browns, somewhere in my inner self I've always wanted the Browns to do better; ie making it to the top of the division or at least getting a wild card playoff spot. Yesterday, the Browns, riddled with injuries and a myriad of mistakes, put a nail in the coffin of the Chicago Bears with seconds left to play and won the game. As opposed to the Steelers, the Browns showed resolve, and despite Flacco throwin' 3 ints and getting sacked 3 times, they proved that a team that wants to win can win. Go Browns!

Until they win a Super Bowl, the Browns is the Browns. 

Looking like Rudolph will be over Mitch for the next game, either starting or backing up kenny. Good. Mitch has been horrible.

I loved the outrage over Tomlins "Justice" WOKE shirt from Saturday. Saw some folks all upset about him daring to do it. With how this years gone, (and past), choosing his shirt to get upset over, is just blatantly saying the quiet part out loud. 

Then Sunday, oh wow what a shock, we saw other coaches and players wearing the same thing. 

Gonna be tough now with both safeties out. The NFL has gone crazy with their end of the year suspension of Kazee. I guess the NFL thinks that any WR can catch the ball and then we wait until he either scores or falls down on his own, then the safety can just touch him (gently, of course) to be officially down. All the receiver has to do is go low, or the QB can deliberately lead him low and force him down to avoid being hit by the defensive back. The receiver can control the play even after a high catch by just going low. Once the DB has launched, he certainly can't stop in mid air. Such BS!! The rules are ruining the game. Speaking of safeties, Porter, Jr. now has 7 interference penalties since becoming a starter 5 games back. In one game, he had two penalties on the same play. The pundits who cover the Steelers say he's just "handsy". Tomlin needs to read him the riot act about hangin' on to a receiver, (I think he should have been called for PI many more times, but he's gotten away with it), and if he don't, won't, can't learn to keep hands off, then bench him until he gets his mind right.
OTOH,the offense just can't seem to play as a team when they have a couple of receivers with a prima donna attitude. Pickens a whole lot, Johnson a little less. They need to start thinkin' about the team and not themselves.

100% on Kazee. Complete overreach on the suspension. It has to be reduced when appealed. Kazee is a repeat offender of being overly physical. That play, yeah, he went low and launched with his shoulder pad. Not exactly sure what he could do. Since it hit Pittman’s head is only reason. If Pitman didn’t brace himself and pull his head down, the shoulder hits his chest and he drops the ball, no penalty or anything. Football in general is getting out of hand. NFL with these rules, NCAA with coast to coast conferences and “playoffs” (that seems to be fixing next year), PIAA with private school advantages.

JPJ is a rookie that is the closest thing we have had to a shutdown corner since Ike. This season and likely next are rebuilds. The more he becomes a veteran, the refs will let him get away with that handsy play and he will slightly adjust to hide it. By no way do you go at him that aggressively to change the player he is.. It is frustrating as a fan of a team that needs to play perfect to even be competitive and have to add that on. They likely don’t even call half of his interferences if he is wearing a Chiefs, Ravens, Eagles or 49ers jersey. We used to get those “benefit of the doubt” no calls when Ike was around. It will come with JPJ especially if the team as whole gets better. Don’t get me wrong, if he is being egregious on interference it needs to be addressed more, but I don’t see it that way. No doubt he completely cost them 14 points this past week and likely 30+ all season. The defense has so many major holes now with injuries and now suspension. These last three games are basically an extension of next year preseason to get these younger guys more time to make those slight adjustments. If they can get a win Saturday at least a sliver of hope and maybe fire them up a bit.

Seattle beat Philly Monday night in the last minute of the game. Today, they beat the Titans in the last minute of the game, so they'll be high on two wins come Sunday. Browns beat the Texans, so that puts Texas back farther in the hunt, maybe even out of the hunt. Good to see the Steelers put something together and win, but a tough row to hoe comin' up.

Will Rudolph be able to keep up the magic? Often these sparks are short lived. O-line gave him a lot of time against the Bungles, just as they did for KP against the same Bungles. The two best looking games all season. Mason has never been known to play well under pressure, just as most don’t. Look at Brock Purdy under pressure. If the O-line can keep Mason upright, they have a chance. Defense did surprisingly well being held together by duct tape. With how short staffed they are at ILB and S, just can’t see them being able to keep repeating. If they can somehow sneak in the playoffs, they would need extreme luck to advance at all. But always nice getting in the playoffs, even knowing they would be by far, the worst team in the field. So, they rightfully don’t belong there.

Ravens playing Dolphins, if Ravens win, they lock up #1 seed. If they lose, Steelers final game gets a lot harder. It is playoff time, sort of want hard games. If you can’t win them, how can you win in the playoffs?

I'm not gonna be as hard on the Niners as you, Pork. True, Purdy had a really bad night, but then, the whole team looked like only 50% of the true Niners. Pizz poor blocking, not a great running game though McCaffery faired pretty well, and defensively as a team had a new record for defensive penalties. I'm hopin' Rudolph don't get rattled, and if the O line can keep him safe for a few series', it'll be a big confidence builder, but that won't build accuracy. Look how many teams have had quarterback injuries this year. There's subs in place all over the league. Rudolph could get a shot at a decent contract in free agency and I really think he's better than a 3rd row seat warmer and he'll get his shot to prove it this week. Wish I could see the Browns tomorrow night, and I probably could subscribe to Prime on the one month free trial, but I'm not gonna go through the hassle.

Well, it ain't over 'til it's over. Where did that O line come from? They were able to run the ball at will, until they went totally conservative at the end of the game. Word of caution for the Ravens game. The Dolphins, supposedly the most effective offense in the NFL, suffered a drubbing at the hands of the Ravens. I think it could be an easy win for the Ravens against the Steelers. The Ravens  showed that passing down the right side provided long gains and easy TD opportunities. That's Joey Porter's domain. Even if a Ravens' receiver fails to catch the pass, they could get 3 or 4 PI calls for long gains on (Mister Handsy) Porter. I don't think he had one yesterday; one reason being he couldn't stay with Metcalf on the long routes. One more thing. Jackson is the second highest yardage runner on the Ravens club, and when he runs, (usually on well covered pass plays, and often by design, he NEVER slides. He always plows headlong into the linebackers or safeties. Defensive backs must be very careful about how they bring him down, 'cause even though in that case he's a running back not afforded the protection of the same rules as when/if he's defenseless in the pocket, I somehow think he'd get the PF penalty if hit anywhere above the waist. At any rate, after this coming Sunday's game is over, the anticipation will be over, unless the Steelers pull it out. Maybe we'll get lucky and Harbaugh won't play starters, but I think he'll want to end the regular season with the best record in the NFL. We'll know in a week.

Typical Tomlin, backdoor into a winning season. Still wont win a playoff game this year, if somehow they luck into the #7 seed. All they had to do was beat AZ and NE, and week #18 wouldn't matter so much. I want to know if Omar pounded the table to resign Mitch or was it Tomlin. Its pretty clear the ONLY reason Mitch started was his salary. 
 
I hope Mason gets a win this week, and goes elsewhere for 2024 and signs a decent contract. Dude deserves better. 
 
 

DeadGator401
I dislike Tomlin, and think he should move on, but whew. This team felt like 0-17 at times, to get them to 10-7 is nuts. 

Same thing said last season and a few others. They started out looking like a HS team and finished strong. They looked like a real contender coming out of preseason, then offense was just horrible. Defense had times that looked suspect, then 50% starters out and looks like no hope, they shut teams down???

Not sure if I want them getting in and watching them get destroyed? One thing to patchwork the secondary and ILBs, take TJ out for playoff game, I just don’t see their D taking over any playoff teams. How every team doesn’t just do shallow crossing route over the middle after shallow crossing route against our D is amazing to me. Not only from the decimation of our depth there, but it destroyed our healthy starters…. I’ll be pulling for another game and treat it like a non BCS bowl game. Just an extension of the preseason. 2-3 draft positions don’t matter at this point. If they lost last week, I’d be rooting for loss this week for the draft. But now, what is the difference. They aren’t getting a decent qb without mortgaging the future. If they would have went straight to Mason after Ben and went heavy on the O line, we’d be ready to mortgage the future for one of the top guys.

If we can get a solid offensive minded coordinator, I imagine the personnel isn’t far off. I’ve got to think much of the O line inconsistency is from scheming. They look good now (hard to judge much from slop conditions today). Last year line looked good end of last season. Hopefully a good mind is able to really see what is going on with the whole offensive puzzle. Warren looked like one of the best RBs in the league, line starts blocking in early downs and then Najee starts looking like a Pro Bowler and Warren is a liability. Makes no sense. Be nice to get someone in here with a consistent system and really know what we need. Yes, I know, we need a qb, but a complete waste if you aren’t sure you have other things in place. If they are convinced from these games that this line can be effective in whatever new scheme, then go for the homerun and trade away the future for that one pick. But that pick could end up being Mitch #2 overall pick. Having that guy around for two years, has me never wanting to ever trade up more than 2-3 spots. Devin Bush did enough long term damage to not want to ever trade up too far.

All honesty, Steelers can't beat any of the other 6 AFC teams. This just enables the organization to kick the can down the street for another year. Play middle, draft middle, stay middle. I could see them moving on from Pickett though. We'll havta see.

Just saw it is against Bills if they win. Chiefs if Dolphins win. Tie, I think Stillers/Dolphins.

Sort of changes things…. I could see Steelers hanging with an underperforming Dolphins. Yinzers would travel to Miami and the Florida retirees would probably be the best location for at least some of Stillers Nation being there. They just said Bills Mafia has more of the stands than Dolphins.

Arrowhead would have 10 Stillers fans. Buffalo being close might help get a few fans but doubt Bills Mafia is selling many seats.

Unless some crazy injuries this evening with the Bills, I can’t imagine Stillers sticking with them for more than a drive or two. Their defense is probably best and doubt Najee gets things moving and pressure will be coming all night.

Go tie!

Bills are in. Playing for either #2 seed if win or #6 if they lose.

Note to Porktown. The snap that Mason dropped came to him completely horrizontal, (sideways!!). How does somethin' like that happen? I've been critical of Cole all season, but I didn't think it possible that you could deliver the ball sideways.
You know they went through a lot of footballs in the game. Each team provides 6 official game balls, but the balls became so water logged that the teams requested the refs to allow more balls. Dang lucky it wasn't 10 degrees cooler in Baltimore. They'd have been playin' in a foot of snow toward the end. That was some serious rain. No matter who they play, they're on the road. Yinzers will travel anywhere unless the weather is so bad it makes it impossible. There was a lot of Black & Gold in Baltimore. They have as good a chance of beatin' Miami or KC as any team; both of them have found some problems they didn't expect to have with the season winding down. Buffalo is another story, winnin' 4 of their last 5.
How about those Eagles? Man-o-man! What has happened? It's more than injuries. 5 losses in a row.