The season is over and yet there remains plenty to talk about with the Steelers -- so much so, in fact, that just one story doesn't seem to suffice. Heck, two or even three pieces could cover all of the ground that needs to be trodden over.
We'll start with the new elephant in the room, the relationship between Ben Roethlisberger and Todd Haley.
Roethlisberger was asked on his final call Tuesday morning to 93.7 The Fan about his relationship with his six-year offensive coordinator and if there is tension between the two. The quarterback said he has had tension with every coordinator he has had before this and it's nothing new, adding that he and Haley sat down and talked Monday afternoon.
“I don’t think it was as big of a deal as the outside world made it, as the media made it or whatever was perceived to be, if you will," Roethlisberger said of his clashes with Haley. "You’re always going to have rifts, if you will. That’s player-to-player. That’s player-to-coaches. It’s not just Coach Haley and I, or (quarterbacks) Coach Randy (Fichtner), (offensive line) Coach (Mike) Munchak. There’s always issues in a competitive field like we have where everyone’s trying to win and trying to be the best they can be. You might butt heads at times. It doesn’t mean that you have any problem, any personal problem. We laughed about that yesterday, too, when things were perceived that we had all these issues. And there were times that maybe there was an issue, but we would go into his office and we’d talk and we would work out and we’d iron it out and everything was fine. That happens with lots of coaches. That happened with me and (Bruce Arians). That happened with (Ken Whisenhunt) and myself. It’s not a new thing. I think it just is perceived than a bigger deal than it really was.”
As I reported yesterday, the Steelers would like to sign Roethlisberger to an extension that would take him beyond the 2019 season as a member of the team.
Haley, meanwhile, is not under contract with the team after this season and the Steelers have to decide if they want to move forward with him as coordinator. For that to happen, Mike Tomlin is going to have to ask himself: Is the situation between Haley and Roethlisberger a detriment to the team? If both men say they can live with each other, Tomlin could decide to stick with the dynamic, which has produced a top-10 offense in each of the past four seasons while seeing Roethlisberger sacked the least amount in his career in each of the past three seasons.
If not, one will have to go. And it won't be the quarterback.
Tomlin said Tuesday at his season-ending press conference that he hasn't yet made any decisions on any of his assistant coaches and will sit down with each coach to hash out their feelings about returning or whether he wants them to return.
I asked if he expects his coaching staff to return intact in 2018.
"I don’t know where these roads are going to lead," Tomlin replied. "Some conversations need to be had. Some contracts are up, some contracts aren’t. I am not ready to discuss that at this point. Part of gaining that understanding is those conversations and so forth, so you’ll hear about them as they unfold, I’m sure, if there is anything to be heard, but I'm not there yet, no. I’m gathering information on all relationships and things of that nature. That’s what this assessment is about so I am not ready to state opinions about the nature of any of our relationships whether I am assessing in terms of what transpired or what’s going to transpire moving forward. That is the process that I am in right now."
Tomlin and his staff -- or what will remain of it -- will leave next Tuesday to coach in the Pro Bowl. So any retirements or firings will come before that happens. In fact, they'll likely come by the end of this week.
• Right now, I'd put Haley returning at 50-50.
Whether Roethlisberger wants to admit it or not, Haley has accomplished what he was brought here to do -- extend the career of the franchise quarterback. Think about it: Would anyone have bet on Roethlisberger playing past the age of 35 five or six years ago, when he was being sacked 40-50 times per season and getting hit on nearly every play?
As much as Roethlisberger liked Arians, he wasn't good for his long-term future. The deep drops required in Arians' long-passing attack led to plenty of big and unneeded hits on a quarterback.
• Which brings us to the quarterback sneaks.
Roethlisberger also said again Tuesday that he has no problem running a quarterback sneak, something the Steelers have not asked him to do since 2014.
“I truly have never said I don’t want to run it. I don’t have the freedom to check to a quarterback sneak because we don’t have that call if we’re not in the huddle," Roethlisberger said. "Obviously, we’re in the huddle, we can call a quarterback sneak and you do it. If you’re at the line of scrimmage, we don’t have a call to get to a quarterback sneak. Am I supposed to whisper to everybody, ‘Hey, quarterback sneak, quarterback sneak?’ If you don’t have the call, you can’t do it. I’ve actually asked Coach Tomlin when we get to the 2-yard line, two-point play, to spread the defense out, go empty and run quarterback draw. I’ve asked for that, and he laughs at me and says, ‘Ben, maybe in your younger days, not now.’ "
And therein lies the rub. When Haley was asked why the Steelers don't run a quarterback sneak earlier in the season, he said he doesn't want Roethlisberger taking big hits in those situations. I've also been told the Steelers are worried about Roethlisberger's knees trying to drive forward on those kind of plays. He's had multiple knee injuries in his career and they don't want him driving into a pile of humanity. There's also the issue of Maurkice Pouncey being a lighter, more athletic lineman. He's not exactly the biggest center in the NFL.
"Sometimes coming to those decisions has nothing to do with his skill set or what he is willing to do," Tomlin said. "It might just be based on what the opponent does. Those are decisions that we have to make. It’s really not anything extraordinary about it. It’s just a part of ball."
• A story emerged Tuesday on the ProFootballTalk blog that some of the Steelers limited investors are going to lobby Art Rooney II to fire Tomlin.
Good luck with that concept. Those limited investors are going to find out exactly how limited their partnership really is.
The Steelers have had three head coaches over the past five decades. They stuck with Chuck Noll through some lean early years and throughout the 1980s when the Super Bowl titles were becoming a fleeting memory. They stuck with Bill Cowher through 14 seasons that failed to include a Super Bowl win and did include four losses at home in the AFC Championship.
Do they really think Rooney is going to fire Tomlin because they want to act like a bunch of college football boosters?
Obviously, some fans feel that way, as well. But when you fire a coach -- particularly a head coach -- you'd better have somebody in mind as his replacement. And you'd better be sure that replacement is going to take the job.
I've seen the names bandied about, Josh McDaniels being chief among them. Apparently, everyone has forgotten McDaniels went 11-17 as the head coach of the Broncos, and the list of Bill Belichick disciples being successful head coaches is, well, pretty barren.
• I also continue to see people attacking the media for not holding Tomlin accountable for his decisions. I chuckle every time.
I thought he made a poor decision to go for an onside kick with 2:18 remaining in the game and two timeouts in his pocket down seven points on Sunday. I wrote as much. I also wasn't a fan of the pitch to Le'Veon Bell on fourth down in the first quarter coming out of the timeout. In fact, I wrote that the head coach was responsible for that call coming out of a timeout because he has veto power on any call.
I've also seen where Tomlin doesn't accept any responsibility for those mistakes. He might not admit they were mistakes. He might not believe they were the wrong calls -- or at least might not say so publicly. But he did say that he takes responsibility for them. You might not like his answer to the question about why he did something. You might not agree with his assessment. But to say that he doesn't accept responsibility when they go wrong is false.
As for holding him accountable, the media has even less say in whether he stays or goes than the limited investors.
• It's very soon after the season, but I think there will be a change or two on the coaching staff that don't involve retirements. And while the Steelers have basically all of their starters under contract for next season -- with the exception of Bell -- there will be some changes there, as well.
Bell, at the very least, will be franchise-tagged again. And despite his talk of considering holding out or retiring, $14.5 million is too much money to walk away from. It's nearly as much money as he has made in his entire career.
But I would expect the Steelers to part ways with Mike Mitchell and William Gay -- though Gay might just retire. And I would expect the team to make a run in free agency at a veteran safety and inside linebacker while also drafting players at both of those positions, as well.
This is not a team that needs a complete makeover. It's a team that has won 24 games the past two regular seasons.
Was the way 2017 ended a disappointment? Absolutely. That doesn't mean this thing should be blown up. With Cam Heyward being named to the Pro Bowl team Tuesday as an injury replacement for Khalil Mack, the Steelers have nine players in that game, more than any other team in the league.
It's a talented roster. But, as David DeCastro told me Monday, the Steelers can't just be a collection of great individual talent.
"We have to work together better as a team," he said. "It's a team game."
And as much as I hate to say it, this season came down to what happened over the course of about 10 minutes on a Sunday afternoon on Dec. 17.
If Jesse James cleanly catches the football against the Patriots, the Steelers are hosting the AFC Championship on Sunday. If Roethlisberger doesn't throw a pass to Darrius Heyward-Bey in bounds or one slightly behind Eli Rogers that gets tipped and intercepted moments later, the Steelers might be hosting the AFC Championship on Sunday.
But those things happened.
"We had a wild ride. We were able to accomplish a lot of things," Tomlin said. "Some things that we set out to do. We realize that our ball goes through the AFC North. We met the charge in that regard. We wanted to position ourselves as strongly as we could in playoff football to make the ball go through Pittsburgh, Pa. We were able to get a bye and that nature.
"It ended the way it ended and, looking back at it, there's nothing that we can do about that but learn from the experience. We didn’t play winning football last weekend and there are consequences of that. We understand that. Oftentimes the people that care about us talk about putting perspective on it, it not being the most important thing in the world and so forth. I get that, they get that, but it doesn’t lessen the will that we have. The commitment that we have toward that is a blessing and, for that, I am thankful. They are thankful. But it also doesn’t lessen the hurt that comes with it when you are not successful and we’ve learned to embrace that element of it, too, because it is real."
It is real. The hurt fans are feeling is real. I understand that.
But things could be worse. If you don't think so, just take a look at the team that plays its home games two blocks away from the Steelers.