OT: The Pittsburgher Thread: They Killed Kenny!

[ChaosAgent]

I will gladly discuss football when posters understand that using the Y word reflects worse upon them than the person they are name-calling. Since the mission has been accomplished, no need to deal in the realm of counterfactual (e.g., doesn't the outside world perceive the fire Tomlin people as "Yinzers"?)

@Peat to answer your question, I do think there is a finite limit on how much $10M worth of assistant coaches cam hamstring $200m worth of players. The players are always highly complicit in their own performance, otherwise OCs would make $20m/year. And instances like the Giants QB throwing 3 TDs last week show me that players of any quality can overcome things sometimes.

 

[bigdaddyk88]

Yeah if he can average 200 and 1.5 tds they will go with him next season and the defenses he will face anything less is unacceptable

 

[DanielPlainview]

I will gladly discuss football when posters understand that using the Y word reflects worse upon them than the person they are name-calling. Since the mission has been accomplished, no need to deal in the realm of counterfactual (e.g., doesn't the outside world perceive the fire Tomlin people as "Yinzers"?)

@Peat to answer your question, I do think there is a finite limit on how much $10M worth of assistant coaches cam hamstring $200m worth of players. The players are always highly complicit in their own performance, otherwise OCs would make $20m/year. And instances like the Giants QB throwing 3 TDs last week show me that players of any quality can overcome things sometimes.

Yinzer is and always has been "dumb Pittsburgh sports fan". The guy who thinks the backup QB would make every play the starter doesn't. The one who calls into radio with absurd trade proposals. The fan with such an obvious shortcoming in knowledge about the sport they're talking about that people have to spend most of their time trying to talk sense to them rather than have an actual conversation about the issue. The Yinzer thinks criticism of the HC is just a form of racism. They have little real knowledge, misuse statistics because of said lack of knowledge, and utilimately tend to be more emotion-based than reasonable. You are the Yinzer. I'm sorry.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Yinzer is and always has been "dumb Pittsburgh sports fan". The guy who thinks the backup QB would make every play the starter doesn't. The one who calls into radio with absurd trade proposals. The fan with such an obvious shortcoming in knowledge about the sport they're talking about that people have to spend most of their time trying to talk sense to them rather than have an actual conversation about the issue. The Yinzer thinks criticism of the HC is just a form of racism. They have little real knowledge, misuse statistics because of said lack of knowledge, and utilimately tend to be more emotion-based than reasonable. You are the Yinzer. I'm sorry.

Oh no, looks like I'm it. Good job Danny. You've achieved your goal which is that anyone you disagree with is a Yinzer. When Kenny becomes Eli Manning or Tom Brady, I'll let ya have an arn city on me. If he becomes Derek Carr, you get a Turner's tea.

 

[DanielPlainview]

Just the ones who act the part. Disagreement with me is not a requirement.

We have no idea what Kenny Pickett is or isn't. There's no way to make a proper judgement given how bad the system and coaching around him has been. Jumping to a concrete conclusion about him now is simply unreasonable.

 

[ChaosAgent]

If I think there is a 20% chance Kenny is a successful NFL starting QB and I get a chance to draft Jayden Daniels who I think has a 50% chance, that is called thinking probabilistically. Something human beings do. The same thing they did with Rudolph/Pickett.

Remember who else was on the 2019 roster? Paxton Lynch. A late 1st round QB drafted 3 years earlier where his original team determined success was not likely and moved on.

I don't need to get to 100% certainty to make a decision. That is a recipe for over conservatism.

 

[Peat]

@Peat to answer your question, I do think there is a finite limit on how much $10M worth of assistant coaches cam hamstring $200m worth of players. The players are always highly complicit in their own performance, otherwise OCs would make $20m/year. And instances like the Giants QB throwing 3 TDs last week show me that players of any quality can overcome things sometimes.

I would suggest the OC's pay cheque reflects the ceiling on their ability to help players more than the floor on their ability to hurt players, and the fact that generally there's enough guys who can do an okay job that nobody needs to go bananas paying for them to avoid getting a floor guy.

But someone always manages to go find one sooner or later.

Personally, I think the limit on a coach ruining players is near limitless. Their influence on morale, development and game strategy is colossal. They can't magically make players better, but they can magically make players worse. I have seen it too many times across too many sports to think otherwise.

And while technically an NFL co-ordinator is an assistant coach, I'd say the size of his responsibility is equal to head coaches in many sports due to just how many responsibilities the HC has - and that is particularly true of the co-ordinator controls the side of the ball that the HC has less history with. The Steelers OC can't set his own grand strategy, and I assume there's some limits on player usage, and he can't improve the morale if the HC is harming it (but I think he can harm the morale even if the HC is a known good guy there).

I think there are few coaches who start testing the limits on how much the coaches can wreck players because it's so easy to hire someone who isn't that. But I think all the signs point to Canada being that exception. The sort of guy who redraws limits as to how much he can wreck stuff.

 

[ChaosAgent]

But someone always manages to go find one sooner or later.

Personally, I think the limit on a coach ruining players is near limitless. Their influence on morale, development and game strategy is colossal. They can't magically make players better, but they can magically make players worse. I have seen it too many times across too many sports to think otherwise.

This is where I disagree, outside of highly individual sports like golf, tennis, or being a pitcher in baseball.

I don't love coaches and wish they were fired more often in this town. But I am always inclined to blame a players' bad performance on the player and the coach jointly.

My position that Matt Canada was a nepotism/scandalous hire who has failed upwards despite being ran out of LSU in <1 year is crystal clear. His employment for 2.5 seasons here asks serious questions about Tomlin and Rooney's priorities. I hope that Kenny performs marginally enough under Sullivan/Faulkner to earn another year under a qualified OC. One who has the potential to be a HC in 2-3 years.

 

[Peat]

This is where I disagree, outside of highly individual sports like golf, tennis, or being a pitcher in baseball.

I don't love coaches and wish they were fired more often in this town. But I am always inclined to blame a players' bad performance on the player and the coach jointly.

My position that Matt Canada was a nepotism/scandalous hire who has failed upwards despite being ran out of LSU in <1 year is crystal clear. His employment for 2.5 seasons here asks serious questions about Tomlin and Rooney's priorities. I hope that Kenny performs marginally enough under Sullivan/Faulkner to earn another year under a qualified OC. One who has the potential to be a HC in 2-3 years.

My points of disagreement

1) I think I believe in coaches' ability to ruin more than you in general

2) I think the NFL is hugely open to coaching influence in a way more akin to those highly individual sports - if not more so due to the number of factors the players have to consider - than a standard team sport. I can't think of sport where coaches have more hands on more levers than in the NFL

3) I think Canada is an incredibly special and incompetent case who breaks the boundaries of what is normally possible which, while I think you agree with the first half of the sentence, you don't agree with the second..

 

[ChaosAgent]

My points of disagreement

1) I think I believe in coaches' ability to ruin more than you in general

2) I think the NFL is hugely open to coaching influence in a way more akin to those highly individual sports - if not more so due to the number of factors the players have to consider - than a standard team sport. I can't think of sport where coaches have more hands on more levers than in the NFL

3) I think Canada is an incredibly special and incompetent case who breaks the boundaries of what is normally possible which, while I think you agree with the first half of the sentence, you don't agree with the second..

Fair points of disagreement.

We're talking in circles because almost everyone (except 1 guy) here believes Matt Canada was garbage. The question is whether player evaluation stops due to the playcaller. I think you make a compelling argument that I am willing to consider, but I'm making a value judgment that I choose not to agree. I may be wrong.

Only caveat would be: if Matt Canada broke Kenny Pickett, we can't exactly lobotomize him. The new OC has to fix him and he's 2 years older now. Whereas maybe a different QB wouldn't have already been ruined.


I'd also argue that pitching in baseball is as coached as football QBing. Not always by the pitching coach of the team himself but the players work with development staffs (either the team's or a sports academy of such) to shape their entire arsenal and usage.

 

[Peat]

Fair points of disagreement.

We're talking in circles because almost everyone (except 1 guy) here believes Matt Canada was garbage. The question is whether player evaluation stops due to the playcaller. I think you make a compelling argument that I am willing to consider, but I'm making a value judgment that I choose not to agree. I may be wrong.

Only caveat would be: if Matt Canada broke Kenny Pickett, we can't exactly lobotomize him. The new OC has to fix him and he's 2 years older now. Whereas maybe a different QB wouldn't have already been ruined.


I'd also argue that pitching in baseball is as coached as football QBing. Not always by the pitching coach of the team himself but the players work with development staffs (either the team's or a sports academy of such) to shape their entire arsenal and usage.

Getting down to the root causes of disagreement is at least a change from the circle. As you say, just about everyone believes Canada was awful. Just about everyone believes Pickett's performance is awful. Getting down to the reasoning behind the why is more interesting than stating why again.

And I can believe that pitching is as coaching as QBing in terms of man hours spent with a guy, but the tasks are different in that the QB has - I presume - to remember more, and certainly has to think about more before opting to throw. The increased scope of the task makes for more levers for coaches to pull.

For me, the only guy in sport who as much to think about while playing is a rugby fly-half, and the coach can't talk to the fly-half nearly as much so there's more control ceded to the player and less levers for the coach to pull.

 

[ChaosAgent]

And I can believe that pitching is as coaching as QBing in terms of man hours spent with a guy, but the tasks are different in that the QB has - I presume - to remember more, and certainly has to think about more before opting to throw. The increased scope of the task makes for more levers for coaches to pull.

I think this is an open question. Pitching you can actually execute your mechanics exactly like your coach taught you, but football there is more going on. This could make coaching more important or it could make natural instinct more important. It's Kenny Pickett's job to determine in a .5 second window if George Pickens is going to come open. I think coaching is incredibly important but I also think natural (or learned) instincts are important. Kenny's performance this year and consistent with both stories of "terrible coaching" and "terrible IQ for the position." Which, for the latter, no one thought before 2021 that Kenny Pickett would ever be an NFL starting quarterback. His resume based on years 1-5 at Pitt was a 5th-7th rounder.

I'm not 100% sure Kenny is going to be a backup quarterback. I always look at outcomes as a distribution, and this season has moved the bulk of Kenny's distribution to the left in my eyes and has made the left tail fatter. But there's still a pretty good outcome at the 80th percentile and a great outcome at the 95th percentile.

 

[Peat]

I think this is an open question. Pitching you can actually execute your mechanics exactly like your coach taught you, but football there is more going on. This could make coaching more important or it could make natural instinct more important. It's Kenny Pickett's job to determine in a .5 second window if George Pickens is going to come open. I think coaching is incredibly important but I also think natural (or learned) instincts are important. Kenny's performance this year and consistent with both stories of "terrible coaching" and "terrible IQ for the position." Which, for the latter, no one thought before 2021 that Kenny Pickett would ever be an NFL starting quarterback. His resume based on years 1-5 at Pitt was a 5th-7th rounder.

I'm not 100% sure Kenny is going to be a backup quarterback. I always look at outcomes as a distribution, and this season has moved the bulk of Kenny's distribution to the left in my eyes and has made the left tail fatter. But there's still a pretty good outcome at the 80th percentile and a great outcome at the 95th percentile.

Instinct can be coached. What I've read/common sense tells me that in many ways, coaching those instincts - as well as instilling a recognition of the routes/defence/receiver tendencies so deep it becomes instinct - is maybe the QB coach's most important job. Throwing the ball? Important, but by the time a guy has reached the NFL, 95% of them only need refining. But the instincts... I think that the NCAA does a lousy job of getting QBs ready for the NFL there.

But like all all talent and coaching it can only go so far. You can't turn ground meat into steak.

So I think we're on the same page there.

I think I've always worried about Pickett's instincts and processing power isn't elite enough, and if I ever become an NFL owner, I'm only hiring people who agree with me that's the most important QB trait along with nerves of steel.

But on the points of potential disagreement -

I think bad coaching can really do a number on instinct and recognition. What Sternberger said about the offensive scheme coaching under Canada shocked me, and really hardened my opinion that Canada is a concrete overcoat. Plus everything else said about all the ways that an NFL OC can help their QB and that generally hasn't happened.

I think Pickett has flashed enough over his NFL career that I don't think he has terrible instincts. Maybe not more than average. Maybe even a little below. But if he looks completely blind, or is woefully inconsistent, I'm inclined to suspect there's something else at play.

 

[Rossi Rat]

Penn St wins 10 games. Again. When we win 10, it’s disappointing. When Pitt wins 10, their fans want a parade and their mediocre QB gets drafted a few rounds higher than he should’ve by the Steelers. Sigh.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Bengals have let up 30+ in b2b games.

Steelers have not scored 30 since last Nov 20 agt the Bengals.

 

[JTG]

Bengals have let up 30+ in b2b games.

Steelers have not scored 30 since last Nov 20 agt the Bengals.

It'd be great for everyone if Kenny could come out and put up 300 yards and 3 TDs.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

It'd be great for everyone if Kenny could come out and put up 300 yards and 3 TDs.

I don’t expect anything but the SOS.

It’s not like they got rid of the real issue who wants to play coward ball, and they traded one bad play caller for another, who will be using the same shitty system.

What made me really want them to draft KP has been utterly neutered by Tomlin and this atrocious system, and I think KP’s psyche is heavily damaged now.

I don’t want to prejudge his mental toughness, but it’s rare for a young QB to look this bad and bounce back, especially when he’s still surrounded by so much incompetence.

It’s going to be really tough for KP to switch mindsets, especially if he starts taking risks and throws some picks.

I think he’s just always going to feel risk adverse now, that mental approach is going to be overwhelmingly difficult to shake IMHO.

 

[Snooki Stackhouse]

Bengals have let up 30+ in b2b games.

Steelers have not scored 30 since last Nov 20 agt the Bengals.

Stoppable force meets moveable object

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

Stoppable force meets moveable object

Backwards moving object meets backwards moving object.

The suspense.

The drama.

 

[ChaosAgent]

It'd be great for everyone if Kenny could come out and put up 300 yards and 3 TDs.

Hear hear!

 

[JTG]

I don’t expect anything but the SOS.

It’s not like they got rid of the real issue who wants to play coward ball, and they traded one bad play caller for another, who will be using the same shitty system.

What made me really want them to draft KP has been utterly neutered by Tomlin and this atrocious system, and I think KP’s psyche is heavily damaged now.

I don’t want to prejudge his mental toughness, but it’s rare for a young QB to look this bad and bounce back, especially when he’s still surrounded by so much incompetence.

It’s going to be really tough for KP to switch mindsets, especially if he starts taking risks and throws some picks.

I think he’s just always going to feel risk adverse now, that mental approach is going to be overwhelmingly difficult to shake IMHO.

I didn't want us to take Kenny in the draft, but I do think he has what it takes to be a NFL starter. There has been far too much f***ing around in his career though and that could have a lasting impact. There are two things that I need to see from Kenny moving forward - communication with his WRs has to be better, and he has to stop sailing balls.

I have said before, Kenny is a rhythm QB. They need to find way for him to get in a groove and he can be good. He hasn't found that all season though, so I'm not sure that we are ever going to see him get there at this point. I really am on the fence with Kenny right now. I believe in him as a NFL player, but I'm not sure he's a starter right now.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

I didn't want us to take Kenny in the draft, but I do think he has what it takes to be a NFL starter. There has been far too much f***ing around in his career though and that could have a lasting impact. There are two things that I need to see from Kenny moving forward - communication with his WRs has to be better, and he has to stop sailing balls.

I have said before, Kenny is a rhythm QB. They need to find way for him to get in a groove and he can be good. He hasn't found that all season though, so I'm not sure that we are ever going to see him get there at this point. I really am on the fence with Kenny right now. I believe in him as a NFL player, but I'm not sure he's a starter right now.

The issue is fixing KP now relies on the guy who created the problem.

I can’t imagine a soul with an ounce of common sense would bet actual money on Tomlin hiring a good OC this off season.

He followed the “How to Botch a Young QB for Dummies” blueprint to a T.

That’s the disturbing thing because every QB this team drafts under his tenure will be like KP and have some kind of warts.

If the Steelers want a franchise type QB, he’s going to have to be a middle to late round first with some issues that will require superior coaching to reach his potential.

 

[Coastal Kev]

Again, place Stroud or Purdy in this offense this season and let me know what you think their stats would be.

I'll review and adjust those numbers lower by at least 32.2057%

 

[Peat]

One thing I am looking for is how much the team goes with the very conservative plays. The runs on 2nd and long, the refusal to target beyond the sticks or try and hit first down early. If the team doesn't move away from them, then it becomes a much louder question of what orders are the offence being given.

 

[Smoke]

What if Kenny comes out and throws the best game of his season? Will that be enough for the anti-KP crowd to give him some more time?

I'm right on the fence, so this next game is a big one for me. He has to not leave as much meat on the bone.

I don't expect him to light up the stat line, but I would like to see him not miss easy throws that we've seen him make before. I don't think play calling has anything to do with his lack of accuracy and poor decision making. I am by no means anti-KP, but I am anti-inaccurate stupid decision making.