I don't think I'm totally serious when I ponder this scenario in detail, but I wonder if I'm not looking back 3 years from now wishing this team had traded what remained of elite talent on the team for draft stock and truly rebuilt after this season, much like I believed so then but am confident now it was the wrong decision to draft Najee and Friermuth over prioritizing the lines because they wrongly tried to give Ben better weapons his last year of his career in an inevitably wasted season.
Watt will be 30 sooner rather than later, Cam will retire similarly, and there's no guarantee the Pickens types don't diva their way off the team after getting fed up with the quarterback/coordinator being incapable of running a successful offense. Look at Jamar Chase's comments from post-game yesterday, and he has Joe freakin Burrow throwing him balls whose already led them to a Super Bowl. The locker room knows before anyone outside the building when a player/team doesn't have what's required to win in this league, once they give up on you it's over and you'd best move on or you'll risk a mutiny, look at the Jets.
Problem is barring Rooney doing the unthinkable and completely cleaning house including Tomlin, this team will try their hardest to avoid a truly terrible season, so it's not even a realistic scenario to even hope for. Win middle, draft middle, stay middle is the eternal future this team has to look forward to until Mike "Jeff Fisher" Tomlin is gone.
Another issue along the same lines is how is this team ever gonna entice the young Reid or Shanahan tree offensive types to come here when it's strongly hinted at by local media that Art underpays his coaching staff beyond Tomlin. On top of that, as long as Tomlin has the perceived best job security in the league, there's no perceivable opportunity for advancement for a young up and coming coach here. Then there's the other aspect strongly hinted at that Tomlin meddles in his coordinators duties, specifically the defensive coordinator's based on Butler's statements after he left. Which then leads to the assumption Tomlin is one of the reasons the offense is so conservative, that he limits the type of offense he allows the coordinator to run. The whole wants to keep the score of the game low and let his defense make enough plays to win spiel, in an overwhelmingly offensive league.
All in all, this is not a very attractive destination for an actual modern coach with real potential to seek out, as other teams will likely always offer more control in their coordinator positions, if not the head coach position itself. Until Tomlin is gone, this team will likely never be the first option of any potential hire.
Outside of Kahn and Weidl pulling successive rabbits out of their hats for multiple drafts and somehow brute forcing a winning roster into this clown show, how does this organization realistically improve to the point where they can hang with the Chiefs and Bills of the conference, let alone an Eagles or 49ers in the Super Bowl? They're so far away from that standard it should be blasphemy to even suggest it.
