We were promised change this season as the Steelers once again failed to make an impression in the playoffs. This team suffered through a pathetic five-game skid to end the season and it marks nearly a decade since this team has won in the postseason.
Considering the disaster of an end-of-the-season, Mike Tomlin was quick to vocalize that change was going to happen this year to get this team back to contender status. Perhaps it would be some new coordinators to liven things up, or maybe the change would even come at the expense of Tomlin himself. One thing was for certain though, overhauls were on the menu in Pittsburgh.
It is clear as day now, though, that we have been lied to.
While the team has reunited with Gerald Alexander for another stint as a secondary coach, nothing else has changed. Heck, Art Rooney came out and said that they weren't even considering adding to the coaching staff despite it being one of the smallest in the league.
The icing on the cake? Now it is being heavily speculated that the offensive line coach Pat Meyer is sticking around for another season. Mike DeFabo spoke on this recently, stating that with Meyer still under contract, the team will refuse to fire him.
The Steelers are making their stance clear this offseason
Meyer has never materialized into a great coach for this team. While he has a lot of experience, he never had great performing lines in his coaching career. That is what made him such a questionable hire a few seasons ago, to begin with.
Despite continual investments in high-end offensive linemen, this unit continued to underperform. Sure, they were better than when they bottomed out a few years ago, but Meyer hasn’t been able to successfully develop any of these young options. His style also doesn’t mesh that well with what Arthur Smith wants to run.
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So why is he sticking around? Simply put: his contract isn’t expiring, and the team doesn’t want to be on the hook for his salary after firing him. That is likely the reason that Matt Canada made it as long as he did before being fired. Simply put, this team is extremely cheap when it comes to positional coaches.
Despite the outcry that changes were coming, we can now safely assume that nothing notable will be different next year. Sure, a positional coach or two will leave because their contract was up, but if the team isn’t willing to part ways with Meyer after his mediocre run, nothing truly will change.
Yes, we will see a new face or two on the coaching staff and a handful of new players, and the team will preach the same story they use every year. At the end of the day, they are cheap and value consistency though, and the Steelers will remain mediocre because of it.