Pittsburgh Steelers

Friday Insider: Worilds, Steelers not worlds apart

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Pittsburgh Steelers v New York Jets

Jason Worilds wraps up the Jets’ Michael Vick in a Nov. 9 game in East Rutherford, N.J. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

Weekly roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our teams …

• I’m more convinced than ever, based on conversations in the past week, that the Steelers’ most compelling decision this offseason will become academic: They want Jason Worilds, he wants to stay, and all concerned would prefer to have that happen on a multiyear contract.

This time for real.

fridayinsider

Management’s thinking is that, first and foremost, it wants more from the pass rush and that includes Worilds, who had 7 1/2 sacks, 16 quarterback hits and 28 hurries while performing at an average level on run defense. He had two superlative games — against the Chiefs and Jets — but also his share of thoroughly forgettable ones. He has to be better in all areas, especially considering he’s seldom asked to drop into coverage. The team knows that. The player knows that.

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Tuesday 12 Qs: Adams, Berube, Scherzer, Wright

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wells-fargo-center-bill-cannon

The Wells Fargo Center is home to two hugely successful major pro franchises. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

PHILADELPHIA — Welcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 2 p.m. and offers you a chance to carry the conversation. This edition will take place live from my Starbucks of choice in South Philly, a few blocks away from the Flyers’ home at Wells Fargo Center. I just got done covering the teams’ respective morning skates, and I’ll be back there tonight to cover Penguins-Flyers with a full column, but all topics are welcome, as always.

Use the comments below to submit an entry. No more than one per person, please. Submit early if you prefer, and I’ll pick from that batch to get rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live.

And if any subscribers want to stop by once the chat is done, around 3 p.m., I’ll still be here and would be delighted to buy the coffee.

UPDATE 2 p.m.: Away we go …

DerekR: With a healthy Patric Hornqvist and Blake Comeau, do you think this team has enough for a deep playoff run? They still seem short one quality defenseman and need help badly on the fourth line. Killing penalties and winning faceoffs is a big part of an effective fourth line, but they have to be able to contribute some offense. Look at teams like LA, Chicago, the Rangers, the Islanders … all with much stronger fourth lines than the Penguins that can chip in 10-15 goals in a season, versus the paltry three goals from Marcel Goc and Craig Adams.

DK: We love to vilify the bottom of a roster, whether it’s the fourth line in hockey, the 53rd man in football or the 25th man in baseball. It’s easy. They’re dispensable.

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News/views: Blount carries Pats to Super Bowl

by • News/views •

AFC Championship - Indianapolis Colts v New England Patriots

LeGarrette Blount celebrates the Patriots’ AFC championship Sunday in Foxborough. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

News: LeGarrette Blount, released by the Steelers in November, rushes for 148 yards and three touchdowns to carry the Patriots into the Super Bowl against the Seahawks.

Views: This will serve as Exhibit A for classic sports hindsight, I’ll predict, for the next two weeks. And it’s sure to be ridiculous to the core.

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Morning Java: Fistful of football fury

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BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

The NFL’s conference championships offer a chance to tackle the Steelers’ 2015 schedule, Keith Butler’s first priority, the fine art of fumbling, the fallacy of big/small market mentalities, the deification of Mike Pereira and my game predictions.

Tuesday 12 Qs: Butler, Olli, Pedro, Jagr, Hall

by • Tuesday 10 Qs • , , ,

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

Welcome to Tuesday 12 Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 2 p.m. and offers you a chance to carry the conversation. I’ll be up at Consol tonight to cover Penguins-Wild with a full column, but all topics are welcome, as always.

photo-150x150Use the comments section below to submit an entry. No more than one per person, please. Submit early if you prefer, and I’ll pick from that batch to get rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live.

UPDATE 2 p.m.: And off we go …

Wild Bill: Dejan, your News/Views entry today offers your view that Keith Butler will transition to the younger players. Does he, in your opinion, present any other likely forms of change to what the Steelers do on defense? Or will it be mostly the same scheme, but only slightly tweaked?

Until Butler speaks — and there will be no actual press conference, I was just told by a team official — there won’t be a hard answer to that. He’s never been a coordinator in the NFL, so it would be unfair to assume too much based on his work as a positional coach. That said, I find it unimaginable that either he or Mike Tomlin would alter the 3-4 scheme or, for that matter, the zone-blitz element on which it’s founded. Remember, this is Tomlin’s move. He’s getting the coordinator he wants and the defense he wants. If he didn’t want this base defense, he could have changed it long ago, even with Dick LeBeau is present. To think otherwise is naive.

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News/views: Butler right man, right time

by • News/views •

Carolina Panthers v Pittsburgh Steelers

Keith Butler instructs rookie linebacker Howard Jones during a preseason game this past August. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

News: Keith Butler will, indeed, be the Steelers’ new defensive coordinator, according to a report by Gerry Dulac in the Post-Gazette. That corroborates the information that led me to write on this site in a Saturday piece that Butler would be the choice to replace Dick LeBeau. An announcement by the team, per the report, could come Tuesday.

UPDATE 11:02 a.m.: The Steelers make this official.

Views: There’s nothing not to like about this move.

Butler, 58, is immensely qualified for this opportunity. Overqualified, actually. There aren’t many NFL positional coaches who stay a dozen years in one role, let alone one place. But Butler has served as the Steelers’ linebackers coach since 2003 — hired by Bill Cowher — and did likewise for the Browns the previous four seasons. Some will attach a stigma to that, but that’s unfair. Several teams offered Butler defensive coordinator interviews and even jobs, and he turned them down, in part because of his loyalty to Mike Tomlin and the Rooneys, in part — probably a larger part — because the team compensated him well to stay put. Regardless, he could have been doing this job somewhere else two, three years ago, maybe further back.

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News/views: LeBeau, Steelers have ‘mutual parting’

by • News/views •

Pittsburgh Steelers v Tennessee Titans

Dick LeBeau calls signals on the Steelers’ sideline during a Nov. 17 game this season in Nashville. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

News: Dick LeBeau has left the Steelers, according to the Urbana Daily Citizen in his native Ohio. He told the paper, “I’m resigning my position, not retiring,” and called it “a mutual parting.”

Views: So much for status quo this offseason.

LeBeau, 77, is nothing less than a legend with the Steelers’ franchise, not least of which was for presiding over two Super Bowl champions and dominating, innovative defenses. And he never should be the focus of singular blame for how far that defense fell the past three years. That had far more to do with a crumbling secondary and, preceding that, a lack of emphasis on the secondary in recent draft. The man had a tremendous run.

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