Pittsburgh Steelers Hire Todd Haley as Offensive Coordinator
By Matt Shetler
A day after they had to way the New York Giants and New England Patriots compete for a Super Bowl title, the Pittsburgh Steelers filled a huge need on their coaching staff by hiring Todd Haley to be their new offensive coordinator ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reports.
Haley, fired as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs last season, met with Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin on January 31.
It’s a solid hiring by the Steelers. Haley’s an offensive minded guy and was the offensive coordinator of the 2007-08 Arizona Cardinals team that lost to the Steelers in the Super Bowl.
The Cardinals offense hasn’t been the same since he left, but that may have to do a little more with the loss of quarterback Kurt Warner as well.
Haley replaces Bruce Arians, who was not retained despite seeing the Steelers offense reach new heights under his command. This past season wasn’t the Steelers best though, but Arians really didn’t have a wealth of talent to deal with except for quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Overall the Steelers finished 12th in total offense, but only 21st in points scored.
It will be interesting to see how much the Steelers offense changes under Haley. He’s a guy that likes to throw the ball, but as head coach of the Chiefs he had more success running the rock.
That would be a mistake with this Steelers team.
They don’t have the personnel to become a ground team once again, nor should they. In today’s NFL you win throwing the football and with a franchise quarterback. The Steelers have that in place with Roethlisberger and a solid receiving core that includes Antonio Brown and Mike Wallace. There’s also other guys who can step up and make plays.
A healthy and full season from Jerricho Cotchery and Emmanual Sanders, along with tight end Heath Miller make the Steelers a team with all their playmaker’s in place.
Of course they can’t abandon the ground game all together. The don’t necessarily need to run more, just more effectively. For those wanting the Steelers to get back to being primarily running team, this isn’t the 1970’s. The game has changed and the Steelers have done a good job changing with it.
Yet none of that matters if they don’t address their needs on the offensive line.
If they keep trying to win with a patchwork line, then they won’t have to worry about playing on the final week of the NFL season for some time.
The NFL season is a long way away, but the Steelers took a step in the right direction with the potential hiring of Haley.
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