Mueller: Rooney's season-ending address strikes uneven tone
Art Rooney II’s annual State of the Steelers address has come and gone, and you’ll forgive me if, despite some more pointed admissions than we’re used to from the team’s owner, my major takeaway was “same old, same old.”
Maybe that’s a byproduct of his being a lawyer; Rooney is always measured in these situations, never allowing his calm demeanor to slip. That only happened once in 22 minutes Monday, and it came in response to the final question of the day, a query about whether or not his impatience with the team’s current state would have any impact on the length of Mike Tomlin’s next contract extension.
It was a fair question, one that Rooney should have expected, yet he seemed almost taken aback by it, like it was somehow inappropriate for such a setting.
Given the infrequency with which he speaks, just about anything ought to be fair game.
Back to “same old, same old,” though. If one of Rooney’s goals was to convey the sense that things really do need to change, I don’t think he succeeded.
Asked about the team’s current seven-year streak without a playoff win, he said, “I think everybody, from myself, to Mike…we’ve had enough of this. It’s time to get some wins, it’s time to take these next steps…I think there’s some urgency here, for sure.”
Sounds nice, right? I just don’t buy it. Not when the other main thrust of his comments was that the team was bound and determined to give Kenny Pickett a fair chance with a new offensive coordinator.
No one in their right mind would fault the Steelers for moving on. Pickett has started 24 games. In just four of them did he post a passer rating above 90. He only topped 100 in one of them. Rooney and the Steelers still believe. He made sure to shoehorn his belief in Pickett into his answers about questions that mostly pertained to Mason Rudolph.
Asked what he liked about Pickett, Rooney cited the second-year quarterback’s intangibles, specifically competitiveness and his desire to be a winner.
As far as where Pickett can improve, Rooney cited a need for Pickett to improve at seeing the field and reading defenses quickly, and getting the Steelers into the right play coming out of the huddle, based on what he sees from the defense. Those were supposed to be his strengths coming out of Pitt, mind you.
Rooney also seems to think that it takes most quarterbacks until their third or fourth year as starters to really come into their own in that regard.
Brock Purdy got it right away. So did Patrick Mahomes. So too did Lamar Jackson. Same goes for Jared Goff. C.J. Stroud? Instant success. Even Josh Allen, who really blossomed in year three, was already a touchdown machine in his first two seasons. I could go on and on.
The really good ones actually tend to show what they can do quickly.
Besides Pickett, the other main order of the day was the offensive coordinator search. Rooney made it clear that whoever gets the job, it will be Tomlin’s hire.
“Head coaches hire their coordinators, and it would be a mistake for me to try to screw up the lines of authority, let’s say, in terms of how things are supposed to work.”
Funny, that’s not how things went when Todd Haley got the job. And that mostly worked out, all things considered.
Rooney immediately followed that statement by saying he and Omar Khan discuss the search with Tomlin daily, and that there is an open exchange of ideas. Translation: The owner will have a major hand in whoever is hired.
To that end, we know that Rooney is happy with the running game’s trajectory, that he likes his one-two punch of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren, and that the collective brain trust wants an offensive coordinator with previous play-calling experience.
Guess who that points to? Recently fired Falcons head coach Arthur Smith. (The Steelers reportedly expect to hire Smith as the team's next offensive coordinator.)
Smith oversaw offenses that ranked 10th and fourth in the league, respectively, in points per game in 2019 and 2020. Those Titans teams were also third and second, respectively, in both rushing yards and yards per carry.
Problem is, they clearly had a ceiling, and it was clearly tied to Ryan Tannehill’s limitations, great as his numbers were those two seasons. Tannehill, the 8th pick in the 2012 draft, is considerably more talented than Pickett.
It sure seems like the Steelers are telegraphing their intentions to build an offense that runs the ball well and insulates the quarterback. Again, that can win regular-season games, but in the playoffs, it’s a much tougher task, particularly in the AFC.
Ultimately, it doesn’t seem like Rooney or the Steelers want to radically alter their DNA, or incorporate something wildly different in the passing game. They want to be what they’ve always been, they just want to do it better. That’s not a particularly inspiring message.
One last thing. Rooney was asked if he felt like the Steelers were closer to being a contender than they were this time last year.
“I do feel that we’re closer this year at this stage of the game than we were at this point last year,” he responded.
That was the dagger for me. At this time last year, you could at least say Pickett had shown some promise in late-season rallies. He was still just a rookie. Everything was supposed to improve in year two. Instead, everything went backwards, so much so that Matt Canada got fired and Pickett is in a make-or-break year. It’s a quarterback-driven league, and the team’s third-stringer to start the season looked better than anyone.
Against that backdrop, how can you feel like the team is closer? I know how. If, despite some nods towards recent struggles, you’re still wedded to the same approach and the same beliefs you’ve always held.
You know – the same old, same old.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Mueller: Rooney's season-ending address strikes uneven tone
