Flavell's Five Thoughts: Steelers Got Answers, And Questions This Season

The Pittsburgh Steelers finished off their season with a 28-14 victory over the Cleveland Browns in front of a raucous home crowd at Acrisure Stadium. Despite the win, a Miami Dolphins victory prevented them from making the playoffs in year one of the post-Ben Roethlisberger era.

But not all is bad in the Steel City.

The Steelers 2-6 start was followed by a 7-2 finish that officially gave them a winning record for the year and continued Mike Tomlin’s streak of never having a singular losing season as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The focus went from who the Steelers would take with their top-five draft pick to who needed to lose for the Steelers to make the playoffs.

The team never quit and they made a nice run that ultimately came up just short of an improbable playoff spot. They would be traveling to Buffalo had they made the playoffs so it’s likely that playoff appearance could’ve been short lived but it would’ve been a nice consolation after the slow start to the season.

Alas, here we are eulogizing the season instead of looking ahead to a trip to Buffalo.

Typically this space is reserved for thoughts on the specific game but for this one, we’re going to look at five thoughts about the scope of the season with the Steelers now booking tee times at their vacation golf courses.

For one final time this season, without further ado, let’s discuss the season.

Kenny Pickett’s Progress is Obviously Most Important Development

It took until halftime of week four to put the Steelers fans out of their misery and replace Mitch Trubisky with their prized first-round quarterback in Pickett. A 1-3 start had the outlook as gloom and doom but Pickett’s progression did not coincidentally coincide with the Steelers 7-2 finish to the season.

The overall numbers on the year aren’t overly impressive: 2,404 yards, seven touchdowns, nine interceptions, and a 63% completion percentage. None of those numbers are going to blow anyone away and get Pickett consideration for rookie of the year. In fact, many fans around the league probably are laughing at Pickett for the lack of stats.

My evaluation comes with the eye test if you’ve actually watched him play this year.

Pickett certainly made mistakes in the first few games. Everyone remembers his first game, the three interception performance in the loss to the Jets. Across the next four games before the bye week, Pickett tossed another five interceptions and the Pickett detractors were out in full force.

In the post-bye week part of the season, Pickett threw just one interception and five touchdowns as well as orchestrated a handful of late-game comeback drives.

The moxie is there and his talent level that led the Panthers to an ACC Championship is there too. He may not be Roethlisberger-level Hall of Fame talent but Kenny Pickett can absolutely make the Steelers competitive in a division that includes Joe Burrow, Deshaun Watson, and (most likely) Lamar Jackson for the next half-decade-plus.

I keep going back to Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was in a miserable situation in his rookie year in 2021 and heard calls of being a bust. This season, he got a good head coach, a more stable situation, and the Jaguars went from having the number one pick in this past season’s NFL Draft to being a playoff team in just a handful of months.

Kenny Pickett won’t be getting a new head coach but, if there’s any justice, he will get a new offensive coordinator and an improved roster for next season.

I am excited to see Pickett to continue to grow and maybe claim one of the seven playoff spots next season. But the Steelers look to have found their guy.

Credit to Mike Tomlin… Obviously

This happens every freaking year and everyone falls for it every time.

“The message has gotten stale, it’s time to move on.”

“Tomlin won with Cowher’s players. He’s got to be fired this offseason.”

“The Steelers are the kings of mediocre! They’ll never win again until they find a new head coach!”

It’s the same tired sayings and excuses every year and here we are, after a 2-6 start, and Tomlin has another winning season as the head ball coach in Pittsburgh. Shame on all you fools.

There aren’t many other coaches in the league who would have kept this team engaged and willing to put themselves on the line every Sunday for the second half of the season. Despite a two-win start, Tomlin kept believing, pushed his team to the end of the season and gave them an opportunity to play meaningful ball in week 18.

Sure, the Steelers haven’t won a Super Bowl in over ten years but it isn’t like they’re handed out like candy. Heck, the anti-Tomlin crowd even has the point that he hasn’t won a playoff game since 2016. This is a fact that can’t be disputed.

However, Tomlin is a Hall of Fame head coach and will go down as such once he decides to call it quits whether here or in another organization. But he’ll be the head coach of the Steelers until he doesn’t want to be anymore.

Every coach has their flaws and Tomlin is certainly not devoid of those. His clock management and challenge flag choices over the years have been questionable. But his motivation and ability to lead men are unmatched.

I truly don’t believe there are many coaches out there that could’ve dug a team that looked as lifeless as the Steelers did out of the abyss they were in. Get used to seeing those wide-eyes and hearing those Tomlin-isms in his press conferences because Tomlin isn’t going anywhere and he absolutely should not.

What are the Steelers Going to Do About the Offensive Coordinator Situation?

If you want another knock on Tomlin for the detractors crowd, it’s that his coordinator hires haven’t been the greatest over the years. Defensive coordinator Teryl Austin and offensive coordinator Matt Canada have taken their fair share of criticism this season. Austin likely will return next season without much issue.

Canada’s situation, however, is a different story.

Pittsburgh’s offense, especially the run game, got better as the season went on and was a big reason for the late season run. Despite that, the Steelers still only averaged 18.1 points/game which was tied for 26th best in the NFL. They were middle of the pack in the running game and towards the bottom in the passing game which amounted to a 22nd best in the NFL in terms of total yards.

You don’t need anyone to tell you that their offense wasn’t very good.

Which leads to the question of whether the much-maligned coordinator will still be calling plays for the Steelers next season. I will say it's getting kind of tiresome asking for a new offensive signal caller every year and that the Steelers would benefit from trying to keep some continuity within their organization for their young first-round quarterback.

The problem is that it doesn’t seem to me that Canada is truly capable of being a good coordinator. Typically, you want to see a head coach have a coaching tree and see his coordinators branch out to head coaching jobs around the league. Tomlin doesn’t have one of those and Canada doesn’t strike me as someone that will be garnering much interest in that area ever.

I won’t sit here and claim that I can call a better game because that simply isn’t true. But when NFL greats like Steve Smith Sr. go on TV and call your offense “Saturdayish” and “inconsistent at best”, it’s not a great look.

If you don’t believe he’s the guy, it is time to move on now because you don’t want to recycle coordinators every two years, especially with a young quarterback at the helm. He did receive plenty of endorsement from his offensive players following the game Sunday but they can’t come out and publicly blast him either.

I look forward to finding out the resolution on this.

T.J. Watt’s Importance Was Abundantly Clear This Season

When you win Defensive Player of the Year like Watt did in 2021, it is obvious that your absence can be crushing for a defensive unit as a whole. That was the case with Watt this season, just as it has been in past years when he misses time.

Watt got hurt in the first game of the season and originally it seemed he was going to miss the entire year. In that game, the Steelers intercepted Joe Burrow four times and Alex Highsmith recorded three sacks. The Steelers won that game, albeit with some miracles on their side if you can recall the fashion in which the game went.

The Steelers were 8-2 when he played and 1-6 when he didn’t. If that doesn’t quantify his importance, I don’t know what will.

I don’t even think he came back at 100% but he still managed to have an impact as the season winded down. He finished with 5.0 sacks on the season, a number that is low for him even if he only played in nine games but his presence helped Highsmith set a new career-high in sacks with 14.5 and a true breakout season.

Minkah Fitzpatrick won Team MVP this season for the Steelers and he certainly deserved it but you could argue that Watt’s presence helped him get that award as he helped force quarterback’s into mistakes that led to interceptions for Fitzpatrick.

Surely, Watt had a nice contract signed prior to this season that will give him generational wealth. The Steelers would’ve loved him to be a bit healthier this season but they should get him at 100% heading into next season and that’ll make the Pittsburgh defense just that much better in 2023.

Claypool Trade Turns Out to be a Massive Win

I’m not going to sit here and call Chase Claypool a locker room cancer by any means but let’s take a moment to see the records of both the Bears and Steelers following this trade.

Bears: 0-9. Steelers: 7-2.

It could be entirely coincidental. But it isn’t like Claypool made much impact for the Bears despite being touted as a piece that could elevate quarterback Justin Fields to the next level.

In return, the Steelers got a second-round draft choice. That second-rounder will be the 32nd pick in the 2023 NFL Draft after the Bears loss and the Texans’ victory flipped the pick and gave Chicago the number one choice.

Typically, that would mean the Steelers get the 33rd-pick but because of the tampering situation in Miami that forced the Dolphins to forfeit their first round pick this season. So, essentially, the Steelers have two first-round picks to reinforce the holes on their team that need to be filled with their own second-rounder following not too long after that.

Three picks in the top-50 is an awesome thing to look forward to after a 9-8 season. They could be guys that help bump the Steelers closer to contention next season.

Thanks for reading Flavell’s Five all season long. With the Steelers season now being over there is still plenty to talk about and I look forward to popping in from time to time and discussing those things with you.

Find great deals on Steelers tickets from SI Tickets HERE

Make sure you bookmark All Steelers for the latest news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns and so much more!

Cam Heyward Uncertain About Future With Steelers

Steelers Get Max Value for Chase Claypool Trade

Mitch Trubisky Regrets Signing With Steelers

Steelers Miss Playoffs Over Controversial Penalty

Kenny Pickett Responds to Ben Roethlisberger

• Subscribe to the All Steelers YouTube Channel
• Follow All Steelers on Twitter: @si_steelers