Kaboly Sees ‘Only One Possibility’ For Mike Tomlin To Shake Up Steelers’ Personnel

   

Pittsburgh Steelers HC Mike Tomlin promised to make the “necessary changes” coming off a three-game losing streak. This isn’t the first time he has promised to do so following a losing streak, and if the past is any indication, don’t expect to see much different. For one thing, there isn’t much in the way of personnel he can shuffle around, Mark Kaboly says.

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“There’s only one possibility of changing anybody, and that would be putting more Beanie Bishop [Jr.] in over Cam Sutton”, he said on 93.7 The Fan about the Steelers’ realistic options for Tomlin. “That’s the only logical place you could make changes. Unless he’s talking about making philosophical changes. This is a team that’s really struggled”.

Kaboly also brought up philosophical and schematic changes, which is what we’re more likely to get from Tomlin. But those things are far less overt and obvious when the Steelers are on the field. It’s easy to tell when somebody else is on the field, but less obvious if they’re playing more man coverage.

The Steelers brought Sutton back this year in the hopes of him stepping into their nickel role. It’s a role he has played well in the past under Tomlin, but they didn’t expect him to serve an eight-game suspension. Beanie Bishop, a rookie college free agent, manned the nickel for the first half of the season. He has had his ups and downs, but generally, he has improved over the course of the year.

Outside of the slot cornerback position, what else can the Steelers do? They could play Jaylen Warren more—except they’re already doing that. He has already played over 50 percent of the snaps over the past month. Maybe Mike Tomlin will redirect the offense to focus on Mike Williams and Darnell Washington—surely that will work.

“As for personnel-wise, they are very limited across the board for what you could change”, Kaboly said of the Steelers’ options, and he’s right. To compare the situation to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic would be far too dramatic. After all, this is a playoff team, but they don’t look like it right now.

What they actually need more than personnel changes is just higher-quality work. Poor communication has been a critical issue lately, especially for the Steelers’ defense. They have had repeated issues with basic execution failures, but it’s not the same issue all the time. It’s the old “popcorn” problem, and all you can do is watch the kernels pop.

Unless the Steelers can get right against a Bengals team that may have nothing to play for in Week 18, Mike Tomlin will be dragging a carcass of a team into the postseason. This season already looks like it’s about to give up on itself. Unless they show some signs of life, even if they face a flailing Texans team in the Wild Card round, few will believe in them come playoff time.

After all, it’s been a long time since Tomlin has provided Steelers fans with a reason to believe in January. They have taken better teams into the playoffs and managed to do even worse.