The Pittsburgh Steelers' best offense over the last 20 years came when Todd Haley was calling the plays as the offensive coordinator. He also had a loaded unit with Ben Roethlisberger being one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and Roethlisberger's top target being Antonio Brown. Le'Veon Bell also entered the fold after being drafted in 2013, and he got to run behind one of the best offensive lines in the league. Haley had a lot of great weapons at his disposal, as he and Roethlisberger ran one of the best offenses in the league.
Haley served as the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs from 2009 through 2011, and he got the job as Pittsburgh's offensive coordinator in 2012. He replaced Bruce Arians after the organization decided not to renew his contract. Changing coordinators can often be difficult as players have to learn a new offensive system, but Roethlisberger shared on the most recent episode of his podcast Footbahlin With Ben Roethlisberger that Haley's playbook was similar to Arians'. This could have made the transition smooth for the offense, but Roethlisberger said it didn't.
"When we had a coordinator comer in, Todd Haley came in," Roethlisberger said. "When he came in as a new coordinator, he brought his playbook. He was the only new piece that came. All the players were the same, the coaches were all the same. He was the new piece. We would have plays that were the exact same plays as he had, but called something completely different, and he was like, 'No, you guys are all going to learn my system.' Like why are you having 40 guys learn something new instead of having one guy learn something new?"
The schemes in football are all relatively similar when looking at two different systems, as they are all derived from the similar, basic plays. Every coordinator has different wrinkles, but the only difference between Haley's offense and Arians' offense was the verbiage and various terms. Haley wanted everyone returning from the year prior to learn his terms and verbiage, rather than him adjusting and learning himself.
Roethlisberger had a point. It seems more efficient to just have Haley learn the ways of everyone else in the building rather than vice versa. It could have saved time and allowed players and other offensive coaches to perfect the nuances of the system rather than fumbling over the basic terminology.
2012 was Haley's first season calling the plays in Pittsburgh, and the Steelers finished in the bottom half of the league in both yardage and scoring. The offense eventually became one of the league's best later on in Haley's tenure, but it seems as though there was definitely a learning curve to start his time with the Steelers.
Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger Didn't Always See Eye-To-Eye With Todd Haley
Haley served as the play-caller in Pittsburgh for six seasons, and Roethlisberger was obviously his quarterback throughout that entire time. As time went on, the tension between the two rose, and it even got to the point where other members of the organization had to step between the two.
Randy Fichtner, who was the quarterbacks coach in Pittsburgh from 2010 through 2017 and took over as the play-caller in 2018, preferred to coach his quarterbacks from the booth and call down in between possessions. He was eventually forced to coach from the sidelines during games to keep the peace between the quarterback and offensive coordinator.
The organization decided not to renew the contract of Haley after the 2017 season, and Fichtner took over his role in addition to his duties of coaching the quarterbacks. The offense performed well under Haley, but there was clearly some internal issues that led to the franchise deciding to part ways with him.
