The Pittsburgh Steelers have multiple people in the headlines right now, but LaMarr Woodley is getting more talk than anyone on the team. Woodley’s conditioning has been in question due to his injury issues and poor performance during the past two seasons. Todd Haley, the Steelers offensive coordinator, is also in the news as he is a candidate for the Arizona Cardinals head coaching position. Also, Omar Khan, the Steelers salary cap guru, is a finalist for the New York Jets open general manager spot.
Losing Khan could really hurt the Pittsburgh Steelers. Khan is one of the smartest people in the NFL when it comes to working with the salary cap. He currently holds the position of Director of Business and Administration for the Steelers. Over the past few years, the Steelers have gone through multiple salary restructures that were the mastermind of Khan along with general manager Kevin Colbert. With two minds like Colbert and Khan, it was inevitable that the Steelers wouldn’t be able to keep both of them around. Right now Khan is one of four finalists for the open general manager position with the New York Jets.
Haley is also a potential finalist for the Arizona Cardinals head coaching position. Haley coached with the Cardinals in 2007 as their offensive coordinator and the Cardinals are looking for an offensive minded head coach to replace Ken Whisenhunt. Right now the Cardinals are looking at their defensive coordinator Ray Horton, Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden (brother of former NFL head coach Jon Gruden) and Haley. According to NFL.com, Haley enjoys coaching with the Steelers and doesn’t want to leave unless the opportunity is right. NFL.com reported that Haley set a “very high” price in negotiations with the Cardinals. Most likely he set his number at what they would have to pay for him to leave the Steelers.
Many fans have turned on Haley after the second half of the season fell apart for the Steelers. However, the first nine games of the season Ben Roethlisberger was on pace to have the best season of his NFL career. If you take Roethlisberger’s stats from the first nine games and stretch them out of complete a 16 game season, Roethlisberger, had he not got injured, was on pace for: 65.5 completion percentage, 4,065 yards, 30 touchdowns, seven interceptions, and only 31 times sacked which would be his lowest since 2005. However, when Ben came back from injury his completion percentage fell to 56.9 percent and his interception rate doubled.
Also, following injury which could be due to injuries to the offensive line as well Roethlisberger’s sacks went up dramatically. During the first nine games Ben was sacked 18 times, but during his last four games he was sacked 12 times. So for those who are ready to run Haley out of town you may want to take a look back at the first nine games of the season. The Steelers only lost three games out of their first nine and two of those are on the defense in Tennessee and Oakland where they couldn’t stop the Raiders’ and Titan’s offenses.
Following the season the one player that has had the most headlines is LaMarr Woodley. Steelers’ fans have seen what JJ Watt and Aldon Smith can do during the playoffs and know that Woodley has the potential to be that dominant of a player. However, watching Woodley sit on the sidelines during the majority of the past two seasons due to hamstring injuries and look ineffective on the field is causing people to turn on him. Earlier this week I went as far as to say that Woodley needs to get a new training regimen and now it may be falling perfectly in place.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Tom Shaw, who trains Ike Taylor in the off-season, would like to work with Woodley. Taylor swears by Shaw and credits him for the shape he is in each season. In fact, Taylor may be in the best shape of any player on the Steelers and he is almost 33 years old. Shaw should also be credited for getting Mike Wallace ready for the 2012 season. Wallace held out through training camp and the pre-season and many fans were certain that he would struggle on the field due to missing so many workouts. However, during that time he was missing with the team he was training with Shaw and came into the season in very good shape and was the leading receiver on the team in 2012.
Steelers president Art Rooney II has said that the team will look into the injury issues that the team has suffered the last two seasons and try and find a cause. He may want to send the Steelers 53 players to Orlando to train with Shaw during the off-season. Three former/current Steelers worked with Shaw: Taylor, James Farrior, and William Gay. During his NFL career, Farrior rarely missed a game and Taylor held the current consecutive games played record for corner-backs before breaking his ankle. When Taylor missed the Steelers week 14 match-up with the Chargers William Gay took over as the holder of the longest consecutive games played streak.
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