Coach Killers is your weekly look around the league at those performances, decisions and "Wait, what did he just do?!" moments that put the guy in charge squarely on the ol' hot seat. Questions, comments, casserole ideas? Hit us up on Twitter at @ryanwilson_07.
Steelers defense
Here's Mike Tomlin shortly after his team was beaten at home by the Buccaneers in a game that included a Mike Glennon game-winning drive and 13 Steelers penalties.
“The bottom line is that we are an undisciplined group," he said, looking equal parts embarrassed and infuriated. "We are too highly penalized. Obviously, we are not coaching it. We are allowing it to happen. So I take responsibility for that. We are not going to win close football games being penalized in the manner in which we’ve been penalized over the first month of the season. It’s unacceptable. It’s inexcusable.”
Here's the good news: In the last two seasons, there's been no correlation between penalties and wins. In fact, according to TeamRankings.com, the Seahawks led the league in penalties last season (7.9 per game) and they won the Super Bowl. The season before, the Ravens were the league's second-most penalized team, and they too won the Super Bowl.
So while penalties can be an annoyance, they're not solely responsible for losing football. Which brings us to the Steelers' defense. Through the first two weeks, this group couldn't stop the run (282 total yards, 5.8 YPC). But against the Panthers in Week 3, they looked more like the dominating Steelers' defenses we've seen in recent years.
Then the Bucs happened. Pittsburgh's run defense was much improved but the secondary allowed Glennon to throw for 302 yards -- most coming in the second half -- including a 46-yard drive in the waning seconds to give Tampa Bay its first win of the season.
The Steelers may not like to call it rebuilding but that's exactly what's going on. No longer one of the oldest units in the league, names like James Farrior, Aaron Smith, Casey Hampton, Ryan Clark, and until last week, James Harrison, have been replaced by Ryan Shazier, Cameron Heyward, Steve McLendon, Mike Mitchell and Jarvis Jones.
And when that happens, it doesn't matter how good the coaching is, there's going to be an adjustment period. That's exactly what we've seen through the first month of the season. This has little to do with the game passing by 77-year-old defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau and everything to do with a young group with no real idea what it's doing.
Here are the Steelers' defenses rankings (via Football Outsiders) since 2007, Tomlin's first year in Pittsburgh:
2007: No. 3 overall (8th pass, 3rd run)
2008: No. 1 overall (1st pass, 2nd run)
2009: No. 9 overall (14th pass, 8th run)
2010: No. 1 overall (3rd pass, 1st run)
2011: No. 7 overall (3rd pass, 15th run)
2012: No. 13 overall (15th pass, 9th run)
2013: No. 19 overall (19th pass, 21st run)
2014: No. 26th overall (26th pass, 22nd run)
So, yeah, LeBeau didn't suddenly forget what he was doing. That said, there's no easy fix; a lot of on-the-job training means a lot of mistakes, which means -- penalties or not -- a lot of what we saw Sunday against a Bucs team what was blown out 56-14 by the Falcons 10 days before strolling into Pittsburgh.
The biggest mistake in an afternoon full of them came on the final drive, when Glennon found Louis Murphy on a 41-yard reception that set up the winning touchdown.
Free safety Mike Mitchell jumps the short route in the middle of the field and, even though linebacker Lawrence Timmons appears to have coverage responsibilities there (see yellow box below).
The result: a gaping hole deep in the middle of the field (red box above), which Murphy (who has yet to come out of his break -- he's right on the 30-yard line -- as Glennon releases the ball) turns into an easy pitch and catch.
On Tuesday, Tomlin admitted the defense "didn't hold the zone very well," which is painfully obvious after you watch the play a few times.
Next up: The Steelers travel to Jacksonville to face the winless Jaguars and we have no idea what to expect. So much so, in fact, that we'll probably pick the Jags to win.
Tom Brady, world's worst quarterback
Here's our one-sentence summary of the Chiefs' 41-14 humiliation of the Patriots Monday night: Tom Brady looked like Tim Tebow in his prime, and Alex Smith looked like Tom Brady in his prime.
Some of Brady's struggles can be traced back to him having zero faith in pass-catchers not named Julian Edelman or Rob Gronkowski, but it's not like he's played lights-out otherwise. Frankly, Brady, like the five guys responsible for protecting him, has been terrible. Behold: Exhibits A and B:
Either Brady threw the most inaccurate pass of his career or he suffered temporarily colorblindness because they're no other rational explanation for where that pass ended up. Not to be outdone, there was also this:
Brady apparently didn't see safety Husain Abdullah, which happens when you're lacking confidence in yourself, your receivers and your offensive line. For an idea of just how bad Brady's been, consider this table CBSSports.com's Will Brinson put together.
The takeaway: Through four games, Brady has been outplayed by EJ Manuel, Geno Smith and Ryan Tannehill. In related news: Manuel was benched Monday ... for Kyle Orton. So, naturally, Bill Belichick was asked Monday night if the quarterback position was "going to be evaluated."
A better question: "How the hell are you going to fix this defense?" Because that group gave up 443 yards -- including 207 rushing yards -- to the Chiefs and at no point appeared capable of making a play.
Of course, when Brady is playing like his Hall of Fame self it masks a lot of deficiencies in other areas. It's just not clear how he'll suddenly transforms into that player. In fact, according to Rodney Harrison, Brady's former teammate who is now an NFL analyst for NBC, the quarterback looks "scared to death."
"Tom Brady can still play," Harrison said during an appearance on WEEI (via ESPNBoston.com). "But when you surround him -- there's a reason why Brandon LaFell was let go (by Carolina). He's not a great player. He's a young guy, and he has to make his way in this league.
"And Danny Amendola, you look at him, no one ever said he was a great player. He's always been hurt. The history is behind it. Rob Gronkowski obviously coming off that ACL injury, he's been hurt. So it's not like when you look at the Patriots on paper they just have all these weapons and teams are afraid of them."
All of this leads to one final question, one that's inevitably asked when a coach also makes personnel decisions: Should Belichick give up his roster-building duties? Because he's clearly done a horrible job of surrounding Brady with playmakers. And that defense, which this preseason we thought could dominate like those units Harrison played on in the mid-2000s, continues to be an average group (despite a strong start this season -- until the Chiefs game, anyway -- they finished 20th last season and 15th in 2012, according to Football Outsiders).
Saints special teams
Specifically, the idiotic decision to have punter Thomas Morstead do this Sunday night against the Cowboys, with the Saints trailing 31-17, 6:57 left in the fourth quarter, and facing a fourth-and-9 from their own 41-yard line:
Aside from the obvious "Why wouldn't you just leave Drew Brees on the field?" complaints, there's this embarrassing development: The Cowboys only had 10 men on the field.
There's more...
Saints defense
Like the Patriots and, to a lesser extent, the Steelers, we have no idea what to make of the Saints' defense. We've already highlighted Rob Ryan in this space. On Sunday night, this group was summarily dismantled by a very good Cowboys offense.
And while much can change in the next three months, there's reason for concern because owner Tom Benson put a ton of money into this defense and Ryan -- who has been mediocre as an NFL defensive coordinator -- was supposed to be the guy to turn that money into results. So far, bupkes, other than this hilariously demoralizing comment from the man primarily responsible for this mess.
"Right now, man, nobody's doing worse than the Ryan brothers," Rob said last week. "We might say we are two of the best coaches, and I believe that, and I know that. We're doing everything we can to do it, but we have to do more."
Rob's twin brother is Rex, the Jets head coach. The two teams combined Sunday to allow 62 points and 802 yards of offense. It gets worse: the Saints and Jets are the only two teams without an interception this season.
EJ Manuel, Bills quarterback
We're not saying EJ Manuel shouldn't have been benched, but it's not like coach Doug Marrone and general manager Doug Whaley didn't know the former Florida St. quarterback was far from a finished product when the Bills took him in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft. This looks more like Marrone wising up to the fact that new Bills owner Terry Pegula could be looking to shake things up after the season. Because it's been less than a month since Marrone reportedly had a heated exchange with team officials over the decision to sign Orton. Now, four games and two wins into the season, Marrone has had a change of heart.
That said, Manuel didn't help himself against the Texans Sunday. In addition to throwing a pick-six to J.J. Watt...
...he also threw an interception to Darryl Morris. Together, those two turnovers meant that Manuel had two of the NFL's most detrimental plays Sunday, according to AdvancedFootballAnalytics.com.
This is where we make a joke about the Bills fixing all this when they draft their next franchise quarterback with their 2015 first-round pick. Except that they traded it to Cleveland in May to move up and take Sammy Watkins.
