The Steelers have allowed 171 points in their last four playoff games combined. They have given up 35 points or more in all four games and 40 or more in three of four.
Those numbers are historically bad as no team has had as many consecutive playoff games of defensive haplessness. The Steelers defense has been so bad in those games they made Baker Mayfield and Blake Bortles look more like Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers in their primes.
In any other world, the defensive coordinator in charge of a defense that has recently failed so often in the biggest games would have been fired. Heck, one performance like that in a playoff game in some circles is a fireable offense, and four might be enough to ensure a coach doesn't get hired as a coordinator anywhere else.
This is the world of the Steelers, however, and in this world things are apparently done differently. Performance doesn't seem to be the agent of change as the Steelers' way is to stay the course.
Something has to change for the Steelers, and I suppose in the most technical sense it has. Keith Butler, the defensive coordinator, has retired, and it's widely reported that the Steelers have promoted secondary coach Teryl Austin to defensive coordinator.
Austin is an excellent coach with a lot of experience. He has been coaching football for three decades, has coordinated defenses, run secondaries and has been involved with some extremely successful teams and defenses.
His critics point to the fact his last job as coordinator — with the Bengals — yielded the lowest ranked defense in the NFL. Here's the thing: The defense stunk because the talent Austin had to work with was way down and that much was proven the next year when the defense was still among the worst in the NFL.
Austin has had success everywhere he has gone except that year in Cincinnati. He is extremely respected around the NFL and is well liked by his players. He also is thought to have the qualities that would put him on track to be a candidate for a head coaching job if he has a few good years with the Steelers.
If Austin was hired in a vacuum, it would be a reason for Steelers fans to get excited. He is an excellent coach and there is no question he would really put a great defense out there given the pieces he has to work with.
The problem — and the reason there is such a lukewarm reception to this hire — is that it doesn't happen in a vacuum. And there are some legitimate questions about how much of the defense Austin will actually run.
That's because the defensive coordinator for those four playoff games wasn't Butler, it was head coach Mike Tomlin. And that's how it has been for at least the last decade — the defensive coordinator for the Steelers under Tomlin is a coordinator in title only.
Obviously Tomlin is still in charge and Austin has spent the last three seasons working for him. He has learned the defense and learned the way Tomlin wants it called.
That is why questions about Austin aren't about his ability to coach but rather his ability to actually be the coordinator. Is he going to call plays, design schemes, draw up game plans and make calls on who does what? Is he going to be able to change some of the most fundamental flaws in the defense and perhaps bring a new philosophy to it?
Those questions are all fair because again, we have all seen this show before. Butler was really a highly paid assistant coordinator. Those were his duties — well, nobody is actually sure what his duties were.
And that isn't guessing either. Butler himself has said that he would have liked to have had the opportunity to actually coordinate the defense and call plays.
If that was the arrangement for Butler and Tomlin is still in charge, what will change for Austin? We have seen no evidence that Tomlin thinks there is a problem with the defense, so why would there be any changes made with respect to who calls plays and what is run?
Promoting Austin is the right thing for the Steelers to do as he is more than qualified for the job and has a track record of success. He is smart, innovative, has worked for a lot of great coaches and is somebody who brings a wealth of knowledge to the job.
But he needs to be free to run his own defenses and call his own plays. If he isn't, then he is being wasted and the Steelers defense will continue to come up short when the stakes are the highest.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In any other organization, the defensive coordinator — Tomlin — would have been fired. Tomlin has been a very good head coach, but he needs to let someone else be the actual defensive coordinator now.
