Tim Benz: Coaching will prove to be more important than ever for Steelers, rest of the AFC

Pittsburgh Steelers fans can take comfort in at least one thing during this maddeningly inconsistent 2021 season.

They aren’t alone.

Just about every fan base is asking the same question about their own favorite team: “Are these guys any good or not?”

We always hear that the NFL is a league based on parity. That theory has been proven true to a ridiculous extent this year.

In the AFC, 12 of 16 teams have between six and eight victories. The Patriots are the only team with at least nine wins. The “have nots” of the conference are limited to the Jets (3-9), Texans (2-10) and Jaguars (2-10). Everyone else is between 6-7 and 8-4.

As ESPN.com Baltimore Ravens reporter Jameson Hensley pointed out Sunday, every team in the AFC has at least four losses through Week 13. That hasn’t happened since 2002.

In the NFC, seven teams are battling for the sixth and seventh playoff seeds with records of 5-7 or 6-6.

Some in the NFL love to say, “It’s not about the X’s and O’s, it’s about the Jimmys and Joes.”

In other words, coaches can scout and game plan and statistically analyze themselves to death 25 hours a day and eight days a week. But it’s still a players’ league, and the guys in cleats and helmets will decide the outcomes more often than not.

Is that old adage still true in the NFL circa 2021, though?

Via the balanced draft process, free agency, the salary cap, injuries and random coronavirus subtractions in any given week, it seems like talent across the league is so evenly distributed that just about every organization seems to have as many capable Jimmys and Joes as the other 31 rosters.

So weekly game plans and scouting reports to identify favorable schemes and matchups seem more important than ever to differentiate a potential division winner from a club left out of the playoff mix.

“There’s great players on both sides,” Steelers offensive coordinator Matt Canada said. “A great corner against a great wideout. Who makes the play? I think all those things are maximized. And, certainly, it’s important. Matchups are important. It’s a matchup league.”

Maybe that’s part of the reason why three of the four division leaders in the AFC are currently led by coaches with Super Bowl rings on their fingers — Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, John Harbaugh.

Those are proven head coaches who can build coaching staffs capable of identifying and exploiting matchups on a week-to-week basis at a higher rate than their peers.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin has been to the Super Bowl twice, with one win. But his team is currently a half-game out of a playoff spot at 6-5-1. All six of the team’s victories have been by eight points or less.

“You’re faced with different challenges each and every week,” Tomlin said Monday. “What transpired last week in a positive way might not necessarily manifest itself in the next stadium in that way, and that’s why you’ve always got to have your head down and working.”

On defense, we have seen the Steelers vary their approach game-to-game much more in recent seasons than we saw during the later stages of Bill Cowher’s tenure and Tomlin’s early years.

Specifically, the team has talked openly about reconfiguring defenses weekly to minimize the opposing team’s top offensive threat at a greater frequency than the old days of, “This is our Super Bowl winning 3-4 defense. Go ahead and try to beat it.”

We’ve seen the Steelers dial back their blitz approaches this year with the departures of Mike Hilton and Vince Williams. When Melvin Ingram III was still in Pittsburgh, we witnessed an effort to incorporate all three outside linebackers at once (when they were all healthy).

Through necessity we’ve seen Cam Heyward moved to nose tackle at times and Minkah Fitzpatrick dropped down from his deep free safety position. Secondary personnel have been jockeyed quite a bit on a game-to-game basis, too.

Offensively, the Steelers have been much more limited in their attempts to highlight the weak points of opposing defenses because they have so many themselves. A rebuilt offensive line, first-year coordinator, rookie tight end and running back, aging quarterback and injured pass catching core have hindered the offense’s ability to be extremely variable.

That’s part of the reason why, especially in the six games the Steelers have lost or tied this year, the Steelers have had to revert back to relying on the short, quick-release passing game that dominated so much of their play calling under coordinator Randy Fichtner a year ago.

But while the players acknowledge the need for good coaching to help separate teams from the pack, most in the Steelers locker room this week said the onus still falls on them to execute the matchups once they have been pinpointed.

“You can scheme up perfect schemes and everything looks great on chalkboards,” said linebacker T.J. Watt. “But at the end of the day, one-on-one matchups you have to win.”

Heyward agreed.

“I don’t think it ever comes down to coaching. It comes down to execution,” Heyward said. “You can have the best coaches in the world. If your players don’t execute and do what they are supposed to, you are going to look like a bunch of idiots Sunday.”

All true. But consider this. JuJu Smith-Schuster, Joe Haden, Tyson Alualu, Eric Ebron, and Kevin Dotson were all opening day starters. Stephon Tuitt would have been. None of them were in uniform for last Sunday’s game against Baltimore.

The Steelers are down plenty of important “Jimmys and Joes” right now. Facing a schedule that has four teams in the same jumbled playoff mess as they are, the coaches need to work harder than ever to find the soft spots on those rosters.

And work even harder to hide their own.