Slamming the Door on the Jeff Reed Era

It’s taken nearly two years but this blog has officially reached uncharted territory. I’m about to focus an entire entry on a kicker. More specifically, a former kicker, given the abrupt ending to Jeff Reed’s Steeler career this week.

Reed’s career in black and gold veered wide right this season through a perfect storm of bad performance, bad attitude and bad behavior. Before 2010, he had solid standing in the Steeler Nation, notwithstanding his eccentric tendencies and his well established position on the Pittsburgh party scene. His rapid fire decent is thus nothing short of stunning.

I counted myself a solid Jeff Reef fan before 2010. Good kickers are hard to find and Reed was a consistently good, especially working in the place kicker’s graveyard that is Heinz Field.

Well, consistently good with some caveats. Reed’s range was five or so yards shorter than most NFL kickers and his kick offs rarely reached the goal line. It’s also fair to say that he lacked Daniel Sepulveda’s affinity for making special teams’ tackles. The Steelers accepted these flaws because Reed was remarkably accurate inside of 48 yards. Before this season.

And therein lies the rub.

Jeff Reed is unemployed today primarily because he stopped making field goals. No matter how obnoxious and ignorant he’s acted in the last 12 months (or seven days), he would still be wearing number 3 for the Steelers today if he were making his kicks. His petulant whining and excuses, not to mention his various off season escapades simply greased the skids.

Reed’s limitations, which became more apparent in 2009, reduced his collateral with the Steelers’ organization. His moronic behavior over the last year or so burned up whatever he had left. Reed could have learned a thing or two from his good buddy Marc-Andre Fleury about how to handle a slump with grace. Clearly he did not.

That being said, I maintain that on the field performance, or lack thereof, is what did in Reed.

NFL teams do not keep back-up kickers. There is no Brent Johnson in reserve when the kicker struggles. When kickers stop making kicks they lose their jobs, even under the best of circumstances. And to state the obvious, Jeff Reed circa 2010 has hardly been the best of circumstances.

Under the NFL’s unofficial code of conduct, kickers are to be seen and not heard. It is an odd idiosyncrasy that this vicious, hard hitting game, played by large angry men, puts so much emphasis on kickers. They are a necessary evil in the sport, tolerated when they succeed and hated when they fail.

When kickers open their mouth or make a spectacle of themselves, bad things happen. See Vanderjagt, Mike, aka “the idiot kicker” who got liquored up and ran his mouth about how Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy were not clutch performers. We last saw him choking a game tying field goal about ten yards wide right against the Steelers in the 2006 playoffs.

Clearly Reed did not learn any lessons from the man affectionately known as VanderJerk in Indianapolis. Clearly he did not see how fast Vanderjagt was run out of the NFL when his game slumped. And he clearly did not learn from his former teammate Tommy Maddox who prior to Reed was standard bearer for fastest alienation of the Steeler Nation in 2005.

Over three seasons, Maddox became immensely popular in Pittsburgh. He resurrected a failed NFL career and for a brief period looked like the star QB Steeler fans were waiting on for two decades He blew it all in one game against Jacksonville, Maddox might have survived his horrendous performance on the field had he not gone Roger Clemens in the post game press conference, throwing everyone and everything under the bus.

Pittsburgh fans demand accountability from their athletes. We can live with a bad game or two if you are willing to take responsibility for it. Just don’t insult our intelligence by blaming the wind, the turf, your wife, or Bruce Arians for your failure. In summary, don’t blame the bad turf when you miss a chip shot 26 yard field goal; the same bad turf you’ve been kicking on for nine years.

Getting beyond the obvious issue of poor performance, I think there are three fatal blows to the relationship between an athlete and a fan base. Lack of accountability is at the top of the list. The other two are publically complaining about your salary and ripping the fans. Given that Reed is a well known Penguin fan, its fair to say he’s had a hat trick of moronic behavior in about four months.

My issues with Reed started when he spouted off in training camp about his contract. I have no idea if the Rooney’s promised Reed a long-term deal or not. I suspect they said something like, we’ll discuss it in the future. Regardless, I don’t care. The guy was getting paid $2 Million, to kick a football. We should all have such problems.

Look, I am generally not one who complains about the exorbitant salaries of athletes. Yes they are outrageous and ridiculously disproportionate to the rest of society. Yes I think a good teacher provides more value than a good offensive linemen. Regardless, it’s irrelevant. Athlete salaries are what they are and I’ve accepted it.

All I ask is don’t complain about it. Modern athletes love the term “disrespect.” Do not disrespect me by complaining about your seven or eight figure salaries. Maybe I can’t kick a football in an NFL game but I’m pretty sure Jeff Reed can’t debit and credit. And he makes a heck of a lot more money than I do.

Seriously, does Reed expect sympathy from hard working fans because the Steelers are making him earn his next contract? Did he sleep through Sports Center the day they explained that NFL teams focus on other positions before they lock down kickers who can’t get kickoffs inside the ten yard line?

So that’s two grievous violations of the athlete/fan covenant. And to complete the trifecta, Reed blasted the fans. Showing a frighteningly ignorant and exaggerated view of his own importance, Reed suggested that Steeler fans come to games just to boo him. Newsflash Jeff, nobody and I mean nobody pays $200 for an NFL ticket to jeer you and Sepulveda (who to my knowledge was not being jeered anyway). If we boo you Jeff, it’s because you keeping missing kicks.

Ok, let me expand on that. We also boo you after you say, “I’m not one to complain to the media,” right before you complain to the media about your contract. We boo you because you say, “I’m not one to make excuses,” right before you make ridiculous excuses. But I covered that already.

I’m not even bringing Mr. Reed’s various drunken escapades in to the equation (a google search on him is quite enlightening), because it’s not relevant. Jeff Reed is not the first person, athlete or not, to get soused and take out his aggressions on an inanimate object. Just the same, I’m not bringing Reed’s charitable work in to the equation. All are irrelevant to me if he produces on the field and keeps his mouth shut.

That’s not to say these things are not important to his employers. If the Steelers were willing to Blue Light Special Santonio Holmes for bad behavior, they would certainly jettison a non performing kicker for the same reasons. I know the Steelers held on to Big Ben after his less than stellar offseason. Rest assured they would not have done that if Ben were Derek Anderson. And whatever you think of Ben as a person, he has always demonstrated accountability on the field.

In summary, Reed’s poor performance is why he was cut. His bad attitude and moronic behavior is why we are so happy about it. At least most of us.

I know some Steeler fans are upset about this. They see cutting Reed as a knee “jerk” reaction by the organization. I’ve heard credible arguments that Jeff Reed has a far better track record than Shaun Suisham. Those arguments may be true but they are also irrelevant. Suisham may or may not be good enough this season, Reed definitely was not.

I’m sure there will be plenty of second guessing if Suisham misses a key field goal. Such second guessing is based on the flawed assumption that Reed would have made the kick. Nothing about his performance this season suggests that to be true.

Combine a season’s worth of poor performance with embarrassing and mocking the entire Steeler Nation and I simply say this. Goodbye Jeff Reed, and good riddance.

Uncertainty Hangs over Steelers’ Season

Over the past two decades, I’ve developed quite a comfort factor with the Steelers. More often than not, I go in to the season believing they have a pretty good chance to be playing in mid January. Rest assured, this is not the blissfully blind optimism my fellow Chicagoans feel for the Cubs or the delusional belief of Pirate fans. This is the real deal, based on an 18 year run of success.

So like most of the Steeler Nation, I find myself dealing with an unfamiliar emotion on the eve of the 2010 season…uncertainty. I honestly can’t remember this level of uncertainty since the blessedly short lived Tommy Maddox era. For the first time in a long time, the Steelers have a team that could just as easily compete for the Superbowl or a high draft choice.

My gut instinct, not to mention three decades of watching the NFL, tells me that this is a huge red flag. If you think there is a legitimate chance your team could win only 5 games, then they probably are not a Super Bowl team regardless.

If I were truly an impartial observer of the Steelers, I would probably be leaning towards a rough year for the Steeler Nation. Of course I’m about as impartial as Rush Limbaugh or Hockey Night in Canada; which explains why I’m about to fork over another large sum of money to DirecTV to watch Byron Dixonbatch.

Even taking my less than subtle bias out of the equation, I remind everyone of what happened two years ago in Philly. I sat amongst the world’s most pleasant human beings at the Linc and watched the Eagles defense literally trample the Steelers’ offensive line. I walked away that day thoroughly convinced that the Steelers were in no way, shape or form a Super Bowl contender. Given what happened four months later, I think writing off the black and gold before the equinox is a bad idea.

Anyway, back to the uncertainty, the most obvious of which is behind center.

It’s hard to believe this given the two decade quarterback drought we endured pre Big Ben but we’ve become truly spoiled as fans. We are quite comfortable living the life of elite quarterback leisure (at least between September and February). Now we have to go back to living with the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses of Buffalo and Tampa.

The Steelers have to figure out a way to win at least 2 games with either or both of Dennis Dixon or Charlie Batch, at least now that Byron Leftwich has hobbled into the background. Anything less than that and the season could spiral out of control. I just don’t see Ben coming back from his 4 week, unpaid vacation and turning around an 0-4 team.

That’s uncertainty number 1. Well more like 1, 1a, 1b, and 1c through 1q(u). We do not know how good Dixon is. We don’t know if Tomlin is making the right decision. I’m not sure he does either. Is Dixon the next Donovan McNabb or the next Tavaris Jackson? Who knows.

If the Steelers are going to win without Ben, they need to go back to their roots; back to the days when they won in spite of the guy behind center. As much as this might cause a painful, irritating rash, coach Tomlin needs to cue up some old Kordell Stewart game film circa 2001. That was the year that Mike Mularkey earned coach of the millennium honors for finishing one game short of the Superbowl with Slash at QB; two years after the NFL had zeroed in on his multitude of weaknesses.

That Steeler coaching staff did a brilliant job crafting a game plan around a mediocre but extremely athletic quarterback. First, they built the passing game around what Stewart could do while scrapping what he could not (which sadly was a lot). They did not give him the whole playbook. Instead, they used a Paterno like strategy of sticking with five or so passes that he could throw effectively. Are you listening Bruce Arians? Most important, they did not hold Slash in the pocket. He had free reign to take off running when necessary (until 2002 when he decided to be a pocket passer).

It worked until the AFC Championship game when Bill Bellicheat and the Pats game planned against exactly those five passes. Still, it did work for 17 games. Tomlin only needs it for 4 weeks.

Of course the Kordell game plan involves more than just limiting the QB. It also involves running the ball and dominant defense. Which brings more uncertainty in to play.

There are serious questions about the offensive line. That’s not new as I noted above but now Big Ben is not around to bail them out. I question how that offensive line will deal with eight men in the box focused entirely on stopping the run, or how Rashard Mendenhall will deal with being the focus of opposing defenses. My guess is Dixon’s mobility was an overriding factor, given how poor this o-line can be at protecting the passer. That’s without even considering that Batch probably could not make it through three quarters of a flag football game without breaking his collarbone

Even worse, the Steelers go in to 2010 with serious questions on the defensive side of the ball. We have to go back to 2002 to find the last time that was the case.

We all hope that getting Troy and Aaron Smith back will return the defense to elite status. There is no doubt their absences were profoundly felt last year. That being said I can’t get past this nagging feeling there was more to it than that. I guess that happens when you get shredded by the likes of Bruce Gradkowski, Matt Cassel and Tyler Thigpen in the 4th quarter.

The Dick Lebeau defense is built around the front seven and the front seven is getting old fast.
I know the defensive backs got slaughtered last year but I really don’t see them as the issue. When the Steelers generate pressure on the quarterback, those mediocre (we can only hope) cornerbacks suddenly look a lot better. When they do not, we see William Gay getting torched with impunity.

What bothered me last year was not just the results. It was the fact that the defense so clearly tired in the 4th quarter of games and then the 4th quarter of the season. That’s the first sign of aging players and/or a shortage of depth. Sadly, the second sign is guys breaking down (see Parker, Willie F.). The harsh reality here is that Hampton, Smith, Keisel, Farrior, and Foote all have that potential at any moment.

So if we truly believe the Steelers need to play Steeler football its worth asking this question; is the defense really good enough?

Honestly, I don’t know and neither does anybody else. Two years ago they had one of the most dominant defenses in NFL history. Last year it was a bust. Even if the unit is better this year; are they better enough to carry Dixonbatch? Which brings us back to that term “uncertainty” that I’ve splashed throughout this column. And ultimately back to our quarterback saga.

I admit, I was favoring Batch as the best of three mediocre options. If there was no Ben Roethlisberger, I would fully endorse Dixon as the man since long-term development would be the key issue. Alas, assuming Ben put’s to rest his legal problems, he’s the man here for at least another half dozen years. That means this is all about who is the best four game option. My admittedly skittish belief is that is Uncle Charlie.

Dixon may be brilliant but he may also be brilliantly bad. We saw that against Denver. Maybe he learned from that performance or maybe that’s just who he is. We will not know until we see him in games that count. That being said, I acknowledge the obvious. The coaches see these guys every day, I’ve seen them in three meaningless games. So I’ll refrain from bashing the decision until at least 2:30 eastern time this Sunday.

Which brings us back to my comments about the Kordell Stewart game plans above. One of the coaching staff’s most disappointing moments last year, amidst a plethora to choose from, was the Dixon game plan against Baltimore. It triggered painful Dave Wannstedt flashes watching Mendenhall run off tackle 30 times while Dixon was forcibly constrained to the pocket. The coaches played scared and not to lose. Ask Wanny what happens when you do that.

Tomlin and Arians have taken a fair amount of criticism this summer but now is their opportunity to step up. It’s a lot easier to coach an offense with a future hall of famer calling signals. Like Cowher and Mularkey in 2001, they have to take it to another level. Game plan to Dixon’s unique strengths and away from his weaknesses. Don’t give him the whole playbook because at this point he can not handle the whole playbook. Don’t try and make Dixon in to Big Ben or worse yet, Leftwich. Work with what he does well, even if its not traditional NFL stuff.

To that end, Tomlin should channel his inner Forest Gump and scream…”Run Dennis, Run !!!” whenever Dixon is in trouble. Taking is one step further, in the words of Robin Wright Penn, “if you get in trouble, don’t be brave (or throw into double coverage). You just run. You hear me, you just run !” Here’s hoping Tomlin is movie buff.

Honestly, I never thought I would be preaching the benefits of a Kordell Stewart offense. Of course I never thought Big Ben would get grounded for a month by the NFL. I also never thought Bruce Gradkowski would carve up the Black and gold in the two minute drill at Hines Field. I guess that’s what a little uncertainty will do to a guy.