Cross Roddy White off the list of players who could be joining the Pittsburgh Steelers in the near future.
White, while watching Sunday night’s Colts-Steelers game on NBC, offered unsolicited criticism of and advice for Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley.
“Todd Haley problem is he really thinks that coaches win games not players when he realizes he doesn’t win games than he will be fine,” White said via Twitter.
White is accurate; only the players can deliver victory. But it’s the job of the coaches to get the players ready to play.
Maybe the deeper point is that, instead of forcing an offensive system onto a team regardless of personnel, the coach should find ways to maximize the talents of the players he has. That’s what Steelers coach Mike Tomlin did when he came to Pittsburgh, sticking with the 3-4 despite being an expert in the 4-3.
The fact, however, that Tomlin didn’t scuttle the zone-blitzing scheme in 2007 shows that the decision to go with a new offense came not from Haley but from whoever hired him. Haley was brought in to bring his offense, and that’s what he’s doing.
Maybe the deeper point is that White watched the stream of clips from last night’s broadcast showing Haley getting into verbal altercations with the likes of Terrell Owens, Anquan Boldin, and Matt Cassell, and White simply concluded that Haley seems like a not-so-nice guy.
And that leads back to the Sean Payton profile on Sunday’s Outside The Lines. Coaching football at the highest level either attracts or creates guys who, all things considered, can act like big jerks.
That’s not an affliction that can be cured simply by realizing that the players win the games. But that’s probably the thing that prompted White to speak out via what the kids call tweeting out.