Steelers O-Linemen Not Thrilled About Current Scrutiny

Over at NFL.com, there's a new feature called "O-Line Confidential" which consists of the five Steelers' offensive lineman sitting around the dinner table at a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse talking football.

It's a great feature, hopefully just the first of a series as the Steelers' o-linemen offer some insight, show some humor and give everyone a chance to get know a group that is relatively anonymous in general. During the segment they also make it known that they aren't real happy with all the criticism they hear, which makes sense considering no group is probably more criticized than the Steelers' offensive line.

"People act like they know who gave up sacks," Hartwig said, using an example of a time that he messed up last year, which made it look like Max Starks gave up a sack that was actually his fault. "People think they know who is responsible for sacks, no."

Hearing that, it's hard not think that he's talking at least in part about the offensive line posts here at the FanHouse as well as Dagger's breakdowns over at Post Game Heroes.

It's not that Hartwig doesn't have a point. As has been mentioned constantly throughout the O-line breakdowns here, these breakdowns are down to the best of my ability, which means it's an attempt to discern what went right and what went wrong without knowing the play call. Sometimes they are obvious (if a defensive end runs by Starks or Willie Colon as they attempt to block him, it was his man), but in other cases it's hard to figure out who was to blame (like several sacks in last year's Eagles game where blitzers flew threw the middle of the Steelers' line untouched). Let me be the first to apologize, as I'm sure that I've blamed the wrong offensive lineman for a sack or two through the years.

But in general, it's not that hard to figure out who is having a good game and who is struggling. In general run blocking is even easier to figure out--when nose tackles were driving Sean Mahan into the backfield, it doesn't take much knowledge of the Steelers' play calling to figure out that it's not be design.

And the track record of the Between The Lines series here at FanHouse seems to be pretty good. Back in 2006, I wrote most every week that Sean Mahan was a big part of the Steelers' offensive line's problems. At the time the Steelers denied that Mahan was struggling at all (which is exactly what you would expect coaches to do when defending a player). And as soon as the season was over, the Steelers went out to find a replacement and traded Mahan to Tampa Bay. He's not been a starter since.

The other two offensive linemen who were singled out in 2006 were Kendall Simmons and Max Starks. Simmons eventually was cut by the Steelers in the middle of a large long-term deal and he then sat on the free agent market throughout the offseason, only finally landing a job as a backup last week with the Patriots. Starks eventually lost his job to Willie Colon. Once he got into better shape he eventually became the Steelers' left tackle, but it took until 2009 for him to go into a season as a starter again.

And in the preseason, you could read here that rookie tight end David Johnson was a very good in-line blocker as a tight end, but that he struggled to block as a fullback. Two weeks later, Jim Wexell wrote over on his blog ($) that the Steelers' coaching staff were impressed with Johnson's ability as an in-line blocker, but worried about his ability to make blocks as a fullback.

So while it's possible that a sack here or there may be blamed on the wrong offensive lineman. The overall results seem to be pretty accurate.

The Steelers offensive line came off as a group of likeable guys. And they seemed like a group who is well motivated to improve, it just to make everyone, including this site, give them the respect they lack right now.

"I want to get it done to shut everybody up," Colon said.

Nothing would make me happier as a Steelers fan than to be made to look like an idiot in this case.