The Redskins grant permission for Danny Smith to leave. Such eager beavers they are. Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

Ed B of the PPG tweeted on Monday that the Steelers were granted permission to speak with Danny Smith.

#Steelers get permission from Redskins to talk to their ST coach Danny Smith a Pgh native

— Ed Bouchette (@EdBouchette) January 28, 2013

Sounds good at first.  The ‘Skins made it to the playoffs and their featured return man, Brandon Banks, had decent averages in both the punt and kick returns.  The ‘Skins were also stingy in giving up any special teams TD’s under Smith.  That all sounds great to Steeler Nation, who has had to suffer of late to bad special teams play – especially run backs for touchdowns.

However, dig a little deeper, and Steeler Nation might start to scratch their collective heads and begin to be concerned about Danny Smith as a candidate for the special teams coach.  As SB Nation reports about Smith, fans and analysts from the Redskin camp have a very different take on who Danny Smith really is a s a coach.

If you ask Redskins fans, they generally are not too fond of Danny Smith. He consistently beat the drum for Brandon Banks to be the starting KR/PR in 2010, 2011, and 2012, which was a coveted roster spot since Banks couldn’t play WR really. Well, that did not pay off as it is now three full seasons with Banks and he only has one career TD in all returns. ESPN and Yahoo! only have one career fumble for Banks, but he has many more than that (none lost though).

Eeek.  Sounds like a coach who is A) Stubborn  and B) Misguided loyalties to certain players.  Hmmmm that sounds a little familiar……

SB Redskins also had this to say,

While Danny Smith has been very successful in preventing special teams TDs, the past few years have been a revolving door of punters and kickers. Shaun Suisham, Graham Gano, Billy Cundiff, Derrick Frost, it goes on and on. The Redskins allowed five blocked FGs in 2011. That’s outrageous. Players vehemently defended Danny Smith saying it was poor execution, which the film validated with missed assignments, but someone has to take blame, right?

Tomlin, Haley, and now possibly Smith.  Add Tony Sparano in there as a WR coach for good measure, and you just might have the four horsemen of the apocalypse on one team.  Ok, so maybe it’s not that bad.  But it seems that for a team that is struggling in evolving in this league – defensively and offensively – you would think that you would want a coach who’s a little more apt to say oohhhh I don’t knowwww… CHANGE WHEN THINGS AREN’T WORKING!

Smith isn’t a for sure thing.  He obviously must pass through the Rooney’s before he’s given the green light, and he needs to want to be here as well.  We’ll see how this one plays out, but it looks like the special teams will be one of influx for some time.

The television network got it wrong when it made the New England Patriots-Jacksonville Jaguars game the Saturday night game, traditionally the most watched time slot in the NFL playoffs weekend. Not because another game would get higher ratings, I would be surprised if any of the other games would, but because the other games were far more exciting; the best one coming last with the New York Giants cementing the win against the Dallas Cowboys by intercepting Tony Romo’s attempt at a touchdown pass with literally less than ten seconds left in the game.

Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin also got it wrong this week when he announced plan to not change any of the coaching staff in the upcoming 2008-2009 season. With the sub par offensive line and special teams play this season, to unilaterally decide to not make a change this early doesn’t seem wise. Maybe you do decide to keep both coaches, but I would think long and hard about it before I did. I also dearly hope that this decision doesn’t precede a decision to keep Sean Mahan at center, a position where a change is badly needed.

But Coach Tomlin did make a couple good calls this week. See below.

…but I toldja so.

All the signs were there if you know what to look for. It almost seemed inevitable the Steelers would lose to the hapless Jets. Yet, I’m sure we all wished upon our lucky stars, four-leaf clovers, and bald-headed midgets that somehow, some way, the Steelers would manage to pull off a win. It was not to be.

Now we know where the Steelers truly stand in the hierarchy of the NFL. We’re not a #2 seed. We’re not better than the Colts. We might be a little better than the Chargers, but not by as much as records would indicate. We’re definitely not even in the same stratosphere as the Patriots.

Before you dismiss this post as some sort of “The Sky is Falling” rant by a disgruntled yinzer, read some of my older posts on this blog. I’ve been saying for four weeks now that this team has some very serious fundamental flaws which would eventually end up costing them games. The Steelers have been fortunate this year in overcoming their mistakes and shortcomings but the problem with playing with fire is sooner or later you burn off your eyebrows and have to draw them back in like a whiny emo kid.

This was by far the worst performance of the season. A large part of the blame for this should be placed on Mike Tomlin. The Steelers played some horribly sloppy and undisciplined football yesterday. We had 8 penalties for, get ready, 100 yards!! One pass interference call set up a field goal. Another was an inexcusable roughing the passer call on Aaron Smith which kept a drive alive. Finally, the most costly, a defensive holding penalty, cost us a 5 point swing (we would’ve had a safety, they finally kicked a field goal) when Kellen Clemens fumbled the ball out of the endzone. Beyond the penalties, there was some wonky play calling, such as running draw plays with FB Cary Bates on third-and-longs. They did that in their lone overtime possession in what amounted to a give up play, leading to the punt (and punt return) that ended the game.

A large reason the Jets were able to get so many field goals is they had great starting position all game because of Tomlin’s “Pooch and Pray” kickoff strategy. Our special teams have been horrendous this year and while I applaud Tomlin addressing the issue, his answer is not the answer anybody wants to hear. It’s embarrassing for a professional football team to just give up on covering kick offs and conceding field position. How about, I dunno, BRINGING IN GUYS WHO CAN PLAY SPECIAL TEAMS?

The biggest failing yesterday was, once again, our porous offensive line. As the picture up top there indicates, you could drive Optimus Prime through the holes in our line. Jets blew through Sean Mahan, Alan Faneca, and Kendall Simmons like Britney Spears and a bottle of tequila. The worst, however, was Willie Colon, who did a terrific impression of a revolving door all day long. Yes, they didn’t get help from Ben Roethlisberger, who on occasion held the ball way too long (little hint: if nobody’s open, THROW IT AWAY), or Willie Parker (52 yards on 21 carries), whose knee injury looks to be worse than they’re letting on because he had very little burst or cutback ability.

It all begins with the offensive line and the Steelers’ is in total disarray right now. This shouldn’t be surprising to anybody who has been watching this team, however. Cleveland came into last week’s game with 7 sacks ALL SEASON. They collected 5 in that one game. The Jets had only 9 ALL SEASON and yesterday they piled up a ridiculous 7. Clearly, the off-season retirement of C Jeff Hartings is killing this team as his replacement, Mahan, is not doing the job. Colon and Simmons are wildly inconsistent. Even perennial All-Pro Faneca isn’t looking like the dominant pass blocker he usually is which makes me wonder if the Steelers not signing him has something to do with feeling he’s declining with his age. I don’t know what the answer is but something needs to change and it needs to change in a hurry or we’re going to be one-and-out in the playoffs.

I know that there was some worry about Ben Roethlisberger’s bruised hip that he sustained in the Monday Night Football game against the Baltimore Ravens going into Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns, but forget about that. Worry about whether or not his back is sore after pickup up the entire Pittsburgh Steelers team and carrying them to a win despite the Steelers’ lackluster play on both sides of the ball.

And don’t be mistaken, it was lackluster at best. Cleveland had a total of seven sacks the entire season going into the game, and they got four against the Steelers on Sunday. The offensive line has been a weak point for Pittsburgh all year long, and credit Ben’s incredible escapability for not getting sacked more times than he did. Pittsburgh’s defense has been one of the best in the NFL all season, but they gave up three touchdowns to Cleveland in the first half. Ben made more than a couple passes, especially early in the second half, which seemed to fall straight out of receivers’ hands. Special teams have been a weak for the Steelers for at least two seasons now, and Pittsburgh’s coaching staff seems unable to figure out what to do to better them. Don’t judge the coaches too harshly, because they’ve had enough players in and out of special teams slots, not to mention a renewed emphasis on special teams at training camp that something should have clicked by now.

This is now Ben Roethlisberger’s tenth fourth quarter comeback of his NFL career. He completed 12 of his final 14 passes for 157 yards, not to mention two big runs including a career-best 30-yarder for a touchdown. Ben was truly the difference in the game, making plays by running when he had no other options and stealing the win from Cleveland after a dreadful first half by Pittsburgh. Or, as Brett Keilsel put it, ‘All I ever hear is about [Tom] Brady and Peyton [Manning], but this guy we have here is very special.’