Filed under: Steelers, NFL Injuries, NFL Coaching, NFL Quarterbacks, NFL Analysis

If there has ever been a head coach faced with a can’t win situation, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin may have faced it this August.

Even before Byron Leftwich suffered a knee injury, Pittsburgh columnists were ripping Tomlin for mishandling the Steelers’ quarterback situation. Leftwich wasn’t getting enough reps, Ben Roethlisberger was getting too many. Dennis Dixon wasn’t ready.

But here’s the thing: considering everything that has happened, Tomlin’s plan is looking about as good as it could. Now obviously, losing Leftwich to a knee injury is bad. Losing Ben Roethlisberger to a four-game suspension is even worse. But if you consider those the unavoidable obstacles of the preseason, then what Tomlin did has given Pittsburgh about as good a chance to win the next four games as it could.

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Coming into the preseason, Tomlin was faced with the unprecedented and impossible task of readying a healthy franchise quarterback who wouldn’t play for the first quarter of the season, a veteran backup who was returning to the team after a year away, a promising young quarterback who needed plenty of practice time and the cagey veteran who’s been around forever.

There aren’t enough receivers, footballs and preseason games to pull all of that off. Usually a team works on getting two quarterbacks some reps, the third gets enough playing time to show the team what they’ve got and the fourth just collects garbage time snaps. Pittsburgh had four quarterbacks with legitimate roles.

 

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