WhoDat!656

Sounds like an upgrade to me!!

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The Pittsburgh Steelers fired special teams coordinator Al Everest two games into the preseason this earlier this year and replaced him with assistant special teams coach Amos Jones, who head coach Mike Tomlin hired to his staff back when took the job in 2007. The firing was considered very surprising at the time because teams rarely, if ever, make coaching changes in training camp.

The Steelers special teams unit ended the 2012 season on Sunday ranked 22nd in the league in punt return average allowed (10.3) and 18th in the league in kickoff return average (24.0). As far as their own returns went they ranked 29th in the league in punt return average (7.3) and 9th in the league in kick return average (25.4). Last year under Everest the team ranked higher in all four of those stats.

To make matters worse, the Steelers did not return a single punt or a kickoff for a touchdown this season and gave up a crucial 63 yard return for a touchdown in the Week 11 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. They also had one punt blocked against the Tennessee Titans that resulted in a short touchdown run two plays and two fake punts for first downs in the Week 14 loss to the San Diego Chargers and Sunday in the season finale win over the Cleveland Browns.

The Steelers offense was only a recipient a handful of times of good starting field position courtesy of returns and Antonio Brown made several poor decisions fielding punts over the course of the season. A few of the decent returns that they did have over the course of the season always seemed to be wiped out by penalties on players whose sole playing time came on special teams.

The standard certainly wasn't the standard in 2012 for the Jones-led unit and it was anything but special. That blame falls square at the feet of not only Jones, but Tomlin as well.

While the Steelers are unlikely to make many changes to their coaching staff during the offseason, outside of hiring a new offensive line coach to replace the departing Sean Kugler, who is leaving to take over as head coach of his alma mater UTEP, Jones needs to be replaced. It is that simple.

On Monday there will be several special teams coaches out of work on the yearly "Black Monday" and the pickings should be good. One those expected top be on the street is Bobby April of the Philadelphia Eagles.

April, who coached the Steelers special teams in 1994 and 1995, was a candidate to replace Bob Ligashesky when he was fired back in 2010. Tomlin interviewed April, who ended up taking the job with the Eagles. That led to Tomlin hiring Everest and the rest his history. History just like Jones should be by the end of this coming week.

Amos Sure Won’t Be Famous For Steelers Special Teams Play In 2013 | Steelers Depot

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."

hagan714

oh goodie we are moving from the draft to coaching staff.

special teams coverage was god awful even with the big plays taken out of the equation. something needs to be done for sure.
coaching change?
player depth upgrade?
something

alleycat_126

I go with coaching change, a call Joe Vitt can't make right now.... That's why Shawn needs to be back now.

SaintsBro

It could happen, I suppose, but Sean Payton with a new contract in his hands, hot off the press, ink still wet, he is EXTREMELY unlikely to fire Greg McMahon.Those two have been tight for a looong time, since their days at Illinois.

Bobby April is a good coach, I'm not disagreeing with that. Just that I think it will be hard to dislodge some of these people from Payton's inner posse, on a 7-9 year, when they have already survived 7-9 and 8-8 in 2007-2008 etc.

I've just resigned myself to the fact that the Saints always roll in on Sundays with wildly unprepared special teams, flying by the seat of their pants and Courtney Roby tackling everybody, and every so often during the season Payton reaches in and steadies the hand when it wavers too far off course, and moves some chess pieces around to a better position. Which is exactly what could have prevented the Giants game this year. They have a history over the years of looking half-assed, hit-or-miss, sometimes brilliant under Greg McMahon, and then whenever it gets bad and starts to embarrass Payton, he gets involved. Didn't happen this year.