Bruce Arians is a bad offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

You are backed up in your own 1 yard line. Trailing in the 4th quartedown the firer by 3 points: Do you A) play it safe and run the ball to gain yardage, prevent getting a safety, and pound away hoping to gain the minimum 15 yards for your punter and possibly if a whole opens up and you pick up a first down start driving, or do you spread out the wide-reciever, go out of shot gun and pass down the field in order to start driving and assume the risk that a sack/hold/intentional grounding will result in a safety? Niether if you are Bruce. Instead you call a shot gun-4 wide-single back, and ‘psyc' the defense into think you are going to pass and hand the ball of to the running back out of a draw. Great idea, except a)you brought in your 3rd down back, by far your worst running back b)you ran him horizontally on the goaline so he had no shot of ever getting out of the endzone c) you had no-one to block him because you went 4-wide so you pull the left tackle right (which leaves the DE un-blocked into the backfield to talk the running back for a safety cause its not like anyone in that situation would try to apply pressure). This play, in and of itself, is enough to say he's an idiot (the Steelers ended up losing by five points after two incompletion from the 10 yard line with :09 seconds left. Had the safety not occurced, they could have kicked a Field goal and went to overtime). But if that play isn't enough for you, let me convince you with some nice points: Contention 1: He won't use a Full Back Ok, so techniqually Johnson is our "FB" but only because you have to list on as your starter. He is truly a third string tight-end. And its not like we didn't have a FB in camp, we did. But we cut him. Because why would you want a full back? You're right, its not like it could possibly help the running back by taking a lead blocker or anything. Especially since the Steelers have an offensive-line with so many gapping holes as-is its amazing that Mendehall has been able to run on anyone this season. Furthermore, Bruce this season has come up with a number of ‘schemes' to cover for his failure on the part of not having a FB on the roster. The season started with Mendhall and Redman in the back field out of strong formations, not a terrible concept considering Redman is a power back and handing the ball to either back could throw defensive off if the Steelers where ever actually commited to the run. Oh, and Redman proved ineffective at throwing blocks inside, and why should he? He wants to be the runback, that's what he went to camp for not throwing blocks in the trenches every play for the guy ahead of him on the depth chart. The next fix involved placing Heath Miller in ‘protection' packages where Ben came out of the shot gun, FB can block the leading block which also means pass rusher in most cases. Any idea why Ben takes so many sacks? Noone stays in the backfield to protect him, he gets hit and breaks takles, if you had a full back to take the lead blocker you would have to have the FB beat before Ben ever gets hit (or waste Millers talent by keeping him in to block). Most recently, in the Play-offs the use of Legursky as a FB in goal line situations has proved effective, but this is situational football, and by the looks of the Week17 Steelers through Play-offs I wouldn't be surprised if Tomlin had a say in the situational play calling in the Red Zone. Since the 10 day lay off against Carolina (and going 1-for-5) the Steelers a 50% TD team in the read zone all season have suddenly spiked to almost 70% over the last 3 games. This increase has come from running the ball inside, and adverting the 5-Wide sets in the Red Zone (Bruce's favorite goal line play). Finally, in the AFC Championship the ‘Wishbone' formation the Packers used to run all over the Falcons was seen by the Steelers using multiple TE (and Johnson actually lining up at FB for like the 1st time all season). Watching other games and using their formations hardly counts as coaching. Anyone can steal other teams plays. Contention 2: Failure to call the right plays at the right time, and calling the right plays when they don't matter. Lets look at the Ravens (1st match up) w/ just over two minutes left in the game the Steelers get the ball back on downs at there 2 yard line needing 1 first down to ice the game. After a run for a minimual gain, a false start moves the Steelers deeper into there own endzon, then another minimual run, then another false start. Now its 3rd and long back up in your own endzone (again you don't have a FB) and what do you call? Yes exactly, a run play and get stuffed. Despite not having the 5 yards for your punter who gets of a terrible kick, w/ a minor runback and a penalty gives them the ball at the 40 with a minute left. So you run when you need to pass….and like wise in the AFC championship game on third down just across mid field Bruce passed, where an incompletion stops the clock and would give the Jets 40 extra seconds to run a potential game winning TD drive had the pass been incomplete. Some call this guts, I call it a stupid gamble, but then again we couldn't run on the Jets in the second half? Why…see contention 4. Or, look back to last season when Dixon had to play against the Raven's after injury to Ben and Batch. After Dixon played exceptional, and the game went into overtime, the thrown in at the last minute started had no idea what to do. I'm positive the coaching staff didn't come up with a statedgy for overtime, because well they probably never thought they'd get that far. But, in over time the Steelers get the ball and Bruce comes out passing. Dixon, misses several open receives and throws the ball away and into poor choices of covered receivers but escapes to punt. Then the defense holds the Ravens. Upon getting the ball back and having an entire Balitimore drive to understand that Dixon miss completely open receiver on multiple pass attempts on the first OT drive what does Bruce call? Exactly a pass, not only that but he calls a play where he send the wide receivers deeps, keeps two backs to block for protection, and send the TE on a curl. The TE is the only receiver Dixon sees because he's not examining the field. 3 separate Balitimore players converage on the ball and the pass in intercepted and game over. Ok, lets look at the Rand El passing TD in the Cincy Monday night game when you are up big. Or the fake spike in the 1st half against the Jets (the play failed) but couldn't be used latter in the 2nd half (when you need to score). Or the multiple lateral reverse Bruce likes to run that always fail. His trick plays are like practice in game, they never serve a point or help us win. They just work when we don't need them to at all (and that's probably why they work, who runs a trick play when you have a huge lead?) Contention 3: He sucks in the Red Zone Bruce repeatively goes 5 wide in the Red Zone, year in and year out. It wasn't until the last 3 games as mentioned above we've shown any life inside the twenty. On the season we were 50 percent on scoring TD's and that is consistent with Bruce's numbers over his tenor as Offensive Cordinator. Most noteable, an instance when we recovered the ball on the 1 and failed to punch it in in 4 attempts. And we went 2 for 5 on TD against Carolina….(and blew them out despite that). Contention 4: We can't do something if they know we are gonna do it Ok, here is where Bruce takes the cake. Instead of any reasonable mind person that has a ‘game plan' or a formation or a play that works and decide ‘ok we can keep using that until someone can stop us' when something works Bruce stops using it to ‘mix things up'. You need look no further than the AFC Championship, the induction of stealing the Packers wishbone formation in the first half work great, it did not reappear in the 2nd half. Why? Because it work. On a Sunday night game last year again the Broncos Mendenhall ran out of Trips-Bunch Single Back and ran right side, he had over 100 yards by halftime. He ran it so effectively that the announcers even explained the play to the viewing audience in the 2nd half because the rought was on. But, after pulling to 6-2 and looking like a legitiment team to repeat, Mendenhall right Tackle out of Trips Bunch Single Back disappeared from the play book for the remained of the season (and this season). Why? Because, Bruce said ‘Well they know we are gonna do that, so we have to do something different'. No one ever beat us at it. No one ever figured it out. Bruce effectively beat ourselves by never running out of it again. Contention 5: Big Ben Ok, so he has the fortune of a great running back who can get 1,000 yards despite not having a FB on the roster, but Bruce has a job because he has a QB who can win games DESPITE him. In the '08 Super Bowl run, the Steelers won almost all of their games coming from behind in the final two minutes on a game winning drive. The offense, dorminant all day, suddenly cam to life and scored in the clutch. Again, and again, and again. So much so that when the Cardinals actually beat the Steelers D in the Super Bowl the Steelers just marched down the field and scored like they had all season. Why? Because, Ben runs the two minute drill out of the no huddle. Which mean guess who calls the Plays? Hint: not Bruce. Yep, Its Ben himself. Look at the Raven's game. That huge 3rd and 19 where Brown makes that catch, Ben himself is quoted saying "I told Bruce we should throw it deep….'cause if they intercepted it, it would be just like a punt" So we can thank Ben for his genioious to constently over come an inept offensive coordinator. For further evidence of this, look at our offense when Ben doesn't play. We had the 30st offense in the league after week four (With Dixon and Batch at QB). Why? Because Bruce was calling all the plays.