PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – During locker clean out on Tuesday, Steelers captain TJ Watt discussed how frustrated he was not being able to play on Monday. He discussed how he wants to play for Mike Tomlin. The team’s all-time leading sack leader also said how he wants to win his first playoff game as a Steeler.
It has been that long, over the seven years of a potential Hall of Fame career, TJ Watt has yet to be a part of a Steelers playoff win. His teams are 0-4, losing at home to Jacksonville and Cleveland and at Kansas City and Buffalo.
“The first time you guys saw me this year was in Latrobe and said I want to win a playoff game,” Watt said Tuesday. “This is what we do it for. All the hard work, all the extra reps. All the things you think about, dream about in the offseason is for moments like (Monday).”
Formerly a part of the Steelers front office before becoming an NFL general manager, Doug Whaley said during his weekly hour on the Fan Morning Show, this encapsulates the problem with the organization right now.
“You want to know the state of the mindset of the guys in the locker room,” Whaley said on the Fan Morning Show with Dorin Dickerson and Adam Crowley. “Most importantly if it’s coming from your leader. The key part of that is that ‘we want to win a playoff game’.”
“A playoff game, not a championship, not a ring, not a title, a playoff game. That is where the mindset is of the people in that locker room and maybe in the building.”
Whaley said if the star of your team and one of the best players in the game is discussing winning a playoff game, it’s a far cry from the Steelers of the 70s to the 2000s.
“James Farrior wasn’t talking about winning a playoff game,” Whaley said on 93.7 The Fan. “Casey Hampton wasn’t worried about winning a playoff game. Ben Roethlisberger, Jerome Bettis, those guys aren’t worried about winning a playoff game, they were worried about getting titles, getting jewelry, getting rings, getting bling. The Steelers are a franchise looking to win a playoff game. That right there lets you know what the state is and the mindset is in that building.”
He said when he was with the Steelers organization you would walk up the steps at the Steelers facility on the South Side and see the Lombardi Trophies. He said you knew what the goal is and it wasn’t just to win a playoff game.
“I remember (then Steelers GM) Kevin Colbert saying there is only one team that earns their paycheck at the end of the year. Everybody else is stealing.”
Whaley said it wasn’t even talked about. It was like breathing, it was just assumed that the goal. The goal was to win championships, not get find a way into the playoffs and figure out a way to win a playoff game. It was a quest for a championship.
The pressure when working for the Steelers was to live up to the expectations of those who preceded you. The ones who set the foundation.
Now dabbling in the media, along with still working in professional football, Whaley admitted on the Fan Morning Show that maybe he’s reading too much into the comments. But it stuck out to him of a goal too shallow. Expectations of other organizations, but not the Pittsburgh Steelers. And it came from your best player.
“I want that guy to say, everybody is talking about playoffs,” Whaley said on the Fan Morning Show. “We’re not talking playoffs. We are talking championships.”
“I want to win a championship before I leave. I want to cement my legacy, not as just one of the best defensive players, but one of the best defensive players that helped lead his team to championships.
That’s not what he’s saying now.”
“To me, that’s where this offseason needs to start. What is the foundation that this team is trying to lay. That this organization is trying to lay. Something that is going to get you competitive into the playoffs? Or are you going to have the foundational pieces for a championship run. Right now, what they are saying is it’s a playoff run.”
Maybe he’s reading too much into it. Probably Watt is frustrated not taking that big first step to a title. He works like a man with larger goals and aspirations.
Whaley has been in the game for a few decades and knows what the Steelers were when he grew up as a fan and then employee.
This standard is not the Steelers standard he remembers.