Coach of the Year

I’m not sure if the Pittsburgh Steelers have an award within their organization for coach of the year, but if they do I think hands down Offensive Line Coach Sean Kugler should win.

No one would ever mistake the Steelers Offensive Line as being the most talented group of football players. To call them (as a group) average would arguably be stretching it. The best guy on the unit, Center Maurkice Pouncey, is a rookie. The next best two guys, Tackles Max Starks and Willie Colon both missed basically the entire season. But that’s what makes what Kugler has accomplished with this unit all the more amazing.

Essentially he’s taken an Offensive Line that is starting its #3 and #4 tackles (Flozell Adams and Jonathan Scott) and while he hasn’t made them studs, he has at least prepared them enough to not be a detriment to the team. The fact that the Steelers have gone 12-4 this season with this rag tag group of guys is a testament to Kugler’s ability as a coach.

To make his challenge even more ridiculous, last afternoon, in the AFC Divisional Championship game against the Ravens, the Steelers lost both Adams (for the rest of the game) and Scott (for about 1 series as far as I can remember (I was quite drunk)). When Adams went down, Kugler plugged in Trai Essex at Right Tackle (NOTE: Or maybe he plugged him in at Right Guard and moved Ramon Foster over?). Then, when Scott went down, I think he put Trai on the Left Tackle and to be honest, I’m not even sure who went over to Right Tackle or Guard. I remember seeing Doug Legursky on the field, I assume to play Right Guard, which leads me to think Ramon Foster slid over to Right Tackle.

So when you step back, we won that game last night with our #5 and #6 Tackles in the game. If I’m not mistaken, at that point, the five guys we had out there were the only 5 Offensive Linemen active and healthy for the Steelers. Granted, Scott came back into the game at some point but the Steelers were still driving the ball with this crew on the field against what some feel is one of the best defenses in the league.

Knowing how important chemistry is for an Offensive Line, the fact that Kugler can have the whole unit ready to the point where we can plug in our #5 and #6 Tackles while shifting the rest of the unit around to compensate and still see success on the offense against a very good defense just shows you how good he is at is job.

The most ironic part of this story is Kugler’s recent history. The Steelers picked him up from the Buffalo Bills at a time when the Bills clearly had the worst Offensive Line in the NFL. At the time I thought, “What the hell are we doing hiring this bum?” But I guess it just goes to yet once again prove my buddy Paul’s theory about the Buffalo Bills: All Buffalo Bills are great players… once they leave the Buffalo Bills! The poor guy is one of only two Bills fans left on the face of the Earth.

Way to go Sean, this next beer is for you!

-David