This is really shocking news. The Pittsburgh Steelers players have essentially called out Art Rooney II and his operation as they ranked him the 31st worst owner in football…and placed Mike Tomlin as the 5th best HC.
Is this going to be the end of the Rooneys in Pittsburgh?
Despite placing Mike Tomlin as the 5th best head coach in football, the Pittsburgh Steelers players have come out in force and completed lambasted Art Rooney II and the entire Steelers organization as they have rated the owner the 31st worst in football and the organization as one of the worst too. And, even though this “report card” has some MASSIVE discrepancies, I think this is really damning on Art Rooney and the Steelers.
So, I probably have to apologize to Mike Tomlin for saying that he has lost the Steelers locker room as that EVIDENTLY has not been the case.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the NFLPA released its annual player report card about their own teams (which is a great idea in my opinion as it gives great insight into the inner workings of these franchises), and the most shocking report I found was how DREADFUL the Steelers players think Art Rooney II is at owning the franchise.
You know, the same Art Rooney II who is the son of Dan Rooney, the 2X Super Bowl winning Steelers executive and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the grandson of the legendary Art Rooney (his namesake), the 4X Super Bowl champion, Pro Football HOFer, and founder of the Steelers franchise, and the current head of the Rooney dynasty in Pittsburgh. That guy is considered the 31st worst owner in the NFL by his own players.
That’s bad.
Now, I think this list is a LITTLE self-aggrandizing on the players behalf as they not only have named Clark Hunt the worst owner in football, despite the fact that he has won three of the last four Super Bowls and invested in the dynasty in Kansas City, and Stephen Ross the best owner in football, despite the fact that the Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game since he took charge in 2008 and were accused of tampering and multiple player safety violations, but they also tended to over inflate the ratings of their owners and coaches that may provide “better investment”.
What does that mean? The players valued comfort and high-end treatment as their highest priority on this report card…which is well within their right. I mean, it’s not fun to practice in horrible facilities, so I perfectly understand and empathize with why they drifted towards that scoring skew.
But these report cards gave Mark Davis of the Raiders a B+, Shad Khan of the Jaguars an A, Stephen Ross of the Dolphins an A+, Amy Strunk of the Titans a B+, the McCaskeys of the Bears a B+, and the Walton-Penners of the Broncos an A, while Robert Kraft of the Patriots got a D+, Clark Hunt of the Chiefs an F-, the Glazer Family of the Buccaneers a D, and Stan Kroenke of the Rams a C+.
Those final four owners are the last six Super Bowl winners and the others…just suck. You see what I mean? Sometimes, you can give TOO much power and pampering to players at the cost of winning, and that’s going to be shown in these report cards and the Super Bowl winners.
But what is really shocking is how AWFUL the Steelers ownership scored compared to Mike Tomlin’s amazing rating.
I truly thought that Mike Tomlin was the biggest issue within the Steelers locker room given how long he has been with the team and how his players so often acted out, but that might actually be down to the ownership and management staff of the Steelers. Unlike the other owners I named with winning teams, the Steelers ranked in the bottom half of the NFL in 10 of the 11 categories and in the bottom six of the NFL in 8 of the 11 categories.
The Steelers came in 29th in Treatment of Families, 30th in Nutrition, 30th in Locker Room, 29th in Training Room, 28th in Training Staff, 28th in Team Travel, and 31st in ownership (as you already know). Just how crap is Heinz Field and the Steelers practice facility?
Have the Steelers truly not updated ANYTHING since the reigns of Art Rooney and Dan Rooney? Like I said, these high scores really are quite meaningless when you see that the last six Super Bowl winning-owners and franchises all scored lower than a B-, but the Steelers haven’t won a Super Bowl since 2009. And the Steelers haven’t even won a playoff game since 2016…which just so happened to be their last 11+ win season too.
Having low scores in these categories is fine if you’re winning Super Bowls…but when you’re not and really struggling on the field, it makes you question the ownership and direction of this team.
And it really makes you question what Art Rooney II has been doing with his management staff to not only see the results on the field deteriorate so spectacularly from the lofty heights of the Steelers past, but to also see the stadium and training facility wither so much that the players are now in open revolt.
It makes you think if Art Rooney II and the Rooney’s days of owning the majority of the Steelers are coming to an end.
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