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Tomlin talks 2015, looks to 2016

4 min read
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Mike Tomlin touched on a lot of subjects today at his season-ending press conference, most notably his disappointment that this season was in fact over.

While the goal each season is to win a championship, the Steelers really felt they had the goods to do so this season. And you can tell that Tomlin really, really likes the group of guys that he had in this locker room.

He knows what kind of effort they put into this season and what kind of odds they overcame not only to put 10 wins on the board, but also to make the playoffs and win a postseason game.

“Our experiences of 2015 are our experiences of 2015,” said Tomlin. “We all learn from it. We all hopefully grow from it. But by no means does it carry over into next year. It carries over in the men in terms of the experience and the understanding that they bring to the journey, but I am excited about starting the next one anew.”

• A number of players will need surgery in the coming weeks to repair issues that they played through this season. Those include safety Mike Mitchell (left shoulder), punter Jordan Berry (right shoulder), linebacker Ryan Shazier (knee scope), tight end Matt Spaeth (knee scope), guard David DeCastro (ankle scope) and right tackle Marcus Gilbert (ankle scope) and linebacker Terence Garvin (finger).

Berry’s injury is interesting and could have contributed to the team’s 23-16 loss at Denver last Sunday.

Berry apparently was injured making a tackle on his first punt of the game and did not have his best game after that. In fact, he probably had his worst.

His surgery will take place Friday.

Tomlin also said that all of the players who had surgeries during the season are progressing well. Those would include Le’Veon Bell, Maurkice Pouncey, Senquez Golson, Cortez Allen, Shaun Suisham and Kelvin Beachum, among others.

Tomlin did finally say that at no time this season did the team have a “serious” discussion about activating Pouncey, who suffered a broken leg in the team’s second preseason game. Pouncey spent the entire season on injured reserve with a designation to return.

• Tomlin was asked about the team’s kicking situation. He simply replied that, “having two very capable kickers is a good problem to have.”

It certainly would be for the Steelers, who went through four placekickers this season.

But considering Chris Boswell makes considerably less than Suisham, you can bet that the team will explore trading Suisham once he shows that his torn ACL has healed.

That will, however, likely not happen until after this year’s draft, so the Steelers can’t bank on getting a pick back this year for the veteran kicker. Acquiring a 2017 draft pick for Suisham is much more likely.

• When asked about Cortez Allen, Tomlin said he’s not counting on an impact from the cornerback in 2016. “I’m not,” Tomlin said. “We’ll see.”

Allen is highly unlikely to be with the Steelers in training camp.

Since they don’t have a pressing need to do so, they can wait until after June 1 to cut Allen, who is schedulced to count $5.75 million against the team’s 2016 salary cap.

Cutting him prior to that would open just $1.5 million or so in cap space. Cutting Allen after June 1 would create a savings of about $4.4 million.

• As things now stand, the Steelers are around $9 million under the 2016 projected salary cap.

Given how the team has been able to create wiggle room rather easily – Bill Barnwell be damned – they’re in pretty good cap shape.

In fact, Tomlin mentioned free agency as a way for the Steelers to address some of their issues. That’s not always been viably on the table.

• Tomlin said he felt Keith Butler did a good job in his first season as the team’s defensive coordinator. In fact, he said he’d like to have all of his assistant coaches back next season.

No teams have inquired about any of Pittsburgh’s assistants, which should facilitate that happening.

• I asked Tomlin about Antonio Brown’s continued recovery from a concussion. He said that Brown still had to pass concussion protocol, but obviously, there was no hurry at this point.

Later in the day, the NFL announced that Jarvis Landry will replace Brown in the Pro Bowl.

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