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Tough gig Steelers offensive coordinator in challenging position
LATROBE, Pa. -- No matter his choice of decor, you can bet there won't be an easy chair in Mike Mularkey's office this season. How could the first-year Pittsburgh offensive coordinator possibly get comfortable, given that he has landed what many would consider the toughest job in the NFL? Looking tanned, rested and ready to go, Mularkey on Friday began settling into the high-pressure position that has spawned something of a pink slip syndrome in recent years. He does so lightly and with eyes wide open, painfully aware that others like Chan Gailey in 1996, Ray Sherman in 1998 and Kevin Gilbride in 1999 sat on this very hot seat not all that long ago. "I don't have all the answers," said Mularkey, with refreshing candor on a balmy first full day of Steelers' training camp at St. Vincent College. "Everything I'm doing is new. Some of the questions I'm being asked, next year I'll know the answer to them. You come into this job with your ideas, but until you've done the job, you don't really know.'' Maybe all Mularkey knows at this point is what not to do. As the Steelers' bright, capable tight ends coach the past five seasons, he got an up-close view of the brief and troubled tenures of Sherman and Gilbride, the last two men to have the keys of the sputtering Steelers offense tossed their way. Sherman lasted one season, Gilbride two, and neither were given ticker-tape parades on their way out of town.
Into the void steps Mularkey, the former nine-year NFL tight end with the funny name and the easy, reassuring manner. Mularkey's task is to take yet another crack at rediscovering "the old Kordell Stewart," even though the quarterback's eractic latter-day incarnation has now endured three times longer than the length of his breakthrough 1997 season. Mularkey's mantra thus far is less is more. He knows Stewart, knows what he can and can't do, and is determined to put him into the best possible position to succeed. All of which sounds good in July, as long as it serves to restore Stewart's battered confidence and recessitate his game starting in September. Mularkey, 39, began his renovation work by simply pulling out the Steelers' 1997 playbook and searching page by page for the plays that best suited Stewart's multifaceted skills. He cut and pasted what worked, and tossed out all the square-peg plays that Stewart, being a round hole, never seemed to master. The result? Expect to see a scaled down, more common sense approach to Pittsburgh's playcalling this season, with fewer of Gilbride's option routes and more of the sprint draws and roll-outs that Stewart made his signature moves in '97. Never the most accurate passer, Stewart won't be asked to thread the needle downfield too often, and he'll be rewarded for delivering the ball quickly, without too much time in the pocket. "My job is to not put him in a position to fail," Mularkey said bluntly. "We put in things that he does best. If he doesn't throw the 20-yard out, don't put it in and don't call it. We're going to be doing a little bit of the sprint out, and get him moving again. "Basically we threw everything open for inspection. There are some things that we've done that I'm just not going to do, because we didn't look good. So I'm not going to do it." If that's the case, the playbook that features the Steelers' failings might now be thicker than the one Pittsburgh will use in 2001. Such was the homeliness of the Steelers' passing game last season. Starting 11 of 16 games, Stewart completed just 52.2 percent of his passes, for 1,860 yards, 11 touchdowns, eight interceptions and a 73.6 rating. His longest scoring toss went for a modest 45 yards, and the Steelers had the league's third-worst passing game (157.4 yards), neatly offsetting their No. 4-ranked rushing game. Far from being all Stewart's fault, the Steelers' passing game also featured five non-impact receivers, of which dual No. 1 picks Plaxico Burress and Troy Edwards were the obvious eyesores with a combined 40 catches for 488 yards and zero touchdowns. Ouch. "I'm not a passing guru," Mularkey said. "Obviously we're not going to get away from our running game. But if we can get the ball in the air, our running game will only get better. Until we threaten teams passing the ball, they're going to load up against us against the run." Somehow, after an 0-3 start, the Steelers still managed to win nine of their last 13 games, and just missed the playoffs at 9-7. Stewart's play showed some signs of life in the season's final two months, but taking no chances that the improvement was a mirage, head coach Bill Cowher elevated Mularkey to replace Gilbride, and named one-time Notre Dame star Tom Clements the team's first quarterbacks coach since Babe Parilli in 1973. Both Cowher and Mularkey are convinced that the advantage of knowing Pittsburgh's personnel -- a luxury neither Sherman or Gilbride enjoyed -- will be the biggest difference in favor of the team's newest offensive coordinator. "He's been here and he knows our players more than the last couple times I've brought guys in," Cowher said. "They didn't really know our guys. It's the familiarity he has with our players that has allowed him to know their strengths and weaknesses. Mike has got a very bright mind, he's innovative, he's receptive and he's earned the right to do it himself. "We're going to have a lot of flexibility with some of the things we're doing, and the players have been very receptive. It's more definitive than things we've done in the past. The onus is being put back on the players to execute, and I think they like that." But Mularkey wisely isn't buying into that preseason storyline. He knows who the onus is on this season. After all, this is Pittsburgh. And he's the offensive coordinator. That makes Stewart his project, and paints the crosshairs on his back. In flashing neon colors. "I know this is very important," Mularkey said. "It's feast or famine this year. I understand that. I know they'll be critics. There will be weeks and plays where we're very successful, and then there will be some that go the other way. I've been around long enough that I can hopefully cope with the good or bad." In Pittsburgh, staying around long enough to do just that will once again be the trick. Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.
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