Transition Is Hard, but the Pittsburgh Steelers Won't Miss Bruce Arians in 2012

Change is inevitable in the NFL, even for a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers that doesn't see much of it.

This has been a tumultuous offseason for the Steelers. Not only did they cut many of their veteran starters in order to get under the salary cap, the team chose to move on from long-time offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, hiring Todd Haley in his place.

While the removal of Arians had many Steelers fans sighing with relief, it's not so cut-and-dry for the players who have been relying on a familiar system since 2007, when Arians was promoted to offensive coordinator after serving as wide receivers coach.

It's especially rough for quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who is still admittedly confused by both Haley's new playbook and Haley's plans for the offense as a whole. 

Though Roethlisberger still has yet to grasp what Haley has planned—and the team has yet to really work through any of his plays or terminology on the practice field—there's little to worry about. The Steelers will ultimately be better off with Haley as their offensive coordinator than they were with Arians.

Arians fit the Steelers for a time. But the Steelers are now a different team with different needs. Arians did a good job boosting their passing game and developing Roethlisberger into the player he is now, but it's time to evolve.

Under Arians, the Steelers offense became predictable. First-down runs, bubble screens to nowhere and stalled red zone drives became more and more common and didn't fit in with the Steelers' increasingly strong passing game. 

Haley's approach is less rigid than Arians'. He's been known for both his strong running offenses (in Kansas City) as much as for his big-play passing games (with the Arizona Cardinals) and crafts his plays to best fit the talent he has available.

This means that the Steelers may run the ball the same amount they did under Arians, but just in different circumstances, to different ends. The same goes for the passing game, which, according to Roethlisberger, will include increased focus on the no-huddle and overall ramping up the speed of the game.

The one major change to expect in the Steelers offense under Haley is the running backs' involvement in the passing game. Dave Bryan of SteelersDepot.com took a look at just how often Haley used running backs in the passing game as compared to Arians, and it's very clear Haley wants backs to catch more passes than Arians did.

You could see the setup for this change in the Steelers' approach to last month's draft when they selected hybrid back/receiver Chris Rainey in the fifth round. Rainey has many traits in common with a Haley product from Kansas City, Dexter McCluster, and will likely be used in a similar manner.

The bottom line is that Arians relied on the strength of his play-calling to lead the Steelers offense rather than lend more weight to the strength of the Steelers offensive roster.

Haley will take the latter approach, meaning that the passing game will continue to be a major focal point of the team's offense this year—it's just too good to reign in—but he will also try to use perhaps all five of the Steelers running backs to their full effectiveness as well.

No, the Steelers offense wasn't broke, but that doesn't mean it didn't need fixing, or changing or ratcheting up. Haley's presence on the coaching staff will require everyone to make a transition, and it's happening whether the players are comfortable with it or not.

The ultimate success or failure of the change will have to wait until the season starts. However, I don't believe the Steelers made a bad decision by moving away from Arians nor by hiring Haley. This was just the shot in the arm Pittsburgh's offense needed.

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