The Pittsburgh Steelers are currently 3-3 and stuck in 4th place in the AFC North. This isn't sitting particularly well with a fan base that has become all too used to victorious Sundays over the last few decades, according to the NFL.
The finger of blame for the lackluster early season performance has pointed in many directions - various players, offensive coordinator Todd Haley, head coach Mike Tomlin - but one longtime assistant has thus far managed to remain relatively untouched.
77-year-old coordinator Dick LeBeau has been managing the defensive side of the ball for the Steelers since 2004. He's orchestrated some of the best, and certainly some of the most feared, defenses in the NFL over the past decade.
LeBeau's unit is currently 19th in the league in points allowed and 12th in yards - middling, if not necessarily out and out bad. But the defense has allowed 10 pass plays of 30 yards or longer and six runs of 20 yards or longer in six games - numbers that rank near the bottom of the NFL. They also have allowed more points (139) than 12 of the 16 teams in the AFC.
With the team as a whole struggling to right itself and fans and media alike casting about for someone, anyone to blame, the spotlight of accusation may have finally found its way to LeBeau.
Some, however, including recently resigned linebacker James Harrison, think that blaming LeBeau for the defense's - and the team's - struggles, is way off base.
"I hear coach LeBeau, a lot of people say he's too old," Harrison told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "That's bull. The defense works. Players have to play the defense. Period. It's on the players."
It was only 2008 when Harrison and the Steelers defense led the league in fewest yards allowed, pass defense and points per game, and finished second in rush defense on the way to a Super Bowl victory over the Arizona Cardinals.
During a recent Twitter Q&A, ESPN's Scott Brown had this to say about LeBeau: "As great of a defensive mind as LeBeau is I'm not sure he has put the players he has in the best positions. It's tough when a 3-4 defense doesn't get a consistent pass rush from its outside linebackers, but LeBeau has to find a way to get pressure from somewhere. I will say this: It is ludicrous to say that the game has passed him by. I'm not sure that anyone could coax great defensive play from a group that is aging in key spots, is breaking in new players and is lacking in playmakers."
While he admits that LeBeau may not currently be getting all that he possibly can out of his players, Brown seems to place more of the blame at the feet of the personnel department - a sentiment that Harrison shares.
"The scheme is the same, the calls are the same. The defense works. It's been proven that it works for years and years. The defense has always been ranked in the top nine or 10 since coach LeBeau got here, except for the last year and now. The only thing that changes is the players," said Harrison, as quoted by Behind the Steel Curtain.
If anything, LeBeau is suffering to a certain extent from the strength of his own legacy - middle of the pack seems unacceptable when fans are used to a Top 10 defense.
The only thing that's for certain at this point is that the Steelers aren't playing like Super Bowl contenders, and the longer this continues, the higher the chance that someone - anyone - will eventually suffer the ultimate consequence because of it.
