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Saturday, January 26, 2013

Jones leaves Steelers for Cardinals

The Steelers will have their third special teams coordinator in less than a year when they begin their spring OTAs.

Special teams coordinator Amos Jones is leaving the Steelers to join the staff of Bruce Arians in Arizona.

Jones, who had been with the Steelers since 2007, replaced Al Everest in August when he was abruptly fired. Previously, Jones had been the Steelers assistant special teams coach.

His departure leaves head coach Mike Tomlin with two and possibly three positions to fill on his staff.

In addition to Everest and Jones, offensive line coach Sean Kugler left at the end of the season to accept the head coaching position at UTEP.

Tomlin and his staff were in Mobile, Ala., this week for the Senior Bowl. Team president Art Rooney II was with them, meaning Tomlin was likely talking to potential replacements.


14 comments:

Dirt4HOF said...

I hope they hired Hal Hunter Jr while they were there,

bruinmann77 said...

I am just glad Jones is done here but now Tomlin needs to get the best coaches for his spots.It be curious to see what OLis out their and who the best ST coach out their/

Phil said...

Dale, could you please tell us why was Everest fired?

Patrick said...

maybe Everest "retired" like Arians "retired"

kyle said...

It seems pretty clear that there was some behind the scenes/personal thing with Everest. Why does everyone care so much? Would you feel better if you found out he has a drinking problem or got into a fist fight with someone or has a health issue he needs to take care of, or was a gambler? What difference does it make to any of us what the issue was?

Patrick said...

same reason we (I) are interested in a lot of Tomlin's decisions.

Is there logical thinking behind them or are they like 4th downs, onside kicks with the lead, fake FG's from 4th and inches, and FG's from over 50 which are a "gut" feel and require no thought?

kyle said...

You're assuming the Head Coach is the sole person responsible for hiring and firing assistant coaches. Maybe it was Tomlin's call maybe Al demanded a raise and Art told him to walk. We (I) have no idea but when a guy has been an ok coach (as far as what appears on the field) and is let go quickly in the preseason for no apparent reason, logic would dictate that it was something that would be unprofessional to say to the media. Zeirlein's porn email was reported because he sent it to multiple NFL people. Al's issue wasn't public. I'm fine with that. It's none of my business.

Dale Lolley said...

Patrick nailed it. Two weeks before the season was set to begin, Tomlin had a gut feeling that he needed to fire a coach. Yep, that would hold up to scrutiny.
There is a union for the assistant coaches. You think he could fire him on a gut feeling two weeks before the season. You think Art II would agree to that?
Please.

Patrick said...

Dale, Kyle asked why we want to know, and if its a personal reason/behind the scenes, which is probably is, then ok. But we still want to know what it was.

Plenty of people are fired for questionable reasons. Everest was a decent coach and fired and the ST unit dropped. Its not unreasonable to wonder what it was. I'd like to know, because I think there is a strong argument that it hurt the team. So whether he was smoking crack in the bathroom OR he had personal beef with someone, I'd like to know what it was. Based on the ST play it wasn't a good decision, so was it absolutely necessary to fire the guy for whatever he did?

Anonymous said...

The NFLCA is not a union. Not even close. Sounds uniony, but it isn't. Coaches contracts can and often are terminated with little notice or explanation or cause.

Anonymous said...

patrick, who cares? there are 3 possibilities:

1. tomlin wanted to fire everest. he then would need to get permission from colbert and rooney.

2. colbert wanted to fire everest. he then would need to get permission from rooney and notify tomlin.

3. rooney wanted to fire everest. he then would notify colbert and tomlin.

regardless, it's not a snap decision. it's not based on lunacy. at the very worst, the owner didn't want him and sent him packing. most likely, all three agreed to it, so something was clearly going on.

let it go.

Dale Lolley said...

Doesn't matter what you want, Patrick. Suffice it to say they had cause or it wouldn't have been done.

kyle said...

I think the fact that Everest doesn't have a job coaching, as far as i know, says something. Amos Jones certainly wasn't a world-beater this year, despite Rainey being 8th in kick returns, and Arians couldn't wait to schlep him along to the desert.

Patrick said...

They had cause or wouldn't of been done. I assume that. But the point of this is what was the cause, or was it cause of enough?

On a scale of 1-10, with 8 being punching a co-worker (which almost everyone would be fired for) and 10 being criminal, was whatever Everest did a 7? Or did he just not get along with someone, thats my question.

whatever, marc is right to let it go