(Satire) Behind the Scenes - Week 1: Coach Tomlin Sits Down with Felix Jones

The GSN (GeoBear Sports Network), a proud subsidiary of the Pittsburgh Sports Forum, proudly presents the first of this season's weekly series:
"Behind the Scenes from the Steelers Locker Room."
This past Friday, at the South Side Training Complex, we were able to hide a reporter (in plain sight) inside the strength and conditioning room (vacant since 2007), which is just adjacent to the area where the running backs (those that are left) suit up for practice. We present this transcript of the conversation between "Head Coach" Mike Tomlin, and newly acquired (a month ago) running back, Felix Jones, whose locker is located next to ex-RB (now reinstated) Jonathan Dwyer's locker. This transcript is reliably accurate and reported verbatim... sort of.
Mike Tomlin: (looks at Dwyer's empty locker and lets out a long, drawn out sigh) Ummm... Franklin... James? (casually checks the name and number above the locker) Wait, no, sorry. Jones. Felix Jones. So... Got a few minutes? I wanted to talk to you about the game plan this week.
Felix Jones: Sure, Coach. I'm glad to be here, and I'm looking forward to helping in any way I can.
MT: Yeah, yeah. Great. Listen, Fredrick. I'm not sure what you've been doing all these years as a running back. We haven't watched a lot of film on you because we don't usually make any free agent transactions in the off season. Just not our thing. Well, unless they used to play here at some point. We know those players know our system, so we feel comfortable bringing them back, regardless of age or health. I also can't recall if we scouted you in college, Kevin Colbert usually just relies on college football magazines that come out in July when we rank players. We prefer to improve our team through the draft, and slowly bring them up to speed at a steady pace. I'm not sure what happened this off season, but Raymond... you know, Raymond? The guy who picks up the towels in the locker room and puts them in that big bin? Anyways, he said something to one of the Rooneys... I'm not sure which one, but he said he had you on his Fantasy team a few years ago and you won him some games. We made a great deal with Dallas to bring you aboard, and we hope you can win us some games here too. Now, I understand you are a former first round pick and have had a decent amount of playing time in your career, all the way back to Pop Warner. However, let me explain to you how we do things here in Pittsburgh.
FJ: It's Felix, Coach. And you acquired me from Philadelphia, not Dallas.
MT: Oh? Well, that's not important. See, here in Pittsburgh, we call a play in the huddle. After that, you line up behind the quarterback - that's Ben Roethlisberger, by the way. When the ball is snapped, if you are supposed to get the ball, you run towards Ben. He hands you the ball, and depending on the play that we have executed, you either try and find a hole up the middle and run through it, or you make an attempt to run to the outside and hope you can reach the edge in 2 seconds before our blocking breaks down. I know that might be a little different than what you were used to under Coach Gibbs in Washington, but bear with me here.
FJ: Coach. Umm. I've been here about a month. I picked up all the basic running plays. I haven't really looked at the trick plays and whatnot, but I think I have the basics of the running offense down. I can improvise pretty well in a pinch if I have to, we had to do that a lot in Dallas because we had Tony Romo at quarterback. Also, Coach Chip Kelly in Philadelphia is pretty much running the same zone blocking scheme that the Steelers are running, and I practiced quite a bit with them. I am pretty comfortable with what you are trying to do here.
MT: Well, Foxtrot. I'm not sure what Andy Reid is doing over there in Philly this preseason, and improvising might have worked for you in the past, but this is Steelers football. We don't do improvising here. Too many injuries. We stick to the game plan that we set at the beginning of the week, regardless of anything that happens. That includes during the game. The Standard is the standard. I also don't understand what your girlfriend Kelly, a bag of potato chips and some Homo have anything to do with running the football, but if that's your thing, just keep it off the field and out of the news. We don't need any distractions. In case you didn't see, we went through all of this with Ben a few times, and quite frankly we're running out of excuses.
FJ: Um. Okay, Coach. But speaking of... what about Ben? I thought his claim to fame was improvising and making things happen by extending plays? I got to practice a little bit of that with Michael Vick at quarterback this preseason, and I was kind of looking forward to helping out with that here as well. I have pretty good hands, I can maybe break out in the flat and be an extra safety blanket for B...
MT: (interrupts) The relationship you had with Donovan McNabb and the Eagles is irrelevant here, Fabio. Besides, we really can't tell Ben what to do - next to Mike Wallace, he's the face of our franchise. Wait a second... (checks notes from last season.) that's right, Mike isn't here anymore. I meant Antonio Brown. Aside from that guy. I really should update these rosters from a few years ago. Anyway, we let Ben think he's improvising and extending, but in reality he's just running for his life. Our receivers don't improvise, we have them just keep continuing to run their route in a continuous loop, hopefully giving Ben enough time to shake off the 9 guys trying to tackle him so he can throw it away or get out of bounds. We implemented this policy after Heath Miller went down last year when he decided to think for himself and break off a route to try and make a play. He was Ben's safety blanket, and he got hurt. Please don't use that phrase anymore, we phased that out too. We don't want to get anyone else injured by doing something that we have not anticipated in the film room and in practice.
FJ: But...
MT: Moving on, Farley. Our running scheme since Coach Haley has been here will require you to run where you are supposed to go, regardless if there is a hole open or not. If the defense is in front of you, just fall down... but try not to fall forward. You might run into one of our lineman that are falling backwards, and you might get hurt. Or they might whiff on a cut-block and THEY might get hurt. Or hurt someone else.Trust me.
FJ: (stares blankly at Coach Tomlin, jaw dropped open)
MT: I can tell just by looking at your face that you don’t know the entire playbook. And since you don't know the ENTIRE playbook, which includes the trick plays and all of Coach LeBeau's defensive schemes, that brings me to this. We're not 100% confident as a staff to put you into a feature or committee back situation at this juncture. Our plan of attack is to keep you on the bench this week, even if we lose a RB to injury or someone keeps fumbling. We don't anticipate any of that happening, though. We made great decisions regarding roster spots last week, and of course the standard is the standard. Next man up and all that.
FJ: Wha... Hold up a sec. Defensive schemes? Coach, this organization signed me as a running back. Why would I have to know the defensive schemes?
MT: The standard is the standard, Francis. Next man up. Plus, we have William Gay at cornerback. At any point we might need someone to fill in for him, just in case his play is unacceptable. I mean, we don't anticipate any issues at that particular position, per say, but you never know. We made Greg Warren learn all the linebacker positions before we allowed him to be our long snapper. He even learned how to call the plays in the huddle in case something happened to… say… Larry Foote. Again, just speculation and precaution. What if Cortez Allen suffers an ankle injury? We need someone to step in. Next man up. We might need you to do that. Denver might have drafted you as a running back, but our system here relies on versatility and adaptability.

FJ: Denv…what? (sighs) Ok, Coach. So if I won't be part of the offensive game plan this week, what do you want me to do?
MT: To be honest, Ferris, just take a seat on the bench next to Jarvis Jones and Markus Wheaton. I'll be talking to them next on why they will not be involved in the game plan this week as well. I’m not sure why we aren’t going to be using them, but I’m sure there’s a reason. Maybe if I check out the game films I can figure it out. Watch Isaac and LaRod and see what they do. Pay particular attention to how Redman handles the ball, especially at points where he makes contact with anything, including the quarterback. Or the ground. Actually, even how the wind interacts with his grip. Just watch everything, okay? Hopefully he will also showcase some of those great spin moves and cuts that he has been working on. Of course, befitting the plan for our running game, he will be using those moves to put himself directly in the path of a defender and then immediately fall down. Backwards, mind you, not forward. That's important. Of course, those are purely moves to avoid injuries, but I don't anticipate that being an issue at this juncture. Speaking of moves, I had to recreate Redman in the new Madden game. He really improved on those aspects of his repertoire in the off season and I had to bump up his stats a little bit manually. He was listed at a 37, I moved him up to an 81. I initially had him at a 75, but he told me he worked out his fumbling problems.
FJ: I... wha... he… you...
MT: (looks at Dwyer's empty locker again and lets out another long sigh.) Dwyer was still on the team, too. Come to think of it... I just realized something! When we were using Madden to simulate the game plan this week, I think we was still using the pre season rosters! Maybe that's why we didn't put you into the mix, you were still on Jacksonville's roster! (chuckles) Man, thankfully we only play Tennessee this week. I expect a battle with them, but we will battle and by battling we will prevail. On paper, we're better than they are, and we always rise to the occasion, battle and beat the teams that we are supposed to. By battling.
FJ: You...use...a video game to plan against your opponent for the week?!
MT: Don't worry, Findlay. Minor setback. We'll get it all straightened out before next week's game against the Bengals. I anticipate a major battle with those guys – they used to be in our division. Anyway, just sit tight on the pine with the practice squad guys. Maybe next week we can revisit this during our preparation period, evaluate your performance, and see if we can get you in on special teams next to Shamarko Thomas. Speaking of which... I just heard Will Johnson is available to us, but since he wasn't cleared to play earlier this week when we simulated the game on Madden, I couldn't fit him into our schemes. I'm gonna go track him down and let him know that we're only going to use him on special teams. Since we are light in the tight end department, we planned all week on using Kelvin Beachum as an eligible receiver on a lot of our offensive plays. Roughly all of them. I don't want to disrupt his concentration or our entire game plan by changing things up now. Beach mentioned something about double checking the blocking schemes at center and working with Ben a little bit in case of an emergency, but we shot that down. Maurkice Pouncey is our center, and we do not anticipate anything bad happening to him at any point during the game, which should be a battle. Now if you excuse me, I just got a tweet from one of the coaches - I just signed up for Twitter, if you didn't know. It was big news. Looks like Shaun Suisham is on the field stretching. We can't have anyone doing that, they might pull a hamstring. See you at practice, Figaro.
(Tomlin walks away)
FJ: (pulls out his cell phone and dials his agent) Adrian? You know of anyone looking for a running back? CFL, Arena League, the New York Jets… anything. I'll explain everything later, just see what you can do. Also, could you give Tim Tebow a call? Just tell him to stay ready, the Steelers might need his services at some point. Yeah. I have a gut feeling that Ben, Bruce and Landry are gonna take a pounding this year.
This post is purely for entertainment purposes only, and does not express the opinions of the owners or moderators of the Pittsburgh Sports Forum. Also, this involves no real reporting. Or interviewing. Whatever. :beer: