Lessons from Pittsburgh

By STEVE KING

The dysfunction going on with the Pittsburgh Steelers is a lesson to all teams, especially their general managers, in the NFL.

And that definitely includes the Browns, where dysfunction has reigned for way too long, and their GM, John Dorsey, who was brought in 14½ months ago to put an end to that colossal mess.

For years – no, make that decades – the Steelers were the picture of stability. There was never any drama – not even a hint of it, really. Any time something started to get a little off-kilter, they rushed in immediately to fix it. A lot of times, no one outside of the Steelers offices were aware that there even was an issue, let alone that it had already been quashed.

But, for whatever reason, someone – or, more probably, a lot of people – fell asleep at the wheel in Pittsburgh as problems began popping up like dandelions in the spring. Every way the Steelers turned, the view was ugly.

So the moral of this story is, quite simply, that a GM and his top people – along with, of course, the owner(s) – can’t take their eyes off things for a minute – even a second. For if you do, problems can arise and quickly began eating away at the core of your team like a cancer.

Dorsey needs to take special note of all that, for he has a close-up look at what he inherited when he arrived in Cleveland, and the extraordinary damage that long-lasting dysfunction had done, and also what it is doing just a couple hours away with the Steelers, knocking them for a loop and putting into serious jeopardy the stranglehold they’ve had on the AFC North/Central for nearly 20 years.

There are more lessons from Pittsburgh to be learned going forward as well. If the Steelers fix their mess, then how did they do it? And if they don’t fix it, then what did they do wrong?

He’ll never, ever say it, but rest assured that John Dorsey will be watching – closely.