LATROBE, Pa. -- The two most roundly criticized men in Pittsburgh are probably Bob Nutting and Keith Butler.
Nutting, the owner of the Pirates, obviously doesn't care much about that. He's made that obvious by his spending habits with the team.
Butler? Well, the Steelers defensive coordinator/outside linebackers coach doesn't care all that much about the outside noise, either.
He's more concerned about doing his job and the things necessary to win a Super Bowl in Pittsburgh.
"I’m 63 years old. If they fire me, so what? I’ll go play golf," Butler told me Thursday as the Steelers continued their training camp at Saint Vincent College.
"Do I want to keep my dadgum job? Sure I do. But it’s not like it’s going to kill me. It’s not a life or death situation. I enjoy what I do. I want to keep doing it. But if I don’t, it’s not a big deal. The noise is always going to be there. Shoot, my wife criticizes me. ‘Why are we close to them?’ What the heck, everybody is a coach."
That's especially true when it comes to Butler's critics. He's been with the Steelers since 2003, first as the linebackers coach, then, since 2015, as defensive coordinator.
He's seen the Steelers defense be dominant and help the team win two Super Bowls and go to a third. And he wants to get the team back to that level.
But the ever-changing NFL has made that more difficult than it used to be.
When the Steelers were a dominant defense, their main goal was to stop the run on first and second down and force opponents into third-and-long situations. Getting opponents into third-and-long remains the goal, but with teams passing more and running less, having a stout run defense doesn't necessarily add up to having a shutdown defense.
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