PHOTO BY KARL ROSER | PITTSBURGH STEELERS

Mike Tomlin has embarked upon the search to identify his next offensive coordinator insisting he has both a “vision” of what he believes the Steelers’ offense should look like moving forward and a keen interest regarding what candidates for the position envision the Steelers’ offense becoming.

“Certainly open to learning through this process,” Tomlin has maintained.

Here’s hoping somebody sees the following eventually:

The value of running the football. This shouldn’t require a hard sell to Tomlin. Still, it ought to be a prerequisite for employment, despite the obvious need to first and foremost sort out the quarterback position.

Of the four teams left standing in advance of the conference championship games, three of them ranked in the Top 5 in rushing in the regular season (Baltimore No. 1, San Francisco No. 3, Detroit No. 5). Running the ball hasn’t gone out of style. Running the ball never will.

Scared money don’t make money. This was a mantra Tomlin and the Steelers adopted when they got desperate after a three-game losing streak dropped them to 7-7 with three regular-season games remaining.

“There was no tomorrow,” Tomlin acknowledged. “And so, we were aggressive in nature and in about every component of what it is that we did over that stretch.”

But when asked if the team had been too conservative before that juncture, if there had been too much of an emphasis on not turning the ball over at the expense of getting it into the end zone, he hedged, insisting he and the Steelers were “just at the very infancy of reviewing” such things.

Upon further review, it shouldn’t take long to conclude they stopped themselves as much as defenses stopped them until they got desperate.

That’s been an issue for the better part of the last two seasons.

Anyone who doesn’t see that isn’t the right man for the job.

Don’t over-think it. In the playoffs at Buffalo the Steelers tried to get the ball into the end zone on a pass to wide receiver Diontae Johnson against 1-on-1 coverage and a cornerback they were correct to attack in a play that required precise timing and execution. The play lacked the latter two components and the ball got intercepted.

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In the preseason against Buffalo, they tried two passes to the end zone to tight end Darnell Washington, all 6-foot-7, 265 pounds of him, in a span of four snaps and both resulted in pass interference penalties against the defense. One was against linebacker A.J. Klein, who played against the Steelers in the playoffs. The other was against cornerback Kaiir Elam, who intercepted the pass intended for Johnson in the playoffs. Both resulted in a first-and-goal at the Buffalo 1-yard line.

Washington ended up catching seven passes on 10 targets in 17 regular-season games. None of them went for touchdowns.

The red zone offense ended up 27th in the NFL, with touchdowns produced on 47.6 percent of the possessions that reached the red zone.

You don’t have to squint to envision Washington and his three-stories-tall catch radius as a potential red zone solution.

Washington was at least counted upon as a blocker. And as the season progressed the Steelers began to dabble more with three-tight ends sets, especially after offensive coordinator Matt Canada was relieved of his duties. The theory was it was a formation from which they could run or throw effectively, and thus keep the defense guessing, and it played out that way.

More three-tight ends formations (much more than the 4.2 percent of the time the Steelers ultimately deployed their tight ends in such a fashion) and less reliance on three wide receivers at a time is a direction in which the Steelers absolutely, positively should head.

And last but not least, in addition to noticing Washington is really tall, the new coordinator, hopefully, will grasp that wide receiver Calvin Austin III is really fast. Austin was targeted 30 times and made 17 catches in the regular season, one a take-the-top-off-the-defense, 72-yard, catch-and-run touchdown against the Raiders.

You’re allowed to do that more than once a season.

You’re allowed to do that more than once a game.

It’s not hard to envision the difference doing so could make.