I’ll admit it — I spend an inordinate amount of time on social media. Rather than google search the stories and essays of my favorite writers, I use Twitter and Facebook and basically just have them sent to me.
It’s marvelous.
But it’s also maddening. Angry blowhards find their way into my feed with perplexing regularity, ramrodding their negativity into what is supposed to be a pleasant diversion from day-to-day drudgery. All coaches are stupid, all ballplayers are incompetent or uncaring. Makes me wonder why these miserable minions watch sports at all.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Well, that’s part of the deal, boss,” then you may be part of the problem.
And you probably don’t like Mike Tomlin.
Fire Tomlin?
There is an unhealthy mass of Steeler fans who would delight in seeing Tomlin fired, according to my unscientific findings. It’s a pretty boisterous bunch, and I often think these “fans” would rather see the Steelers lose so they can move on from Tomlin. Of course, that’s not going to happen. The Rooney family has built this organization on stability, and they know Tomlin’s value as an NFL head coach.
This year has been especially telling. The Steelers lost their offensive edge right off the bat, with RB Le’Veon Bell and WR Antonio Brown skipping town, then Ben Roethlisberger felled by injury in the second game of the year. All were among the very best in the league at their positions. The Steelers started this season 0-3 but have scratched back to a 5-5 record and carry legitimate playoff hopes heading into today’s clash in Cincinnati.
Pittsburgh also has lost to injury this year star DL Stephon Tuitt, and will be without James Conner, JuJu Schuster-Smith and Maurkice Pouncey today. It’s basically a JV team — at least offensively — going against the Bengals, who have serious troubles of their own at 0-10.
I’m Not a Steelers Fan But…
But consider the Steelers are six-point favorites in this game with their “skill players” named James Washington, Tevin Jones, Diontae Johnson, Deon Cain, Johnny Holton, Benny Snell, Jaylen Samuels and Kerrith Whyte, and their QB is Mason Rudolph, who thus far has proved nothing more than he can take a hit. (Although that’s a nice trait, considering the sad performance of the offensive line thus far.)
Look — I’m not a Steelers fan, and I’m not really a Mike Tomlin fan. I prefer the college game to the NFL eight days a week. But I’m a realist, and I know one thing for sure: If the Steelers ever cut loose Mike Tomlin, he’d be out of work for about as long as he’d like. Another team would be proud to hire this guy.
Think the Browns wouldn’t be at the front of the line? The Bengals?
The Complaints
Believe me, I’ve heard the complaints. Tomlin is not perfect, but the chucklehead checklist is pretty manageable:
- He gets schooled by Bill Belichick. A no-doubter, but hardly surprising. Belichick is among the best NFL head coaches of all time. Maybe the best.
- He gets the accusatory “players’ coach” label, and will let the inmates run the asylum. James Harrison and Antonio Brown are Exhibits A and B on this one. A: Harrison was a journeyman who got his first crack at starting under Tomlin, who was rewarded with a Super Bowl win in 2008 thanks largely to Harrison’s historic, 100-yard pick-six. Harrison would later sleep through team meetings and verbally betray Tomlin after leaving town. The man has no honor and no credibility to me. B: I’m going to flip this one over because Brown, to me, is a tantalizing testament to Tomlin’s skill. He coaxed nine wildly successful seasons out of this sixth-round pick before AB finally went off the rails. Was Tomlin an “enabler” of this crackpot, as his critics will say? Consider that neither Belichick nor Jon Gruden were subsequently able to get Brown under control or productive at all.
- He loses referee challenges with almost laughable regularity. Yup. Agreed. But I think this is an organizational issue. Tomlin’s record on challenges was actually pretty good until they stopped using a coach in the press box to help. This year they added one back in the sky (Teryl Austin, a coach for the defensive secondary) and it has made a difference. It’s hard to believe the Rooneys let that one go as long as they did.
- Clock management. Admittedly, still a work in progress.
Tomlin’s Strengths
The Steelers will throw up a stinker every year against a lousy team, but Pittsburgh is hardly alone in that regard. The NFL is a tough league. Even the worst teams are made up of guys who were stars at the collegiate level. The Bengals, for example, have Joe Mixon at RB and Tyler Boyd at WR, and those guys are better than anybody the Steelers will send out there at those positions today.
Tomlin’s strength lies in his ability to mold his players into a team, and isn’t that the job description? He avoids the draconian decrees of ancient task-masters like Lombardi and Halas — which wouldn’t work in today’s world anyway — and he treats his players like men. The occasional burn job of James Harrison and AB will be mitigated by the unyielding loyalty of team leaders like Cam Hayward and Maurkice Pouncey.
The Rooney’s Know It
The Rooneys know it. Tomlin, who got his start in coaching at VMI under New Martinsville’s Bill Stewart, was just 34 when they hired him. Tomlin went into the interview process as a long shot behind a couple of internal candidates, according to Art Rooney II. A defensive coordinator for the Vikings for one year, Tomlin went in and blew them away.
“If you sit in a room with Mike, you’re going to be impressed,” Rooney said in an interview with ESPN The Magazine. “He had something we were looking for. You want a person who’s going to be able to get and keep the attention of 50 20-something (players) for most of the year, day-in and day-out. Presence is a big deal.”
Hired in 2007, Tomlin has yet to post a losing season and has had the Steelers in the playoffs eight of his 12 years, splitting two Super Bowls. The team hasn’t reached the Big Stage since 2010, and that’s surely a big part of the unrest with the fandom.
But I think 2019 has been one of his finest. To keep this squad competitive with its rag-tag talent on offense is pretty remarkable.
Look, if I’ve learned one thing from social media it’s this: I’m not going to change anybody’s mind today. If you don’t like Mike Tomlin, you’re probably never going to think he’s a functional head football coach. But you’re wrong.
And that’s OK. My experience with Twitter trolls shows — scientifically, of course — that they’d rather be proved right than be happy with their team.
To quote a fine football coach, “The standard is the standard. Obviously.”
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