Overall, I don't think Tomlin is that terrible. But I've said many times that his clock management is likely close to the worst in the league. He once again demonstrated it this afternoon as he allowed the Raiders to bleed the clock at the end. It is an afterthought since they pulled off the hook and ladder and had the missed FG opportunity. The Raiders hit the big play to the 8 yard line with 1:50 and a timeout left. Immediately, Tomlin should have realized that time is no longer a factor for the Raiders, only for the Steelers. They burn the clock and run the ball as the clock hits 1:15. Clock still running on 2nd down they throw incomplete on 2nd and 3rd leaving only 25 seconds left and the Steelers still with 2 timeouts. He then takes a dead ball timeout on defense to set the correct defense on 4th and 5 and they blow the coverage anyway. (That's another story).
Now they are left with only 21 seconds to get into FG range, and only 1 timeout since they wasted the 2nd one on the 4th down with the clock stopped. 21 seconds should not have been enough time, but they executed a great trick play so his inept clock management will be overlooked.
If he calls the first to with 1:50 and after the first down run, we have 1:30 or so to drive the field for a winning TD, not the missed FG. Even if he waits until after 2nd down and then they also ran instead of passed on 3rd, he could have used both timeouts and we still have around 1:10 with no timeouts left to drive the field, which is still significantly better than 21 seconds and 1 timeout.
Even in his postgame presser, he seems not to get it? He was asked about the situation and he stated he likes to save a timeout for the offense. What? You'd rather have a timeout than an extra 35 seconds on offense?
On offense, you control the clock, you can spike, get out of bounds, hurry to the line and run a play all of which take much less time than 35 seconds.
I don't know why I'm surprised, this is an ongoing issue.