So I just did a quick tour of random sites that ranked NFL coaches all time. The Steelers were the only team to consistently get three guys somewhere in the top 20-30 coaches of ALL TIME.
But let's keep talking about how it is time to fire guys.
I find it funny and surprising how this board consistently under-rates players and coaches compared to the wider NFL internet.
Fair enough. Believe me, I'd have been perfectly happy to say bye-bye to Tomlin after the latest loss to the Raiders, which, quite frankly, was inexcusable. I'm still ambivalent as far as whether he stays or goes at this point. And he should have shitcanned Butler, IMO, and Danny Smith to boot.Originally Posted by Edman
I'm just tired of the revisionist history when it comes to Cowher, that's all. I liked Cowher. He was a good coach. And that's it. He wasn't some wunderkind football coach like he's often made out to be now that a decade+ has gone by and absence has made the heart grow fonder for a lot of fans.
If you read the first post I made about Cowher, I admitted he had his flaws. He's was no unstoppable force at head coach and he had his issues. The point I was trying to make is that he overachieved for many years. Tomlin has horrendously underachieved. We've all saw how good Cowher was (or could've been) with a good quarterback like Ben. Meanwhile Tomlin, with the same quarterback can only match the same success Cowher achieved with the bupkus he had under center. He's won playoff games (dominantly) with Kordell Stewart. Neil O' Donnell, and even Mike freaking Tomczak. Tomlin can't hang with Tim Tebow, Blake Bortles, Joe Flacco, and David Garrard with Ben under center.
You honestly can't blame some folks for being frustrated with that.
You know what is funny about some of this? McCarthy is held up as an example of team firing a guy because of underperformance. But the reports out of Green Bay indicate it isn't really that at all. It is because he basically stopped coaching. Reportedly ran out of plays in the second half of games. And fostered a team environment where most of the roster didn't talk to the other. Basically most of the things that people here think is happening in Pittsburgh actually happened in Green Bay.
Even Funnier? As recently as 12-18 months ago, many hoped that Tomlin would get fired and McCarthy would come here.
I also happen to think if Cowher had stuck around longer, the Steelers would have either lost Roethlisberger after he requested/forced a trade out of town, or he would have been largely relegated to being a game manager in deference to a power running game for a sizable chunk of his career. In other words, a Dan Reeves/John Elway type of relationship.
http://static.espn.go.com/nfl/playof.../01056576.htmlIn the '70s, Reeves had been regarded as the creative mind behind the Cowboys' sleek offense. But by the '90s, to Elway he seemed rigid, unimaginative and staid.
Only once during the Reeves regime had Elway thrown as many as 20 touchdown passes in a season. Average quarterbacks routinely did that. He hadn't surpassed 4,000 yards nor averaged more than two 300-yard games a season. A Hall of Fame official told a Broncos official it would be "a shame for posterity's sake if John Elway never had the chance to play for a team that emphasized passing."
Undervaluing the QB position and treating it as an afterthought is OK when you have schlubs like Tomczak and Stewart under center, but not when you have a bona fide franchise QB on the roster. Hell, Roethlisberger was already starting to show signs of chafing under Cowher/Whisenhunt even before Cowher left. At the time, a lot of people chalked it up as immaturity on Roethlisberger's part, and while I also thought that was part of it, I still believed there was more to it than that. Still do.
Example: setting Roethlisberger loose against the Bengals, Colts and Broncos in the 2005 postseason and then doing a complete 180 and going ultra-conservative against Seattle in the SB.
Managing QBs = Cowher's Achilles' heel.
A WR pass in the Super Bowl is ultra-"conservative"?
I don't agree with that.
After Ben's performances in XLIII and XLV, which were games where he wasn't so-called "limited", he wasn't that much better than his performance in XL. One great throw to Santonio Holmes was one of the few bright spots in Ben's Super Bowl resume. Thankfully it won the game.
Aside from that lone bright spot, Ben hasn't been particularly great in Super Bowls. So maybe Cowher and Whisenhunt was on to something, as much as Ben will refuse to admit it himself. Ben for all of his talent, has an ego and really is immature, as evident right after XL, he plants his head through a windshield (after people warned him), then proceeds to bring not one, but TWO unwanted distractions to the Steelers in two seperate offseasons. It's the little things that seperate the good from the truly great. I think Cowher/Whis saw Ben's flaws, and Ben didn't want to hear it. He was already a legend in his own mind.
There's a reason why Ben has only managed to skirt the second tier of quarterbacks throughout his entire career. But I digress. Ben for all of his foepaws is still a good player, but I think Tomlin's sub-average coaching hasn't helped and has only made him regress and stagnate in certain areas instead of reaching his full potential, as with the whole Steelers team.
One trick play in the latter stages of a 60-minute game does not erase an overall ultra-conservative game plan. For the most part, SB XL was a Martyball clinic from Cowher. I'm sure Cowher's mentor Schottenheimer was beaming with pride.
One great throw to Holmes? Sure, never mind the even better throw the play before that went sailing through Holmes' hands or even the clutch throws he made over the rest of that drive. Nor the fact that it was all done behind arguably the WORST championship-winning OL in the history of the game, which also just so happened to put the offense in a first-and-20 hole and within the shadow of its own end zone to begin said drive with yet another boneheaded holding penalty.
Oh, and if Roethlisberger has only been "skirting the 2nd tier" of QBs his entire career, then how exactly has Tomlin "underachieved?" Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Before Munchak came along, Roethlisberger had been routinely throwing darts with defenders in his face constantly behind OLs that would have gotten guys like P. Manning and Brady killed:
https://www.si.com/nfl/2015/06/10/nf...-aaron-rodgersWe saved the best for last. Big Ben has been making big plays with defenders hanging all over him for years, so it's no surprise that he'd be one of the better throwers under pressure. But over the last couple seasons, it's his accuracy, efficiency and ability to read defenses on the run that have set him apart. In 2014, Roethlisberger was pressured 177 times, completing 89 of 140 passes (a league-leading 63.6% completion rate under pressure) for 11 touchdowns and not one single interception.
This play against the Chiefs in Week 16 was perhaps the best example of why Roethlisberger is so frustrating for defenses. He beats the line pressure with some nimble footwork after the protection breaks down, dances his way through the trash, and fires a bullet to Antonio Brown for the touchdown. Bonus points to Brown for navigating the coverage and getting free over time -- this is one of the primary skills any top receiver for a mobile quarterback must master. But it was Roethlisberger who perfectly read Kansas City's pressure-to-coverage concepts and created the opportunity when many quarterbacks would collapse under the pressure.
Put simply, that's what the great ones do.
Tomlin a top 20-30 coach of all time? That's a bad joke. No, really, though. You'd have to be a huge fanboy to even say definitively top 50. You could make an argument for that maybe, although I personally wouldn't buy it.
See you Space Cowboy ...
I did not know any of this until you mentioned it and I did a little research. In that research even Cowher admits he didn't value the QB position. That was a real eye opener to me. As for Dan he was simply the best and without a doubt he will be missed not only by Pittsburgh but the NFL as a whole.
At least Cowher had the good sense to listen to him and changed his mind unlike Walt Kiesling who let Johnny Unitas walk many years earlier. Wow Johnny U and Dan Marino what could have been. Thank goodness lightning did not strike us a 3rd time. Dan really had an eye for QBs.
If Roethlisberger signed a contrat in the middle of the Todd Haley era with the steelers, then I do not think Ben would have asked for a trade if Bill Cowher would have stayed.
Also, Cowher had won a lot in the first 2 years with Ben, which is what matters .... I prefer wins over the passing yards.
I do not think Cowher wasted a great defense or running game ... I mean, the steelers were in the AFC title game 6 times under Cowher, it's not so like we've never been close or something like that .
In the case of Tomlin, one of the problems is that Tomlin is a defensive coach and our defenses has been very average for several years, even if the steelers have drafted a defensive player in the first round in each year since the 2013 season.
Yet our results were average at best ... Cowher was much better at developing a defense and overall a true identity to the team.
You can Google it and read through the lists. Point is that Tomlin is viewed one way by Steelers fans and a vastly different way by the rest of NFL followers.
Ok. So making the playoffs and advancing is not wasting things but falling short of the SB is?
Out in the first, second, or third round - you still aren't in the SB.
Can we all agree on what the measuring stick is and then start throwing words like underachieved around?
Some former players who played for Tomlin like Hines Ward and James Harrison criticized Tomlin in the last month for the lack of discipline or others thing like that.
Ward and Harrison were leaders and one of the faces in this team when they were with us .... I do not remember seeing players like Rod Woodson, Jerome Bettis or other players who were big leaders in this team said things like that on Cowher.
Hines Ward had Mike Tomlin during 5 years, Harrison around 10 seasons.
For Chuck Noll, yes he was maybe not liked, but he was very respected by his players.
- - - Updated - - -
I'm not in the super bowl or bust mentality
What I hate is to lose against weaker teams than the ours in the Playoffs, especially when the steelers are talented ..... I mean, it happens 4 times that the steelers lost in the playoff against teams of 10 -6 or worse under Tomlin.... How many times does it happen to Cowher? .... 0!
If you want other info here is the post with some interresting info.
Array title="Born2Steel has a reputation beyond repute">
If we all agreed that Cowher was a better coach than Tomlin, can we all agree that Tomlin is still a top coach in the NFL today? I don’t understand why it’s all or none. By these standards no coach matches Cowher. Doesn’t mean they all are/were terrible coaches. It’s not all one side or the other.
You mean the same "experts" who proclaim things like "the Steelers have a huge hole at wide receiver now that Hines Ward retired," or "now that LeVeon Bell's franchise tag holdout has reached the regular season, the Steelers just need to pay the man!" (????)
Yeah, I guess you're right that you can cone up with a completely different opinion of things when you're looking at them from arm's length reading headlines and fantasy football stats. Wouldn't call that more accurate than what I can see right in front of me. Ooh, it's on Google. Well holy christ, I guess everything that I know must be bullshit.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Tomlin had an argument for being one of the top coaches in this league in his first 4 seasons, but not right now ..... Tomlin is not even the best coach in the AFC north.
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
Tomlin has shortcomings as a coach but the gauzy recollections of Cowher are impacted by the passage of time leading to fans forgetting how Cowher also frustrated them when he was the HC.
Finally winning a Super Bowl addressed some of the frustration with the 1-4 record in home AFC championship games (in addition to the Chargers fiasco the Steelers were 10 point favorites in the first Pats loss that was due to special teams screwups that would be blamed on bad coaching if it happened to Tomlin). And the 2006 season where the season was effectively over after a 2-6 start was as bad as any season dialed up under Tomlin.
As for Cowher being the great disciplinarian ...
Remember what Jerome Bettis said after Plaxico Burress signed with the New York Giants in 2005? “I know [Burress] is not a stickler for the rules and [Giants coach Tom] Coughlin is all about rules … coach Cowher allowed us a lot of flexibility. He never fined us for anything. You came late, you never got fined. You never got reprimanded for anything.”
https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/...s/201608090015
Bottom line is given the failure rate for hiring HCs the Steelers hit the lottery three times with Noll, Cowher and Tomlin. Because there is no guarantee hire #4 will work out as well, the Steelers extending Cowher during rocky times presumably means Tomlin gets extended under the same standard given the likelihood of success if the Steelers decide it is time for a change.
Tomlin is not doing as well as the top coaches in the game today, so no, I don't think we can all agree on that.
If there's one thing he still has going in his favor, it's that he was hired by Dan Rooney, who usually managed to find decent people, and that his replacement would be hired by Art Rooney II, who frankly I have not got the same confidence in and could be all over the place. "Decent coach all things considered" is probably an appropriate title, but not "one of the top coaches in the game today" - and "one of the top coaches of all time" should be enough to make you spray Guinness out your nose all over your breakfast cereal.
See you Space Cowboy ...
The Steelers were 10 points favorite against the Pats in 2001, but it was the same team that limited the greatest show on turf to 17 points in the super bowl despite the Pats defense was on the field for more than 33 minutes.
If a team can shut down the greatest show on turf, very good chance they will do the same against Kordell Stewart.
It helps when you know the opponent's plays because you are cheating. I mean, that specific year was the one where the actual evidence was from and they handed out suspensions and took away draft picks. Was also the same year as the Tuck Rule game, so they shouldn't have even been in the AFCCG or the Super Bowl in the first place.
In hindsight, that was probably the year football died.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Bottom line: Tomlin has done less with more over a period of time than Cowher, Belichick or Harbaugh has.
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
Hindsight is flawless
When Cowher was coaching in the pre-flag football era you could still win a Super Bowl with a journeyman like Trent Dilfer or Brad Johnson at QB if you had an excellent defense. Cowher had excellent defenses during the pre-Ben era over an extended period of time and repeatedly came up short - pity he needed a HOF QB to get him over the top when Gruden and Brian Billick did not
Neither Cowher or Tomlin (pending Tomlin having a late career burst of success) are on the Mount Rushmore of coaches - both careers are very good but not great.
I am willing to concede in terms of success and ability their careers are similar - for whatever reasons some Cowher acolytes not so much
Please...Gruden and Brian Billick had a historic defense that Cowher never had....Cowher has often had a great defense, but not at the level of Bucs in 2002 or the Ravens in 2000.Hindsight is flawless
When Cowher was coaching in the pre-flag football era you could still win a Super Bowl with a journeyman like Trent Dilfer or Brad Johnson at QB if you had an excellent defense. Cowher had excellent defenses during the pre-Ben era over an extended period of time and repeatedly came up short - pity he needed a HOF QB to get him over the top when Gruden and Brian Billick did not
Neither Cowher or Tomlin (pending Tomlin having a late career burst of success) are on the Mount Rushmore of coaches - both careers are very good but not great.
I am willing to concede in terms of success and ability their careers are similar - for whatever reasons some Cowher acolytes not so much
Also, the QB position was very important even in the Cowher era .... From 1992 to 2006 (during Cowher's 15 years) 13 of the 15 QBs that won the SB are or will be in the HOF.
And for Cowher, if Tony Dungy is in the HOF, I think Cowher deserves more consideration than that.
Against the 28th Ranked Cardinals Defense that did virtually nothing the rest of the game against.One great throw to Holmes? Sure, never mind the even better throw the play before that went sailing through Holmes' hands or even the clutch throws he made over the rest of that drive. Nor the fact that it was all done behind arguably the WORST championship-winning OL in the history of the game, which also just so happened to put the offense in a first-and-20 hole and within the shadow of its own end zone to begin said drive with yet another boneheaded holding penalty.
Tomlin underachieved because he still has a superior quarterback than anything Cowher could boast for 15 years, and can't win playoff games with him.Oh, and if Roethlisberger has only been "skirting the 2nd tier" of QBs his entire career, then how exactly has Tomlin "underachieved?" Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Before Munchak came along, Roethlisberger had been routinely throwing darts with defenders in his face constantly behind OLs that would have gotten guys like P. Manning and Brady killed:
When I say Ben skirted "the second-tier" I don't mean in regards to his ability. I mean in regards to his peers of his generation. Ben has the ability to be great, instead we just get "good" with occasional bouts of "very good", and recently, Kordell Stewart-levels of inconsistency and Brett Favre turnover trainwrecks. That's where Tomlin's poor coaching comes in.
And yet, Ben has been nowhere near as successful with a Pro Bowl Offensive Line in front of him and a more than solid collection of weapons around him.Roethlisberger had been routinely throwing darts with defenders in his face constantly behind OLs that would have gotten guys like P. Manning and Brady killed
Here are Ben's statlines for the last four playoff games he's played in (2-2).
2016 Wildcard: 13-18 197 Yds, 2 TD, 2 INT.
2016 Divisional: 20-31 224 Yds, 0 TD, 1 INT.
2016 Championship: 31-47 314 Yds, 1 TD, 1 INT.
2017 Divisional: 37-58 469 Yds, 5 TD, 1 INT,
The last game is the great Tomlin deception. You look at the statistics and think Ben had a fantastic game. Except he had One crushing Fumble resulting in 6 and stuck playing catch-up all game due to handing 14 easy points to Jacksonville. Steeler games like this have become commonplace under Tomlin. Inflated statistics in losing efforts, even though the Steelers (Ben in this case) put themselves into a hole in the first place. Due to lack of preparation and focus and once again failing to have his team ready to play a crucial game.
Like Tomlin's coaching record, you look at and it looks impressive, but when you go into context, it becomes far less impressive. The emporer has no clothes. Tomlin is a godawful coach who has done nothing but waste the potential and talent of a good quarterback.
Last edited by Edman; 05-09-2019 at 11:44 AM.
And for Gruden and Billick who have won a super bowl without a good QB .... the problem is that after that, they have not been close .... Billick won only one more playoffs game in the next 7 years .... 0 for Gruden in his last 6 years with the Bucs and often their offense was a laughing stock in the NFL .... Remember when Jon Gruden decided to kick the field goal with no time remaining in the 4th quarter against the Steelers in 2006 when it was 20-0!
And both were a offensive coach!
Is Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin in the hot seat in Pittsburgh?
Even among casual football fans, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is known throughout league. In his early years, he developed a reputation as a young coach who was never phased by big moments and never let his emotions show.
In recent years, however, that persona of Tomlin has gradually been changing.
Tomlin took over for the great Bill Cowher as the Steelers head coach in 2007. During his tenure in Pittsburgh, Coach Tomlin has 8 seasons of 10 or more wins and zero seasons with a losing record.
So how is Mike Tomlin in the hot seat?
The Rooney family and Steelers Nation alike pride themselves of being one of the nation’s best football franchises. Winning is part of the culture in Pittsburgh, and the Steelers have done it as much as any team in the league.
Lately, however, things haven’t been going according to plan.
read more
https://stillcurtain.com/2019/05/09/...-the-hot-seat/
Ok. Who is the better coach Mike Tomlin or:
Sean Payton
John Harbaugh
Mike Holmgren
Don Shula
Pete Carroll
Jon Gruden
The # of championships and playoff winning percentages is roughly comparable among that entire list. While I am not saying everyone on that list is a comparable coach...that is why we have to figure out what the basis for comparison is or is not. By the standard that is being thrown around on here, Shula should've been fired at least twice in his Dolphins tenure.
Paul Brown has a .333 winning percentage in the post merger playoffs. Guess that dude should've been fired.
This is why Mike Tomlin shouldn't be considered a good coach in any aspect. Or even Top 15-20 of his generation. Ben looks like a absolute God with a cobble of second-tier wideouts behind Hines Ward.
Now, we can't beat far shittier Quarterbacks in the playoffs at home, or shitty Raider teams, with Ben and far more talented players. This is the "revisionist" Cowher history people miss.
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