Tomlin turned in his best coaching job of all time just two years ago, and managed to get a deeply flawed team to go 11-0 and into the playoffs. There is no viable candidate available that is likely to exceed the performance we expect out of him in these next few years. Since the Steelers value consistency......on what world is it smart NOT to extend him?
I think the "Tomlin has underachieved" sentiment comes not only from having Ben, but from having an overall stellar offense for half a decade yet essentially doing nothing with it. People expected more from the "Killer B" era, even with its accompanying mediocre (by Steelers standards) defense. Too many late season collapses, too many inexplicable losses to outright terrible teams (e.g. the Mike Glennon Bucs and the Mike Glennon Bears), too many playoff flame-outs. Some of it was terrible luck with injuries at inopportune times (how can a team be so unlucky as to lose its starting running back the game before the playoffs three playoffs in a row?!), some of it was been poor defensive drafting mid-decade, but some of it was on coaching. I'm a Tomlin homer, but even I thought that the 2018 collapse should have been the end of the line for him. I think that he has grown complacent, and I am not expecting much from the next few years. Tomlin has developed into a slightly better version of Jeff Fisher / Marvin Lewis- good coaches that hang around forever because they're good, but they no longer have the tools necessary to make the step to great.
Last edited by W&M_Steeler; 04-21-2021 at 08:26 AM.
Again...Tomlin only falls short of a standard that essentially no one meets. That leads to two possible conclusion: Tomlin is an underachiever OR that the standard is not a viable metric.
Is Sean Payton an underachieving coach? Pete Carroll? Kyle Shannahan? Tony Dungy? Andy Reid? Either of the Harbaughs? Because if we apply the same standard of evaluation that is being used to advance the Tomlin=underachiever, then all those guys fall short as well.
I don't understand the argument you're trying to make. Are you saying that you don't believe there is such a thing as an "underachieving" coach, or are you saying that Tomlin accomplished as much in the 2014-18 seasons as any good coach could have reasonably been expected to accomplish and that it would have taken an all-time great coach to do more with those teams?
I also think that you're making a strawman argument to some extent. I don't think Tomlin's failure to win multiple Super Bowls from 2014-18 (or even a single Super Bowl in that span) makes him an underachiever, because there's a significant luck factor involved in winning it all. But I do understand how someone can look at the teams the Steelers had from 2014-18 and think that they should have accomplished more than what they did. Do you disagree with that second proposition? Do you think that the 2014-18 Steelers did as well as they could have possibly done without an all-time great head coach?
My argument isn't so much that any of the guys you listed would have definitely done better with the Steelers teams Tomlin had than Tomlin did during this span (particularly 2014-18)- I think that some of them would have, but it's too much of a counterfactual to be able to pin down for certain. But when compared with Cowher's 6 AFCC appearances in 12 seasons (1994-2005), Tomlin's 1 appearance in 9 seasons (2011-2020), or even 3 in 13 years, doesn't look very remarkable. I guess you can argue that Cowher had better talent to work with, but that's a tough argument to make IMO. Is it unfair to compare Tomlin to Cowher? I don't think it's unreasonable to be disappointed with the Steelers' results from 2014-18 and pin some of the blame for the disappointment on Cowher.
I think all coaches (except perhaps Belichick) eventually grow stale. Even Cowher lost the desire after winning his Super Bowl- then the Steelers brought in an unheralded, hungry young coach with new ideas who brought a spark to the team, resulting in two Super Bowls in 5 years with one victory. I don't think the Steelers win another Super Bowl until something like that happens. Tomlin looks firmly on the Fisher / Lewis path at this point, and I have no expectation that he'll ever win another Super Bowl. I'd be thrilled to be wrong.
Last edited by W&M_Steeler; 04-21-2021 at 09:41 AM. Reason: Clarity
Tomlin falls short of Noll but has had every bit the career that Cowher had. So if Noll is the standard, then Tomlin has failed. But so have 99.7% of all coaches ever. By the way, how many Super Bowl wins do the hot, sexy coaches like Shanahan and McVay have combined??
How many of you had ever heard of Tomlin before he was hired? Are you seriously saying there's no one in the world better than Tomlin than Belichick? I know that I am an infrequent poster here and wandering into long standing arguments that various factions here have been waging against each other for years, but that seems like a real stretch of an argument to me.
I don't know how to make it more clear.
The argument against Tomlin seems to be that he has not appeared in and/or won enough SB with a talented roster and a HOF QB.
So...take a look around the league in the last 20 years. Plenty of coaches with long tenures with franchises with talented rosters and high-end QBs. Here is the history of the league: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...wl_appearances
If we assume something like 3-4 appearances and some amount of wins would have been acceptable under the "core" of the Ben-Tomlin-Colbert era...well that is a feat that ONLY Belichick has done in the recent era with the same team. And all prior 3+ SB appearances with the same team were largely done pre-salary cap.
So if we want to say that the anything less than 3+ SB appearances is an "underachievement" or a "failure" by Tomlin helmed teams...well then we are creating a standard (3+ SB appearances with the same franchise all in the salary cap era) that only ONE other head coach has met in the history of the NFL. To me, that makes me think that the expectations might need dialed back a bit.
If you look at other successful coaches around the NFL (define it however you want) - you will find basically the same struggles as are blamed on Tomlin. Winning in the NFL playoffs might be one of the hardest things to do in all of professional sports. Very few are fortunate enough to do it all that often.
Plus, I have long rejected the "blame coaches" narrative as a total solution to whatever problems a team might have. It appears to absolve the players of all/most of the blame and turns them into video game characters moved about by coaches. Everyone LOVES to freak out about that Jags playoff game. It wasn't coaches that were lobbing INTS into the teeth of the Jags defense. That was said HOF QB who Tomlin has "wasted"...
Thank you for clarifying. It seems you disagree with my second proposition and think that Tomlin had as much success with this team as could have been reasonably expected and that it would have taken an all time great to do much better. I think your analysis is interesting and informative, but I still think it's addressing a strawman to some extent. Does Tomlin still look as good relative to peers when we compare number of conference championship game appearances instead of Super Bowl appearances? How about when we compare Divisional Round appearances? Is 5 divisional round appearances in 14 years as good as could have reasonably been expected from this group under anyone other than a Belichick or a Noll? The Steelers' fan base used to complain about Cowher routinely coming up short in the AFCC game, but at least he managed to lead his team there 6 times. The Tomlin years have not been as successful in comparison, which is why I disagree with a prior poster who has asserted that Tomlin has been every bit as good as Cowher. And as much as I like Cowher, I wouldn't put him in the same class as Belichick or Noll.
And of course the players bear significant responsibility. Ben has had some shaky playoff performances, and the D has routinely come up small. But it wasn't Ben's fault that the Steelers cut LeGarette Blount in 2014 and didn't bother to sign / prepare a back-up in case Bell got injured. It wasn't Ben's fault that the Steelers trotted out the same tired, doomed to fail defensive scheme against the Pats in the 2016 AFCC game, allowing Brady to eat them alive. It wasn't Ben's fault that the Steelers didn't / couldn't adjust their defensive scheme in 2017 to mitigate the loss of Shazier. Ben doesn't bear sole, or even primary, responsibility for the Steelers' inexplicable collapse mid-2018. Coaching played a role in all of those issues, didn't it? If not, then what does a coach even do? I don't think Tomlin is a bad coach by any stretch. But I also am not convinced that no one but Belichick could have done better than him with the Steelers teams of the past decade.
Last edited by W&M_Steeler; 04-21-2021 at 11:23 AM. Reason: Typo correction
Personally, I don't care what round of the playoffs you exit in. For me the measuring stick is SB or bust. Wildcard, Divisional, Conference -- not sure it really makes much of a difference. Especially when many (not all) of the playoff outs were to teams that went on to the SB.
It isn't really a strawman when people are specifically arguing that Tomlin has fallen short of expectations. My argument is that the expectations are flawed. If we look at the post salary cap NFL and especially the last 10-15 years of the NFL. There are no more 3-4 championship teams. Or even runs like the Levy-Kelly Bills. That is over. But fans still have that expectation. One franchise has met that expectation in this version of the NFL. Maybe the Reid-Mahomes Chiefs will.
For a case study -- look at the Carrol-Wilson Seahawks. They had an advantage that the Steelers never had under Tomlin...Wilson under a rookie contract. And it still has only resulted to 2 appearances in the SB.
If, as fans, we are setting a bar that no one is clearing or someone is only clearing once in a decade...I think that bar is set a bit too high.
I say you're making an strawman argument because you're setting a very high standard, then saying it's unreasonable to expect Tomlin to meet that standard so criticisms of his performance are unwarranted.
I am saying that not only does Tomlin not meet your standard, he hasn't met lower standards, and Tomlin's failure to meet the lower standards is why people argue Tomlin has underachieved. There's an objective difference between teams that make deep playoff runs and teams that flame out in the wildcard round. I would have had a much different feeling about last year had the Steelers lost in the AFCC game to the Chiefs than I did with them losing in the Wildcard round against the Browns. One outcome would have been more successful than another. If you can't make it past the Wild Card round, you're not going to make it to the Super Bowl. So, all things being equal, a coach who infrequently leads his team past the Wild Card round is objectively less successful than one who makes it past the Wild Card more often, just as a coach who routinely loses in the Wild Card round is still usually considered a better coach than one whose teams routinely miss the playoffs altogether.
Cowher made the Divisional Round 9 times in 15 years. Tomlin 5 times in 14 years. That's a pretty big difference and suggests an overall downgrade in relative competitiveness of the Steelers compared to the rest of the conference. Does Tomlin bear any responsibility for that?
- - - Updated - - -
The Steelers only faced the Pats in the playoffs once during Tomlin's tenure- the 2016 AFCC game.
I am not the one setting the standard. Read the hundreds of posts on this message board and people are talking about Super Bowls. So I addressed how that is an unreasonable standard that needs re-calibrated.
If you want to devise and implement the standard of "deep playoff" run - well what does that mean? If you want to measure coaches by "playoff success" again, what does that mean?
Many Steelers "early" playoff exits were to teams that only narrowly lost to the conference champion. Does that matter? I don't know...but we should determine if it is a variable to consider.
Again...the best measuring stick for NFL evaluation is usually peer performance. So here are the NFL coaches playoff records: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...playoff_record
What would Tomlin need to do to not have "underachieved"? He is already on par with all other comparable active coaches - save one. The one everyone claims cheated his way to victory anyways. You already acknowledged that injuries severely negatively impacted multiple playoff runs during Tomlin's tenure. Say that we could magically uninjure Leveon Bell for a few of those games. And they win one more and add another AFCG appearance to the resume -- does that make the "under" in front of achievement go away? Or is it 3 more playoff victories? Anything short of an AFCCG appearance?
Everyone seems to have a different vague standard that is never defined and is never calibrated by actual real-world NFL outcomes. And if that is the standard a fan wants to have - great! I want to win the SB every season as a fan. But if I was running a team -- not sure that I would evaluate my staff on essentially unrealistic parameters.
I've made posts here and there over the years with "complaints" about Tomlin and indicated at times that I think perhaps the Steelers should go in a different direction.
However, when I remove myself away from whatever disappointing loss or performance the team had that makes me think they should maybe move on from Tomlin, I eventually realize that he has and continues to be an excellent leader and coach overall. Players love to play for him as best I can tell as just a fan. I have never read reports or seen him lose a team or have players turn on each other, even when things are going bad. I have also heard defensive players talk about Tomlin initiating halftime adjustments on defense that turn things around dramatically in the 2nd half of games.
As a lifelong Steelers fan I am spoiled as this team has been one of the most successful franchises in the Super Bowl era. I go into every season with the expectation that the Steelers will bring home another Lombardi, even though I know it is completely unrealistic to expect that to happen every year. Most seasons end in disappointment.
I don't have a problem with this extension. If Tomlin is able to helm this team to another SB Title during his tenure, I think he will be then revered as a legend. Andy Reid was viewed as a coach who chokes in the playoffs and can't win a SB for a very long time...........now that he has won a SB title with the Chiefs everyone seems forget that he had this stigma around him that he was a coach who always came up short and could not get a team over the hump.
I just did a quick and dirty comparison of some other coaches using the simple metric of how many times have they lead their team past the Wild Card round, and Tomlin doesn't stack up as well.
Dungy: 7 times in 13 seasons
Carroll with Seahawks: 7 times in 11 seasons
Mike McCarthy with Pack: 7 times in 13 seasons
John Harbaugh: 8 times in 13 seasons
Sean Payton: 7 times in 15 seasons
Andy Reid: 12 times in 22 seasons
And of course Belichick's insane 15 times in 21 seasons
Tomlin's 5 out of 14 doesn't look so impressive in comparison.
Interesting (at least to me), but what does that mean? I think it highlights Tomlin teams' habit of not taking terrible teams seriously and then losing to them, winding up hurting the Steelers in seeding and resulting in more Wild Card games. The fewer times you get a bye, the more often you risk playing in and losing in the Wild Card round- or, as in 2015, suffering crucial injuries in the wild card round that lead to a loss in the Divisional.
Does this mean Tomlin has underachieved? It helps that argument, IMO. The Steelers haven't been bereft of talent this past decade+, yet have had trouble finishing as the fourth best team in the conference. Is it unreasonable to expect that Tomlin should have reached the Divisional Round 7 or 8 times during his tenure instead of 5? I know the Steelers have suffered inopportune injuries, but so have all the other teams at some point.
Ok. So you need to have Tomlin win 2 more playoff games in 14 years and that would remove the "underachievement label. Fair enough.
Personally, I don't really see the difference between losing in the Wild Card or the divisional round. I guess I can see going to a conference championship game as somehow a more "successful" season.
And really we are talking about the following games:
2020 Browns WC loss - I have already stated my opinion that the 2020 team was doomed by the inability of the QB to do basic QB things. Your individual mileage may vary.
2017 Jags Divisional loss - it has been discussed ad infinitum. But that team never recovered from losing Shazier and there was little any coach could do to cover that up.
2015 Broncos Divisional loss - does it change things if you lose out to the eventual SB champion? Everyone else did...
2014 Ravens WC loss - isn't this the one that they had to start random guys off the street at RB?
2011 Broncos WC loss - Ike Taylor and Troy Polamalu got roasted by Tim Tebow. This one stings and signaled the end of that group of defenders.
So we have the 2011 loss that few fans have ever gotten over and either you blame Tomlin or you blame the guys that won SBs for you not being able to get it done. Pick your poison. And the rest of those...I am having a hard time seeing what the massive coaching screw up was. Because in 2020, 2017, and 2014 - many people EXPECTED the Steelers to lose those games due to massive injuries or shockingly poor play leading into the game. Again, individual mileage may vary.
Finally, it needs to be accounted for in some manner that when comparing the Tomlin era Steelers to other top teams in either conference, they are one of the few that consistently played in if not the most, one of the top 3 most competitive divisions in the entire league. Few other teams that have gone on 10+ year "runs" like the Tomlin helmed Steelers have had to contend with a divisional opponent as consistently good as the Ravens and throw in the Bengals as well. The bruising and typically competitive 2-5 games a year within the AFC North may go a LONG way to explaining "letdowns" against other teams.
That's a straight up "deliver or you suck" metric that ignores virtually everything that goes into making a good football franchise that makes runs into the playoffs. A great coach at Washington is still at Washington. It also throws out a LOT of important data to making a decision about whether or not Tomlin has been a good coach.
A great example is 2019. With Ben out, there was basically no way for Tomlin to meet the metric of "playoff wins", or even "playoff anything". This was confirmed by Mason Rudolph's generally poor performance and eventual benching. And yet a lot of people thought that Tomlin was a strong candidate for coach of the year. He did more, working with less than we have ever had an opportunity to see him with before. So how is that a coach you want to get rid of?
For the "he got stale" argument. Yes, a lot of teams run their coaching staff like that. You get a couple of years to come in, make a splash, try to make a run, and then good bye, sometimes win or lose. The Steelers have NEVER been like that. Consistency isn't just valued. It is the core value. When Tomlin goes, that will be a major changing of the guard, a new philosophy, and and a whole new era. I am really surprised when Steelers fans keep trying to act like the Steelers run their coaching staff like a carousel. That's for the other, lesser teams. And some of them are learning the value of keeping scheme and staff through the tough times, and seeing it pay benefits later on. Think the Raven's haven't noticed? Harbaugh has been in Baltimore for 13 years.
So yeah, the Steelers aren't getting into the playoffs, or deep enough into the playoffs for my tastes either. But is that a thing that ditching Tomlin helps or hinders? And how do you know?
Colin Cowherd hates Tomlin... has for years. But, after the 2019 season, Cowherd changed his tune just a tad. Just yesterday, I heard Cowherd talk about just what you wrote:
"Tomlin never loses the locker room."
Cowherd went on:
"Even Belichick will have the occasional losing streak, but the good coaches know how to keep the locker room. Tomlin is a leader of men, an Alpha male... there is NO denying that."
3-6 playoff record since 2011. The record speaks for itself. This during the tenure of arguably the best Steeler QB we’ve ever had, with plenty of weapons around him. This is a little below Sean Payton’s 5-6 mark during the same period. You can blame player execution only so much - if it keeps repeating year after year that’s on the coaches. Ultimately Noll said it best “the critics are always right, best way to shut them up is by winning”
Yes, I think it would be much harder to paint Tomlin as an underachiever had made it past the Wildcard round 2 or 3 more times. That would put his ratio more in line with his peers and with Cowher's. If one or two or those runs would have ended in AFCC games even better. And I see a significant difference between losing in the Wild Card round and losing in the Divisional Round. Plenty of mediocre teams back into the playoffs as a 6th seed or a 4th seed and go one and done in the playoffs. Doing so isn't particularly impressive. Winning a playoff round- or doing so well in the regular season that you get a bye- is significant. It's much more unlikely that a mediocre team sneaks into the Divisional. Getting to the conference's final four is much more of an accomplishment, and it's something that Tomlin's peers have done with more regularity with him. Of course getting to the conference championship is even better, and the Super Bowl better still, but I think making the divisional round is not unrealistic for the conferences top teams.
I disagree with your assessments:And really we are talking about the following games:
2020 Browns WC loss - I have already stated my opinion that the 2020 team was doomed by the inability of the QB to do basic QB things. Your individual mileage may vary.
2017 Jags Divisional loss - it has been discussed ad infinitum. But that team never recovered from losing Shazier and there was little any coach could do to cover that up.
2015 Broncos Divisional loss - does it change things if you lose out to the eventual SB champion? Everyone else did...
2014 Ravens WC loss - isn't this the one that they had to start random guys off the street at RB?
2011 Broncos WC loss - Ike Taylor and Troy Polamalu got roasted by Tim Tebow. This one stings and signaled the end of that group of defenders.
So we have the 2011 loss that few fans have ever gotten over and either you blame Tomlin or you blame the guys that won SBs for you not being able to get it done. Pick your poison. And the rest of those...I am having a hard time seeing what the massive coaching screw up was. Because in 2020, 2017, and 2014 - many people EXPECTED the Steelers to lose those games due to massive injuries or shockingly poor play leading into the game. Again, individual mileage may vary.
2011: An embarrassing loss, no doubt, but I actually cut Tomlin more slack on this one than you do. Not only did the Steelers lose Mendenhall the week before, but they also lost several key players (Max Starks, Casey Hampton, Brett Keisel) during the game. That's alot to overcome mid-game. Not to mention Ryan Clark not playing due to sickle cell. They still probably should have won, but it was the end of an era for the D and not one that I hold against Tomlin in particular.
2012: The Steelers should have at least made the playoffs this year. They lost at home to what would be the 5-11 Browns in December (giving up 8 turnovers in the process) and against the would be 7-9 Chargers in December who literally signed 3 street free agents to start on the O-line that game. Steelers were overwhelming favorites, yet lost. Had the Steelers won either of those games, they would have made the playoffs, but they suffered their now customary inexplicable losses and missed out.
2014: One of Tomlin's worst years. You are correct that the Steelers started a street free agent in that Wild Card game against the Ravens- Ben Tate. But it was coaching / roster malpractice that it got to that point. The Steelers had LeGarrette Blount on the roster that year, but somehow things got so bad that the Steelers ended up cutting him a few games into the season. Allegedly he was told he would be sharing carries with Bell, then never saw the field so became sulky. So ok, you cut your big free agent signing RB 1B a few games into the season- surely you sign a back-up, or at least make sure someone on your roster can step up if 1A Bell goes down. But they didn't do that, because apparently RBs never get injured. The Steelers then plow ahead with no real back-up for Bell, keeping only non-entities Dri Archer and Josh Harris on the roster. Then, when Bell gets injured in week 17, the Steelers have to go sign a street free agent to start a playoff game at RB. I don't know whether Tomlin or Colbert is more responsible for that debacle, but they sacrificed the season with their short-sightedness. Meanwhile, Blount signs with the Pats and wins the Super Bowl that year. To make things worse, the Steelers probably should have had a bye secured by week 17 had they not lost to both the 2-14 Mike Glennon Bucs (in Pittsburgh!) and the 4-12 NY Jets. 13-3 would have made the Steelers the 1 seed that year. So negligent roster management and dropping games to terrible teams turned what should have been a Divisional Round game with Bell and Blount as RBs into a Wild Card week loss with Ben Tate to the Ravens. Horrible, and a waste of Ben's best year as a pro.
2015: I don't hold this against Tomlin. He and Colbert recognized that Bell actually needed a competent back-up, hit a home run by signing D Will, only to see both Bell and D Will lost before the playoffs. Then, against the Bengals and starting a platoon of Fitz Touissant and Jordan Todman, Ben and AB both suffer significant injuries with Landry Jones seeing significant playing time. Frankly, the Steelers should have lost that game and would have but for Joey Porter's timely assist. The fact that the Steelers were in the position to beat the eventual champion Broncos in the 4th Q in Denver, only to be undone by a Fitz Touissant fumble, is unfortunate and a credit to Tomlin. Had the Steelers had better injury luck that year, I think they win it all. Alas...
2016: I don't hold this against Tomlin either. Between suspensions and injuries, the Steelers' WR corps imploded to the point they had to start CFL-level Cobi Hamilton in the AFCC game opposite AB. The decision not to try something new on D against the Pats drove me crazy, but I think they went as far as their talent could take them in 2016.
2017: Agreed that losing Shazier ripped out the Steelers' heart, but I still think they could have done something more to adjust than what they did in the 8 weeks after he went down so as to be a little less pathetic. Plus, I don't understand why at least some Steelers were apparently looking past the Jags when the Jags had already beat them with Shazier. The Jags were a bad match-up for them. Of course, had the Steelers not lost to Mike Tomlin's nemesis Mike Glennon and the would be 5-11 Chicago Bears, the Steelers would have finished 14-2, the #1 seed, and they wouldn't have had to play the Jags at all. I would have fired Butler with Haley after the Divisional round loss.
2018: Hard to believe that you omitted this- Tomlin's worst year- in your review. This was a complete debacle and highlighted all of Tomlin's worst traits, from the lose-from-ahead tie in Cleveland to the horrible lose-from-ahead losses against the Broncos and the Raiders (where Tomlin mismanged the clock and overlooked the opponent by holding out Ben longer than necessary because he thought he could beat the Raiders with Dobbs). The Steelers should have made the playoffs this year- and had they beaten the Browns, Broncos, and Raiders, would have had a bye. This was the first season I wanted Tomlin fired.
2019: This season redeemed Tomlin in my eyes somewhat, when he took Steelers garbage and made it respectable. In hindsight, this season looks less impressive, as I am not sure how much of the offensive ineptitude was Mason & Duck and how much was Fichtner.
2020: I don't see how you think this season makes Tomlin look good. The Steelers feasted against a string of non-entities (and the pre-injury defense looked suspect against QBs like Jeff Driskell, down year Carson Wentz, and Garrett Gilbert), then went completely off the rails. I bet the Steelers would have lost to some CFL teams had they played them in December. Sneaking into a playoff game against the COVID-depleted Browns, the Steelers misfire at all levels. I know it's cool to blame this entire loss on Ben, but I don't understand how anyone can absolve the Defense of their role in this debacle. Not to mention the run game, which didn't exist all season. Is Tomlin blameless in the shameful end of the 2020 season?
In short, I think Tomlin's Steelers should have at least made the playoffs in 2012 and 2018, and I think the Steelers should have gone further than what they did in 2014 and 2017. 2020 is also a great frustration, though I don't yet know what caused the collapse. Did Ben really fall off a cliff? Did the complete lack of run game, combined with an amateur O-Coordinator, doom our offense to failure once Ben was figured out? Was the 2020 team just a mirage that feasted off bad teams for the first 2/3rds of the season? I don't know. But yes, I think the 2010s Steelers could have done better And by comparing Tomlin against his contemporaries, I think he probably should have been expected to do at least somewhat better. I think there comes a time when a coach needs to get on with his life's work. It happened to Noll. It happened to Cowher. I think that time has come with Tomlin, and I wouldn't have extended him.
You're acting like we're saying Tomlin should have been tossed after year 3. None of your arguments make sense when you stop to consider that we're discussing a HC who has been here for 14 years. Tomlin is a good coach, but I think he is past his expiration date, and I don't expect that he'll win another Super Bowl with the Steelers. Will his successor be better than him? That remains to be seen. But at some point there comes a time when a coach needs to leave for the betterment of the team. I think we're entering Jeff Fisher / Marvin Lewis territory for Tomlin. Ownership obviously thinks differently. We'll see who's right.
I only looked at years they actually made the playoffs. So basically you take issue with the Jags and Browns playoffs games and then seasons the team didn't make the playoffs.
I am not sure what they could have done to recover from the Shazier loss with the roster they had. They were already basically planning on Ryan Shazier and some dudes at LB. Then it was just some dudes. Having a pair of safeties that did not live up to their billing didn't help either. I really don't think anyone looked past the Jags so much as they got their asses kicked by a team that exposed the total lack of middle of the field play-making on the 2017 defense. I think it is hardly a surprise that since then the Steelers have added Edmunds, Fitzpatrick, Bush, UG3, Spillane, Allen, Brooks, and a few others in attempts to not have that roster deficiency exposed again. Who knows? Maybe that 2017 is on Colbert?
Again, for 2020 I believe that the OC didn't do anything to help matters, but 2020 crashing and burning was inevitable based on the diminished capacity of Ben R to play QB at a high level. You are correct, they feasted on bad teams (or at least teams with flaws they could exploit) and then good or better teams exposed the Steelers significant flaws in turn. I shudder to think what the Chiefs would have done to them had they scraped past the Browns.
For some of the other years...wasn't that about when the defense all got old at the same time? Isn't 2014 when Troy P finally just had his body disintegrate around him? I am too lazy to look it up. Wasn't most of the roster injured for all of 2021? Again...I am far too lazy to look it up. But I seem to remember that being a weird one. I think several key players were gone for over half the season.
Anyways...we are not going to agree on this no matter how much we post back and forth. All I know is that I look around the NFL and I don't see anyone who is doing it all that much better. Maybe equal/same tier but not like "Oh. That! That is what a real tangible improvement looks like!".
No, you're just choosing to focus on years that are easier for you to defend. 2014 and 2018 in particular are indefensible for Tomlin (and possibly Colbert in 2014). On the other hand, I don't blame Tomlin for missing the playoffs in 2013 because I think the Steelers were in a rebuild and I don't think the team was very good. Plus, I have shown that Tomlin hasn't been as successful at getting past the Wild Card round as several of his peers have been. All in all, I think I have explained why it is at least reasonable to take the position that Tomlin underachieved this decade.
No. I only focused on playoff years because the original conversation was started about SB's appeared in and won. Then it got shifted to advancing beyond the WC round. So I did a super quick sketch of the years the team didn't do that - and threw in some divisional round appearances as well. Because that was what the revised benchmark for "achievement" was.
Now...we are back to a vague and undefined parameter that can be identified as "years that Steelers fans think they team should have made the playoffs but didn't and here is how I rationalize that into a measurable parameter". What makes one year a "should have" made it and one year an "acceptable" missed playoff appearance? How is this being looked at? And if we have expanded beyond the move past the WC round of the playoffs benchmark, did you look up the stats for your list for that revised benchmark for achievement?
Dungy: 2 out of 13 years missed playoffs (spread over two teams which needs accounting for somehow - he never rebuilt on the fly)
Carroll with Seahawks: 2 out of 11
Mike McCarthy with Pack: 5 out of 13
John Harbaugh: 4 out of 13
Sean Payton: 5 out of 14
Andy Reid: 5 out of 14 with Philadelphia and 1 out 8 with KC
For comparison - Tomlin: 5 out of 14
So he is off the pace set by Dungy and Carroll but on the pace set by other well regarded coaches.
No, he is off the pace of all the coaches I listed in my earlier post. You need to justify why Tomlin should get a pass for missing the playoffs in 2018 (and to a lesser extent 2012). To me, that's a stark example of Tomlin's weaknesses. I see no reason to just handwave that away. If you can find examples of other Tomlin peers who have had other comparable collapses, then I'd be interested. Until then, we are left with Tomlin being less likely to make the Divisional Round than his peers and with at least one really ugly play-off missing collapse with no obvious explanation (not even the injury excuse that kinda/sorta gives Tomlin a partial excuse for 2020). Your position sounds like the inverse of the Willie Parker detractors who always wanted to take away his big runs when discussing him. If you don't count Tomlin's bad years, then he's a great coach! I don't think your argument that we can't analyze why the Steelers missed the playoffs as part of our critique of Tomlin's body of work makes any sense at all. Besides, 2014 was a playoff year. Tomlin put the team in a horrible position through gross in-season roster mismanagement and overseeing two egregious losses against bottom feeders. But that doesn't seem to matter for some reason.
Tomlin is a good coach. I have said that a dozen times in this thread. But I don't think he is any better than a half dozen of his peers at least, and I think that by the metric I explained he has underachieved in comparison to them. You might not agree with using "getting past the Wild Card round" as a metric, but I think it provides more useful and illuminating comparison than your initially proposed Super Bowl metric. There is only 1 Super Bowl winner and 2 participants each year. There are 8 divsional round participants each year. Tomlin's well-regarded peers seem to have around a 50% success rate of at least achieving that level of success. Tomlin is around 35%. Why is that?
- - - Updated - - -
And it's clear that I was judging Tomlin's entire body of work. Why should I ignore the bad years just because it's inconvenient for Mojouw's argument? Besides, 2014 was a playoff year. I pointed out why I put that year on Tomlin. He handwaved that away.
As an aside, the level of discourse that would call my comments "hate" is probably what makes people dormant here in the first place. What is the site for if we're not discussing the Steelers? Are we supposed to mindless say everything is great all the time? I love Tomlin. He's arguably my alma mater's greatest success in professional sports. I am not a hater. I just think his time is up.
I’m happy he’s going to be here for several more years.
Being a Steelers fan is being a fan of the Rooney’s and their patient consistent ways. If you don’t like it - go be a Cowboys or Browns or WFT fan. You will get your new coach fix every 2-3 years. Sometimes even after one year.
(imagine if Cleveland was just patient and kept Belichik as HC ... )