Overreactions from Steelers Nation: Why I’m tired of the “Fire Mike Tomlin” crowd
Welcome to my weekly edition of “Overreactions from Steelers Nation” a weekly column where I poke fun at fans, reporters, and so-called experts while trying to figure out if some of these hot takes are real – or just for attention.
I’ve heard it all. “I’ve been a fan for 80 years.” “I’m a diehard fan.” “I’ve been watching since I was in diapers.” Blah blah, blah blah blah.
That’s the telltale sign of today’s entitled fan, one which is fueled by clickbait media looking for their ad revenue. Behind every yinzer take is another half-truth which ultimately ends with those three words, in crocodile tears following a Steelers loss: “Fire Mike Tomlin.”
If you know who the WWE’s Undertaker is, then you can picture just how hard I roll my eyes each and every time I hear that statement uttered. It’s usually accompanied by another ludicrous comment, such as Tomlin having won with “Cowher’s players” or Tomlin’s playoff record – especially with “all of the talent he’s had.”
Heck, I’ve even heard the same people who claim that he won (or didn’t) with that talent (Cowher’s or otherwise) also claim they don’t have talent and can’t draft. Apparently this is all Mike Tomlin’s fault, because Jarvis Jones and Artie Burns didn’t become Hall of Famers. Oh boy I wonder what our impression of the almighty Bill Cowher would’ve been had social media dominated the landscape in the 90’s. (Because we all know Charles Johnson and Chad Scott were homerun draft picks.)
I’ve had to debunk the Cowher’s players ordeal so many times that I won’t even repeat it in this week’s column.
Instead, I’ll link you to other pieces I’ve done, reminding fans that Lawrence Timmons and LaMarr Woodley never played for Cowher, that Santonio Holmes wasn’t in the NFL when the Steelers won Super Bowl XL, and that Bill cut James Harrison not once, not twice, but four times before he became a starter (and had his best, MVP seasons) under Coach T.
Sure, there were pieces like Ben Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu, and Heath Miller in place – and they were all young. But three years in the NFL is a lifetime, and those Super Bowl teams of the 2000’s had a lot of turnover:
Did Mike Tomlin win with “Bill Cowher’s players”? Maybe a handful of them
Should we fault Tomlin for inheriting two Hall of Fame players and several franchise greats? No. Because it’s really no different than when Cowher took the reigns from Chuck Noll, who left the team in good hands with players such as Rod Woodson, Dermontti Dawson, Carnell Lake, Greg Lloyd and more.
Bill Cowher passed the torch to Mike Tomlin as did Chuck Noll to Cowher
Then there’s the “playoff wins” crowd, and why didn’t Tomlin win more often with all of that talent? Simply stated, that talent wasn’t on the field when it came time for the postseason. How soon we forget that Le’Veon Bell wasn’t healthy twice in the playoffs, but when he was, the team coasted into the AFC Championship: where he got hurt in the first quarter and their previous problems returned. (And do any of you remember Ben Tate or Fitzgerald Toussaint when making these arguments?!)
Why Mike Tomlin never had playoff success with the Killer B’s
He may not have been a “Killer B”, but similarly, the loss of Ryan Shazier in 2017 was a killer for a 13-win Steelers team that couldn’t stop the run (or cover the middle of the field) after he was sidelined.
Conveniently, instead of giving Coach Tomlin props for getting some of these lesser talented rosters into a position to win it all, critics have been quick to give him the axe. “He won against inferior talent” instead of with it, is what they say. And you all know what I’m talking about, because you’ve seen this meme floating around or at least discussed:
Debunking the stupid Steelers “Mike Tomlin Playoff History” social media post
That’s one of my favorite anti-Tomlin rants when I see it, totally dismissing that the Steelers, albeit with Tomlin or Cowher, had to contend with the New England Patriots dynasty within their same conference. Can anyone argue if the Steelers played in the NFC East, that they wouldn’t have been matching up against the Patriots yearly in the Super Bowl?
Instead, the Steelers play in the AFC North, which during Tomlin’s tenure has also produced another Super Bowl champion (the Baltimore Ravens) as well as a headache of a team in the Cincinnati Bengals, that were on-and-off division champions. That’s indeed a far cry from a 20-plus-year streak of misery endured by all of the Patriots’ division opponents during their run, as the Bill, Jets, and Dolphins had never found their franchise quarterback, and were largely uncompetitive to take the AFC East from Bill Belichick’s crew.
Yet, that’s the video game-like expectations people have for the Steelers, even after losing their future Hall of Fame quarterback to retirement. I’m witnessing these rants amidst the Steelers also losing the heir to Ben Roethlisberger, Kenny Pickett, in-game and his replacement, Mitchell Trubisky, tossing three interceptions.
Please, re-read that and make it make sense to me. How can Tomlin prevent Pickett from getting slammed to the ground (in a play that went unpenalized no less) and then have to rely on the only other active QB on the roster to not turn the ball over?
I’m told other coaches would be better prepared. I’m told they would “draft better” and have players in place so the “Standard is the Standard”.
Conveniently, it’s always Jones and Burns that come up in conversation. It’s never the solid picks the team makes, like Alex Highsmith or Cameron Sutton, that gets attention. Honestly, these same folks forget that Tomlin is responsible for Cameron Heyward, T.J. Watt, and several other players whose jerseys they wear while screaming at the TV from the comfort of their couch on Sunday afternoons.
One last point I’m always hearing as well is “Who else would put up with this?” or “What other coach is like this?”
Well, there’s a lot of them. I detailed that here when we’re talking about how hard it is to win in the postseason, let alone a Super Bowl:
How Mike Tomlin has fared in the postseason versus his peers
As you can see, Tomlin is already on pace to enter the Hall of Fame as soon as he decides he no longer wants to coach anymore. And for those who still can’t see how preposterous their entitlement is and how spoiled they have been made by Tomlin over the years of winning seasons, I have one last name to offer in comparison: Andy Reid.
From a period between 2009 and 2017, Coach Reid had a single playoff victory. Uno. One.
That span was his final four seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, who let him go. Reid didn’t take a break and immediately signed with the Kansas Chiefs in 2012. He would have seven playoff appearances in that nine-year span between both teams, winning only the one game.
We all know what happened after. Reid’s teams have since played in four-straight AFC Championship games going back to the 2018 season. Had the Chiefs thought along the same lines as your entitled yinzer sports fan, it’s debatable that they would have the same success today without their leader.
The Rooney family has always understood this. It’s why the Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969, and also why it’s unlikely they’ll make a kneejerk reaction to change anytime soon: because they realize Tomlin is a generational coach who is far more successful than a handful of pundits will give him credit for.
