Tomlin's Excitement Guiding Steelers
by Neal Coolong on Dec 10, 2008 6:44 AM EST
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PrintIt wasn't even two minutes after CB Deshea Townsend's 26-yard touchdown return that the text messages began filling up in my phone. It was probably a good thing, because my voice was too shot to talk.
Judging by his post-game interview, Mike Tomlin's voice was gone, too.
One of those texts was from my friend Mitch, who said, "Man, Timlin is the greatest! You guys are really lucky to have him."
After correcting Mitch's typo, I advised him I agreed.
The Steelers are really lucky. Luck is a residue of toil, but they're going to need a few breaks to hold off the blazing hot Ravens in a tight AFC North race. Tomlin's outward appearance seems to show his awareness of that, and he's competitively trying to grab any angle he can to motivate his players.
Coach Tomlin has always been exuberant on the sideline, but he's always been more on the side of restraint. Sunday, he seemed to have even more invested in the team's performance than usual. Video of Tomlin celebrating as if he was on the field for Ike Taylor's now famous "He DOES have hands that work!" interception shows how much he has invested in the team.
The Steelers will need that kind of support going into the biggest Steelers/Ravens game of the past six. The players need that kind of support, considering Baltimore is far from the also-ran team it was last season.
Going into Week 15, the Steelers lead the AFC North by one game. If they win, they'll only need one more win, or one Baltimore loss, to clinch their second consecutive division crown.
A Baltimore win pulls them even in overall record, head-to-head record (the first tie-breaker), divisional record (the second tie-breaker), but the Ravens would own the third tie-breaker, record against common opponents. Baltimore defeated Philadelphia, but the Eagles dealt the Steelers their first loss of the season in Week 3. Pittsburgh would need Baltimore to lose one or both of their last two games if the Ravens defeat the Steelers Sunday.
Considering the Steelers haven't lost a meaningful AFC North game since Tomlin took over (9-1, with their only loss coming to the Ravens in a throwaway Week 17 game last year when the Steelers rested their starters), they should be confident for this one.
Tomlin mentions style points a bit, and how they don't really matter this time of year. Points should go to Tomlin for confidence management. Look at how crucial morale was against Dallas: Tomlin sends his offense back on the field down 13-3 to pick up a 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line. The Steelers at that point were 2-for-10 on fourth down, and had been beaten up at the point of attack. He's saying more of "our defense will pick us up if we falter" than he's saying "our offense will get this done."
Considering the circumstance, it was the perfect call, and I'm including the fact they failed pretty badly in execution. The Steelers D came in, gave up one first down, but got the ball back. Jeff Reed knocked down a huge field goal to pull it to 13-6.
The Steelers defense is playing at a level worthy of consideration with the best of the past two decades, and now, their coach has shown them he has all the confidence in the world in them. Their secondary saw how excited Tomlin was on Taylor's interception. The rest of the team saw Tomlin's reaction to such a big play, and they know how critical that's going to be against the Ravens - and Tennessee and Cleveland after that.
Coach "Timlin" has his players in the right mindset. Sunday is just a matter of execution.
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Totally with you on the 4th-and-goal
At that point you are challenging your whole team win the game. They hadn’t been given anything on offense to that point, and there was no reason to expect any gifts to fall in their laps. You need a touchdown at that point, and if you fail, you leave the opposition in buckle-your-chinstrap-cause-they-comin territory.
He made the challenge, they accepted, and failed, but the entire team was charged up. If they weren’t playing with fire at that point, then that was the turning point, and the fucking boilers kicked on.
The Cryboys get 5 plays, including 2 backfield stops by Polamalu, and they punt away into the wind, and give Holmes a monster return.
At that point, I firmly believe, the outcome was inevitable. Big Mo was on our side and Dallas was on their heels. You give tubby one good shot to the gut, and he rolls over, and so does his team. Game. Over.
Guns don't kill people. Lamar Woodley kills people.
re challenging the team
Funny, those were pretty much the exact sentiments of Gregg Easterbrook in his TMQ column over at ESPN:
“Plus, as TMQ maintains, sometimes it can be better to go for it and fail than to launch a mincing, fraidy-cat kick. Trailing 13-3 with 12:26 remaining, Pittsburgh went for the touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the Dallas 1, and failed. Yet from that moment, the home team, previously sluggish, caught fire. For the remaining 12 minutes, Pittsburgh outgained Dallas 135-31 (offensive yards and return yards) and outscored Dallas 17-0. Failing on fourth-and-goal seemed to rev the Steelers up. Coaches: Fortune favors the bold! Go for it on fourth-and-short.”
Easterbrook can be kind of daffy, but he usually has good analysis—at least better than most at ESPN, and he’s a big fan of aggressive coaching. After the fourth-down play failed, my Giants-fan friend texted me something along the lines of ‘that was a horrible, stupid decision.’ I waited until after the game was over and wrote him back ‘on behalf of my team, I accept your thanks for clinching your division for you.’ You know, at the time, I wanted them to kick the field-goal, but its hard to argue with results or to measure such intangibles as the way Tomlin gets the team fired up to play for him. I loved the shot of him on the sidelines clapping immediately after the try failed. He doesn’t get down on his guys and is already moving forwad after something doesn’t go our way.
Tie breaker
You’re wrong about the tie breaker. If the Steelers beat the Ravens on Sunday we don’t need the Ravens to lose another game because the Steelers win the first tie breaker, head to head.
Also you are wrong about the third tie breaker. If the Steelers lose to the Ravens but beat the Titans then the Steelers tie the Ravens with that tie breaker , record against common opponents, because the Ravens lost to the Titans.
That would take us to tie breaker number 4, which is record in conference, which the Steelers would win,
The Ravens need the Steelers to lose two of the next three to have any chance at winning the division.
yeah,
if we beat them, we clinch the division. Even if the cravens win out after us and we lose, that puts both of us at 11-5.
That is a strange statement, saying we would need one more win or balt loss, since we would win head to head(2-0) and we would win division record(5-1 compared to Balt’s 4-2)
I'm with you on going for it on 4th
It could have cost the game, but right after they failed I said they’re still deep in their own territory with the strongest part of this team on the field. Tomlin made the boys do a nut check. Excuse the pun but they came up big. Not to draw a parallel comparison, but Romeo Crennel faced these same Cowboys and kicked a field goal that made no sense instead of going for it on 4th. I say that to show the flip side. I only coach kids but I carry a similar philosophy. I coach my kids to come hard or stay on the sideline. If I make a mistake I don’t want to make it by telling my team that I don’t think they can do it. I will take the blame for believeing too much in my boys, but I won’t sell them short just to save face. I have lost games for my teams in the past but one thing my players say is coach believes in us. We don’t lose much. Just my 2 cents, for as much as a youth football coach’s comments are worth.
"The team that scores the most points wins."
John Madden
(Master of the obvious)
nice way to look at it
cuz i was screamin kick the field goal!!! guess thats why i’m not a coach, but i understand the whole idea of not playing scared. the play call resembled that too, we just gonna try to stuff it down ya throat. I just know this week our offense needs to be alive for 60mins!!!! please please Ben 60 mins of mistake free football.
Tomlin is quickly gaining large acceptance in the Nation
And for good reason. I love the aggressiveness. I love they fact that he trusts his defense, and as a result, he allows the offense to go for broke, just like he did in the Eagles game.
Who cares about tie-breakers!!! We’re going to win out…end of that scenario.
by NoCal-SteelCity on Dec 10, 2008 1:06 PM EST reply actions
Just don't love the play call
Love the decision. 4 and not much on the goal line when points have been few and far between, hell yeah let’s go for it. But our line has not gotten good push all day. Either play action that with a roll out to give Ben the option to run or pass, or just sneak it. I know he lost a fumble on one previously but it’s half a yard. If BIG Ben can’t do that, then put the Leftwich in. If leftwich can’t, put hines back there, I can’t see him getting stopped.
But to call a long developing run play? You’re begging Willie Colon to screw it up. And he did.
by Chicago Steeler on Dec 10, 2008 1:31 PM EST reply actions
I agree to an extent
I don’t think there is enough of a threat scoring on the ground yet for play action to be very effective. Not saying it would be uneffective, but not very. If we have that scenerio this week, I would like to see them, put in the goaline package on first down (with Russell, not Willie because he’s not 100 percent) and tell the line that they need to get it done. If they make ground do it again, even possibly with a wrinkle but power football (sneak included). Of course all of this is dependent on the yardage situation. I would like to see a (corner) fade route to Sweed tried out. I see some really good things that can be done from the bunch (triple-stack) formation as well.
"The team that scores the most points wins."
John Madden
(Master of the obvious)
play action?
So instead of gary getting tackled ben does?
Sure colon may not have slipped, but if he does and ben is tackled we are yelling at arians to have just pounded it in.
If we can win out....
I think we have an excellent chance to beat out Ten for the #1 overall seed, as I think they very well could lose at Houston this week, and they finish with Indy, who is definitely on a roll. We would edge them out on the head-head tiebreaker if we both finished 13-3. Haven’t seen much play on this scenario on some of the national sites, but I think it could happen. Not that the number one seed has helped us much recently…….I guess it is still better than having to go back to Ten for an AFC champ game.
"Steeler Nation= We are better than you!"
tomlin's excitement
as far as tomlin’s excitement, can i just say how much i loved watching his reaction after townsend’s pick-6? spinning his headset around….letting loose some uninhibited ‘woots’…chestbumping big ben….it was awesome. i love our coach.
...die trying
http://www.agentorangerecords.blogspot.com
Tomlin is the man
I like this guy a lot. Personally I love that we got somebody with a good defensive background. I liked that he ran Minnesota’s hardcore Run defense, which for some reason every year is amazing. I also liked that he worked the Tampa Bay DB’s, which won a SB. We all know Tampa Bay has a solid pass defense and that Tampa 2 is a tough one to beat.
MY ONLY COMPLAINT!!!
In the iggles game, we were in FG range with about 1:30 left in the game. We didnt kick. We were down 9. We needed a FG. If you kick that, you get the onsides kick, you actually had a chance to win that game.
That to me was the only thing I never agreed on. I felt he gave up on the game despite the fact Leftwich was marching forward.
agreed
That was a bad decision in the Iggles game not to kick that field goal—interestingly, I saw Zorn make the same mistake in a Skins game a few weeks ago. It’s really the one thing that had me skeptical about Tomlin for awhile: the decisions to go for it when we should be kicking, like going for two-point conversions twice in the Jags playoff game (and losing by a heartbreaking two points!). I’ve really come around to him this season though. He’s learning very quickly, the team is focused and playing hard for him, and he just seems to have the right mentality for Steelers football. Also, I can’t really fault a coach for aggressive playcalling in big games; I want him playing those to win. As for the kicking it v. going for it, I think there’s some stubborness there in him wanting to see some big moment execution from the offense, which is not necessarily a bad thing. We might be something like 2-11 on fourth downs, but a big playoff moment could come down to the offense having to convert on fourth and short, so I certainly don’t mind them getting the real-time practice in now. Anyway, I think he’s shaping up to be a remarkable coach, and I’m glad we’ve got him.
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