Actually I’m from Warren, but whatever. I miss Hot Dog Shoppe sooooo much.

i was as confused as anyone when i first heard that mike tomlin was the new head coach of the pittsburgh steelers. “who?”

but that soon changed. i love his charisma. i love his integrity. i love his wordplay. i love his command. i love his discipline. i love his energy. i love his passion. i love his leadership.

at this point, almost two full seasons into his tenure, i can say this: i trust mike tomlin. i am proud that he is the head coach of the team i love so much.

I think should win the coach of the year, hardest slate of games since like the 70 something giants, and has a chance to go 13-3 unreal. I really thought that black and gold would be lucky to win 10. Another thing is half time adjustments. The steelers are like plus 35 points in the 3rd. There was never any cowher team that could say that. I have to say i feel more confident that tomlin won’t get “out coached” by other coaches as much as cowher seemed to. I will be truely disapointed that tomlin doesn’t get at least 2 if not more rings when he is done coaching.

I was stoked. I did some research on him, and thought that he was a better fit for the Steelers (and the Steel City) than Whis or Grimm. The reason? Tomlin is DEFENSIVE MINDED. Whis and Grimm are offensive guys. Pittsburgh is, was, and always will be a defensive-minded football team.

Also, I was really happy to see the Rooney’s employ a black head coach after founding the rule that requires fairness in interviewing. I don’t for one second think that they hired Tomlin because of that rule, but it’s nice to see the Rooney’s allow their actions to back up their principals.

The main things I actually see from Tomlin are eloquent and vague speech and excited sideline antics in which he looks more like a spectator than a dictator. If things weren’t going well, I think he’d take a lot flak for not looking like he’s busy and worried, especially in another city. Similar image to Romeo Crennel or Art Shell.

However, he has left subtle imprints that suggest that HE is the reason the defense is so much better and more importantly so much more STEADY. This isn’t Bill Cowher’s defense anymore. As MR mentioned, he’s dealt exceptionally well with his players, from Faneca to Ben to Hampton to Parker, and he has a lot of them playing their best football. We have the best defense in the league because we have an able DC and players who trust each other and do their jobs as well as anyone in the league. LeBeau calls the play, but Tomlin sets the tone, which has worked to perfection.

The main tarnish on his time here has been keeping Arians around this year, and it will be hard to fully support Tomlin while the offense is such a mess and coaching is so clearly a large part of it. If he can bring in a good OC and build a similar relationship with him as he has with LeBeau, we could be the well-rounded and resilient team I think we’re capable of being.

I think he’s the perfect coach to take a good team and turn them into a great team. Part of it’s the schedule, but we have not looked unfocused one time this year, not even against Philly (although we did look unprepared on offense). For this reason, I think we can survive as a front-runner, unlike under Cowher. Everyone has been talking about our defense for months, but they’ve maintained focus (with one minor blip against Indy) and performed like they were the best every week. We don’t need to be slighted, we just do our jobs.

Fun note about our pass defense: we’re ahead of the next team (BAL) by 227 yards, or roughly 10. We’re 10 better than the next best pass defense. That’s ridiculous. Put another way, we’re as much better than Baltimore against the pass as they are better than the Giants, ranked 10th. Like I said, this is not Cowher’s defense.

worthy of being read.

Good post.

Didnt know that he had named Parker as honorary captain. Very interesting.

I never got a great vibe from Cowher. He had passion. He had the chin. But he also had a tendency to explode. This is fine when dealing with refs, but I gotta figure that came out in the locker room, too. Don’t get me wrong… he was a good coach and I look forward to him returning to the NFL. I just wouldn’t consider him a HoF coach.

On the one hand, Tomlin is too young to judge. A part of the team’s success has to go to LeBeau and maybe a little to Ariens and the rest of the staff. Let’s not forget, Tomlin also took over a team that was only one season off from a SB win. Yeah, that was a bad year, but the team still had most of the good skill positions covered. In short, Tomlin stepped in at the right time.

But I also think Maryrose is right about Tomlin’s management. If he were making waves, we’d hear about it. Nothing truly negative is coming out of the locker room. The news has been quite the opposite, really. A commentator during a recent game said something to the effect of “all you need to do is sit down with him for a minute to understand why the Rooney’s hired him.” He can be just as “vague” as Belichick (the master of frustrating reporters), but he accomplishes the task without being dull. That gives the fans something to smile about. As long as he continues to make good decisions about personnel, I think he has a better chance at the HoF than Cowher.

On a completely unrelated note… how much longer do we think we can hold onto LeBeau?

did he steelers ever snap the ball with more than 2 seconds on the play clock against the ravens?

it was not until exactly half this season I came up to actualy like Tomlin a lot. I was very skeptical last year and since our offensive game planning was and has struggled a lot I couldnt simply think it was 100% Arians and nothing on Tomlin, but even if he does have some fault with our poor Offense, and even if he sounds very “duuhh” every press conference (actually it seems like he is changing that slowly for the better!) I cannot disagree with most of you. He is great and special. I think, he has potential to be huge and so does our team with him in command. I think his greatest characteristics comes to how he is handling players issues and provading a great positive atmosphere outside the football field. He is young and it works very well for him, you can just see how special is his connection with most of our players, Just like a real broder to some. Its clear to me he gets along much better with his players than Cowher and possibly any other coach right now..

I’m basically repeating your post, but I think that one of the most impressive things about Tomlin is the way he seems to have managed to thread the needle between having his players really like him and still maintaining respect and complete authority… Most people manage to do one or the other pretty well, but it takes serious leadership to get both.

I for one have been frustrated with ba this year. But I say give him one more year. Especially if we win the superbowl. We got a bunch of picks this year in the draft, lets trade 1 or 2 of them to move up to get a top-notch OL who can improve the line next year. then in the second round get another OL who can be good. Then focus on getting younger at the DL. With an improved oline if he still sucks then get rid of him but it doesn’t matter what OC you have if the line can’t block.

I know I’m coming in a little late on this discussion, but this was an excellent post, ‘rose. I had some ideas, but I think everyone’s already hit on them. I was just a little shocked that no one had rec’ed this post after I read it. I loved how you pointed out that Tomlin has (so far this season) corrected all of the worst issues from last year, as well as turning the defense from a great defense last year to an all time great defense. The main thing for him to focus on next offseason will obviously be the OL.