Madden Disses Tomlin

Gruden was supposed to be an offensive guru that would get the Buc’s O going and let Monte Kiffen and company keep doing what their doing. Gruden never really did that – he just made that 2002-2002 O just good enough to get by in the playoffs and then let the D eat the Raiders alive in the Super Bowl. He never developed a QB and that was eventually his downfall.

Tomlin came in with a defensive background and a conservative approach: Mostly elevating from within or keeping people where they were. He won a Super Bowl in his second season using mostly Cowher’s talent, but also depending – especially in some cases – on talent he brought in (Woodley, Timmons, MeMo, Hartwig, Harrison elevated to a starting role).

The biggest difference is that Cowher left Tomlin with a viable long term solution at QB, while Dungy didn’t leave Gruden with anything like that. However, to Tomlin’s credit he’s shown a level of trust in Ben that Cowher never seemed to have. Part of this, of course, is that Ben was green coming out and surrounding by a good team so he didn’t have to do much. But part of that was just Cowher’s history of getting burned by QB’s even when his D and running game held up his QB would find a way to lose the big game. Keep in mind that Cowher didn’t even want to draft Ben at #11, he wanted to go for Shawn Andrews.

The point of this though, is that Gruden never learned to trust his QB’s, which is why he could never field a consistent team or contend deep in the playoffs, even if a division that used to be weak. Tomlin on the other hand does trust his QB – as he should – and that should make us legit contenders for the durations of Ben’s career.

This is a QB centered league now and we’re lucky to have one of the best playing. And Tomlin knows that.

And in his second year to boot. I think I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being… Sheesh.

I’ll admit though that if Tomlin doesn’t change some of his coaching staff in the offseason, I’m going to be pissed. That’s one thing that Cowher was never afraid to do, although he was a little too trigger happy.

Unlike Cowher, Tomlin’s not afraid to take risks (although I’ll admit that he’s taken some unnecessary, borderline dumb ones) and not clench up, including during the postseason, which was one of the Chin’s greatest weaknesses. The Steelers would have gone to more Super Bowls in his tenure if he hadn’t succumbed to Schottenheimer-itis and flipped the overly conservative switch so often in the playoffs, franchise QB or not, at least until the 2005 playoffs, when he finally relaxed more (being a 6th seed with low expectations probably had something to do with it).