Coach Mike Tomlin has been nothing short of spectacular in his four seasons as Steelers head coach. Winning three division titles, taking the team to two Super Bowls and winning one is quite the resume for a guy that wasn’t even on the Steelers radar when they started looking for a head coach after the 2006 season.
With that, Tomlin’s stock has risen all the way up to being the 2nd best coach in the league according to a recent poll done by ESPN of their NFL writers and bloggers. The site voted on Pats coach Bill Belichick as the top coach in the league, and while I can see that, I can also see Tomlin taking the spot over if the Steelers can get to another title game in the next two years and if the Pats stay out of the title game.
Don’t forget, Belichick hasn’t lead the Pats to a SB since 2007, and they haven’t won one since 2004. The Steelers have won two since then – 2005 and 2008 with an appearance in this last years game (2010).
One blogger that for some reason isn’t all that high on Tomlin is Mike Sando, who is the NFC West blogger for ESPN. Here’s the burb about Tomlin from the site, along with what Sando had to say.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was second in the Power Rankings, and the lowest he rated was sixth on NFC West blogger Mike Sando’s ballot. The minus-4 differential from Sando — not a substantial disparity at all — was the largest negative margin relative to final placement in the entire process.
Sando explained his deviance from the pack.
“I favored coaches that walked into tough situations, won relatively quickly and then sustained the improvement over more than one season,” Sando said in a statement issued through an NFC West blog spokesman. “Tomlin took over a healthy operation and kept it going. He deserves credit for that — I ranked him sixth — but not as much credit as if he had produced similar results after taking over a struggling franchise.
“We should view the success Bill Cowher enjoyed in a similar context. Both worked for an outstanding organization.”
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Dan
April 5, 2011 at 4:59 pm
OK, Sando should get kudos for being bold and standing up to his colleagues — but he should be a little more honest with himself and his readers. I’m a proud member of the Steelers Nation, but, full disclosure: I live in Washington State. I’ve listened to and read Mike Sando for over ten years and he’s an unabashed Seahawk fan. Good for him, but Sando, like just about every rain-soaked ‘Hawk fan in the Pacific Northwest, is still bitter that the Steelers beat the Seahawks in their first and only appearance in the Super Bowl. Merely mention the Black and Gold and it only takes a moment before someone declares them “cheaters.” So, I don’t care what his excuse is, but Mike Sando was NEVER going to highly rank any Steeler for any reason using any criteria.
And speaking of cheaters, when is someone going to knock Bill Belichick off his pedestal? Mike Tomlin has proven his worth. The best thing I can ever say about Mike Tomlin? He’s ALMOST made me forget about Bill Cowher.
nancy
April 6, 2011 at 7:28 am
Mike Tomlin has had adversity each and every year he has been with the Steelers. There have been games that he had each and every player that was dressed playing due to players being taken out that were hurt. In one game he made the comment that if one more went down he would have to dress and play. In spite of that, he always found a way to win the game. Also, he has something many coachs will never have…RESPECT form the team. He treats them as MEN, not just people that will get him a raise in pay!
The Tony
April 6, 2011 at 11:28 am
In the words of Borat Sagdiyev
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBduNcf1eQc&feature=related
DrGeorge
April 6, 2011 at 2:26 pm
It’s the off season. Without football, sportswriters are bored stiff. Some have even resorted to talking to their wives and kids again. Things in the off season are that bad. Ranking NFL coaches is the sport journalist’s version of picking navel lint. At least it keeps the under-employed off the streets.
Having acknowledged all that, any assessment of Tomlin as an NFL coach must be deferred until he begins coaching his own players. The Steelers roster is still largely populated by athletes recruited during the Cowher era. We have a ton of aging players to replace. We have an offensive coordinator who disdains the run. We have an offense that stalls in the red zone. We have a defense that struggles with the five-wide. Tomlin still has plenty on his plate. After the transition, probably within two or three years, we’ll know how good Tomlin is at managing a team.
Right now, I’m more concern with whether we’ll have a season.
Ben Dover
April 8, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Second behind who, Mike McCarthy? You know him, he’s the guy who out coached Tomlin in Super Bowl XLV.
Tomlin looked lost in that game, I can’t figure out how a team with all of that Super Bowl experience could lose to a team with none. The players looked like they were playing in quick sand and I blame it on their coaching staff, their game plan was terrible, almost non-existent.
Mike Tomlin has a long way to go before he can be considered one of the best coaches in the NFL. Going 1-1 in Super Bowls — he could have easily been 0-2– isn’t near enough a reason to place him among the coaching elite so prematurely.