At the current moment, if you go to deadspin.com you’ll notice our current head coach, Mike Tomlin in a nice montage of himself using the word ‘obviously.’
These are the usual things that happen when your normally successful team is 0-4.
What isn’t so usual is to have the man who held Tomlin’s position prior to him helping to call the game from the CBS broadcast booth when the Steelers travel to New York Sunday to play the Jets.
Former Head Coach Bill Cowher will be joining Jim Nantz and Phil Simms on Sunday when they telecast the game. While it isn’t unusual for a former coach to call a game with his former team participating in it, the timing of Cowher’s debut in the booth couldn’t be more ominous.
While Steelers’ beat writers lament the press conferences of Mike Tomlin today, they would do themselves a favor to remember that Bill Cowher’s weren’t all that much better or informative.
The one thing you’ll be sure to get from Cowher is that he won’t hold back and with a winless team there will be plenty ammunition.
I expect shots at Ben Roethlisberger, the running game, offensive line and I would also expect comments on the lack of leadership. Much of what I figure Cowher to say won’t exactly be untrue because this team has far more negative to discuss than positive.
I bring this entire issue up for two reasons. First of all; Cowher is Cowher and he has always enjoyed taking a jab or two when given the opportunity and secondly; there are more fans than you might believe that want Cowher to return as head coach.
That isn’t going to happen .
I suspect the one area that Cowher will avoid is criticism of Tomlin. He’ll speak in generalities about coaching the Steelers but I will be very surprised if goes after Tomlin directly.
The Steelers of course could dictate what Cowher has to say if they just go out and play well. That would be something worth talking about for all of us.
Marc Uhlmann writes for and co-owns www.steelcityblitz.com. Follow him on Twitter @steeldad and follow the website at @SCBlitz. He can be heard Mondays on Trib-Live Radio at 630pm ET talking Steelers and is a blogger for ESPN 970 in Pittsburgh.
