I’ve always been a supporter of Mike Tomlin and I’ve tried to defend him at nearly every turn but I can’t anymore. From drafting decisions to personnel decisions to on-field decisions, I can’t do it any longer.
Yes, I’m still fuming – the game has just ended and despite four turnovers the Steelers still should have won the game in Seattle this evening – but they didn’t. I can easily point the finger at a Steelers’ secondary that resembles Swiss Cheese but that’s for another article.
If you weren’t sure about how Mike Tomlin handles ‘game management’ then this was your ‘exhibit A.’ In fact, it was also exhibits ‘B’ and ‘C’ as well.
Let’s begin with the fake field goal early in the second quarter. On fourth and two and leading 3-0, Tomlin chose to forgo attempting to get the first down using his offense. Instead, he decided a fake field goal, in which Landry Jones replaced normal holder Jordan Berry, would do the trick.
Here’s where I stop and ask, “Do other coaches take their all-pro quarterback off the field in this situation?
If you are going to go for it then you go for it with your best players. Not only was the decision dumb, but the play-call was even dumber. Jones took the snap and rolled to his right. Throwing off his back foot and all the way back across the field, his intended target was… Alejandro Villanueva.
Oh I know Villanueva is a former receiver but come on. This is your play? We can debate whether this was more coaching vs execution all we want to but it should have never even come to that. Oh by the way it was intercepted and led to a Seattle touchdown.
Then we have the second glaring example of Tomlin’s ineptitude on this day. Down by five with three minutes left to play and two timeouts, Tomlin chose to kick the field goal rather than go for the fourth down play from inside the five.
The Seattle offense had run through Tomlin’s defense like goose poop through a tin horn yet some how, some way, Tomlin figured his defense would finally hold this one time.
Really Mike?
Three plays later, Mike Mitchell and Antwon Blake were bouncing off Doug Baldwin as he raced towards the game-clinching touchdown. I’ve heard of having faith in your players but was this really the time for it?
Four turnovers, horrible special teams’ play and zero help in the secondary are easy things to point to for this latest Steelers’ loss but the real reason today was Mike Tomlin.
The jury has indeed returned and the verdict isn’t good.
30 comments
Dear coach Tomlin, remember something once the game is over you can no longer use your challenge flags. Example: if we get a bad spot and are marked short of the first down use your flag. This helps your team saving challenges never to use them again as you have done all season only helps our opponent.
I’m in the same boat regarding Tomlin. I just can’t defend this guy anymore. Not sure what else can be said about him that hasn’t been covered ad nauseum. I’m just glad most are now seeing him for what he truly is, a very average coach at best that has many fundamental shortcomings. He really shouldn’t be a HC at this level.
Tomlin is the consummate enigma, wrapped in a riddle, disguised by metaphors, shrouded in bullshit.
His in-game decisions absolutely contradict ANY illogical logic that he has ever offered on his strategic thinking in the past. Not sure where he pulled this latest line, “We aren’t going to live in our fears. We’re going to live in our hopes,” but it sounds like something he pulled out of his fortune cookie when he had Chinese take-out last week.
Tomlin is … and has been … a bullshit artist extraordinaire of the highest degree. He’s masterful at it which is what has kept him employed in his current role for so long.
If anyone wants to have the “Well he has a .660 winning percentage” discussion, I would be more than happy to indulge. The man took over a Super Bowl ready team full of veterans. Tomlin basically came in and rode the wave of success for how many seasons again? Tomlin came to Pittsburgh with the luxury of having an All-Pro future HOF franchise QB and a veteran coaching staff already in place and at his disposal. Of course he’s going to have a good winning percentage, that doesn’t make him a good or even an average Head Coach. See, so when you start to peel the onion skin back, saying he’s a winning HC is actually a straw man argument fortified and up-held largely by the situation he walked into.
The emperor has no clothes. Tomlin should feel embarrassed by the lack of fundamental understanding he has shown regarding his situational management the game at this level.
You are always welcome here Joe and I think you make some excellent points. The further we get away from the Cowher Era the more mediocre Tomlin’s teams have become. This is not a “Cowher was the greatest” type comment. It’s just fact.
It is great to finally see Steeler fans realize, Tomlin is an “average” coach at best. Hopefully, upper management will see this too. I’ve been living in WI since Tomlin became the coach (formally from PA) and every year, we get a little worse. Granted, you can’t stay at the top for ever, but this guy reminds me of Obama, all hope and change with crappy results.
Let me play Tomlin’s Advocate here on the FG at the end the game.
On the 3 previous plays Ben dropped back and failed to find an open man on ANY of them. So going for it is no sure thing at all.
Kicking off w/ 3 minutes remaining, 2 timeouts, and the 2 min warning down 2 is not a bad position to be in. Tomlin put faith in his defense to get the ball back and they failed.
You mention that Wilson went through our defense all day, but did they really play all that badly? When Tomlin decided to kick that field goal, Seattle had 5 scoring drives on the day. Look at the starting field position for each of those scoring drives…
PIT 24, SEA 15, PIT 37, PIT 39, SEA 27
The defense was playing with a short field all day because the offense kept turning the ball over. The defense forced plenty of punts when they didn’t have their backs against a wall immidiately.
I can totally get behind going for it on 4th down, but I can also see an argument for trusting your defense and only needing to get a FG on your final drive given the fact we piled up yards all day but failed to punch it in in the redzone.
Point is, in situations like this there’s logical arguments for either side, but because we lost suddenly Tomlin made an absolute boneheaded move, which I don’t think is the case.
I think you make solid arguments Chris. I completely understand the strategy that Tomlin was using I just don’t agree with it. I realize the D had short fields but they were giving up touchdowns every time, not field goals. Plus, even if you go for it and not get it, you have them backed up to their own end zone with your 2 TOs and the two minute warning.
That to me is the best reason to go for, is your D can still hold and give you another chance… The only difference is you only need a FG on the game winning drive instead of a TD if you kick the FG now.
Tomlin has his warts, but I also think they may be overblown somewhat. I’m not sure there’s a fanbase outside NE fans that doesn’t hate their coach.
I had a lot of the same thoughts yesterday. I was at the game and it was extremely frustrating.
But, as I rewatch the game today, I really think picking apart strategic decisions is just over thinking it. The Seabuzzards got 21 points off turnovers and the Steelers’ D not only didn’t get a single turnover despite Cockrell and Blake “attempting” to play the ball and no one past the LOS could make a tackle to save his life.
When you execute that poorly, you have little chance of winning.
That was as bad a performance overall as the Ratbird game.
If you want to beat up on Tomlin and staff for not having the team prepared well enough, I’ll agree. But that defense made Wilson look like a pro bowler when he is not. Martavis Bryant should have been benched or used exclusively on jet sweeps. He sucked. And Ben played a poor game himself throwing 2 picks that were his fault entirely.
I will say this, it is the loudest stadium, by far, that I have ever visited. That may have contributed to some confusion on offense, but they should have been ready for it.
One other point, the FG call at the end coincided with Ben pulling himself from the game wits a concussion. Ben may very well not have been available for that 4th down.
I don’t know about that. I believe he made the call once he was already off the field. Had MT wanted to go Im confident Ben would have stayed on the field.
I do know it. 3 plays before Bennett was flagged for hitting Ben in the head and it was reported as quickly as last night that Ben self reported the concussion symptoms.
I thought the Bennett hit is what caused the concussion? Besides, Ben stayed on the field for nine more plays. His last one was his run inside the 5 to get it to fourth down. If MT was willing to leave him on the field for nine plays after already admitting he got dinged then why wouldn’t he let him stay on for the fourth down play?
It was the Bennett hit. I had the snap count wrong. But watch those 3 snaps before that field goal. Ben didn’t seem to be processing the field with his usual speed.
Just rewatch ed that 3rd down run and transition to FG unit. Decision was made too fast for it not to have been predetermined by Tomlin before 3rd down. Ben reporting the concussion symptoms at that point is coincidence not correlation. But I still have to believe that Ben was affected greatly at that point. He didn’t appear very Ben-like on the ensuing 3 snaps.
I have no doubt he was affected and I’m also certain MT will not reveal anything tomorrow related to our discussion. We shall be left to wonder for eternity.
I don’t put the Sherman INT on Ben at all. He interfered with AB which wasn’t called. Ben had already thrown the ball when AB went down.
I’ll rewatch it. But based on what I saw live, AB was on the deck when Ben released it.
So what we are saying is either Ben released the ball as AB was going down or he intentionally threw the ball deep KNOWING Brown was on the turf right? Unless he’s throwing games, I have to believe that he threw it thinking AB was getting a PI call.
Valid point of view there. When I saw it, I thought he threw to a spot thinking AB was about to go into his break.
Shameless plug. I said this about Tomlin in my season preview back in August. Still stand by it:
“Tomlin is far from the worst coach in the league but he still has some significant short-comings in the clock management and timeout usage departments. Perhaps he can use his new contract extension to purchase a watch and learn clock management, not just during games but also on road trips where the Steelers have a shockingly bizarre differential in winning percentage outside the Eastern Time Zone. Even after an 11-5 season and a division championship, there is a significant amount of angst in the fanbase against Tomlin. Some of it is still a ridiculous holdover from the Bill Cowher days while some is focused on his personnel decisions and draft selections. Mike Tomlin is a good speaker and says the right things about the Steelers, but his in-game decisions are often baffling. Tomlin is probably the best Tuesday-through-Saturday head coach in the league, but you never know what you’re going to get on Sundays.”
I tell ya the best line in here Ian is the last. “Best Tuesday-Saturday coach in the league.” That is incredibly accurate in my opinion.
sick and tired of hearing about tomlins lack of coaching ability compared to cowhers…cowhwer rode in with coach nolls players too…all coaches do, cowher had abysmal losing seasons with “his” players, and I mean losing bad seasons, why hasn’t tomlin had any losing seasons with or with out cowhers players?why?….his player selection may be a little suspect but he hasn’t had a losing season since he has been in charge, that counts for something….if hes been to two super bowls with cowher players, why in the hell didn’t cowher go to more than one? why?…get off the mans jock strap because your favorite team isn’t winning like YOU think they should….quit sideline managing as though you all have the answers, hell if you or cowher had all the answers, the steelers would be undefeated and have 12 super bowls by now, unfortunately that’s not how life works nor the nfl
While I know there are many who beat the drum about “Cowher’s players” I am not one of them. Regardless of who you inherit as a coach you still have to coach and you have to manage the locker room.
Tomlin did that quite well his first several years and it’s hard to argue with the results. The problem as I see it is that Tomlin has regressed in recent years as a game manager and as an evaluator of talent. Some will point back to 2011 when ARII trumped him and fired Bruce Arians. Bottom line is that his team has not won a playoff game since 2010 and like it or not, Steelers fans have high expectations.
Cowher did go to TWO Super Bowls, he also lost a Super Bowl. Super Bowl XXX to Dallas 27-17. And you are correct that Tomlin has no losing seasons he still has two seasons at just .500 back to back seasons with 8-8 record. He has a hall of gamer QB since he started as head coach whereas Cowher did not have a hall of gamer QB throughout his entire coaching career with the Steelers. Look at teams with hall of gamer QB they all have winning records New England makes stars out of players nobody heard of before. I don’t expect a win all the time, but bad coaching is bad coaching.
as a season ticket holder Tomlin has many times with and without leads let the clock run down before halftime without using time outs, or trying to make big plays. For my money I want balls to the wall. Why have 3 of the fastest receivers and not take shots. Tomlin appears to be an idiot quite often and his metaphors and soundbites are ridiculous.
Give me my bang for my bucks, play the whole game whistle to whistle grab your sack and man up.
As far as drafts he does okay, Bell, Tuit, Heyward, Bryant, Decastro to name a few he does seem to miss on D’backs, Shazier is like paper mache, he can’t stay on the field, Dupree looks good. Jarvis Jones?
Thanks for commenting Sarge. You aren’t the first season-ticket holder I’ve heard say similar things. You pay a lot of money for those seats and you expect a product more consistent than what you’ve seen recently. Tomlin is very Jekyll and Hyde when it comes to the draft. He’s find some gems but can’t find a secondary player to save his life!
This is exactly why I started the Fire Mike Tomlin facebookgroup. Great article, keep telling it like it is!
I’ve been a Steelers fan for 44 years. We have had two of the best coaches in the nfl in that time. The biggest difference between them and tomlin iis game management and benching players for bad play. If your not going to hold a player responsible for crapy play what are you doing sitting in the big chair?
I think you raise a very good point Larry. Both Noll and Cowher had their favorites but they usually would be much quicker to act when guys weren’t getting it done. Not sure what Tomlin’s stubbornness is all about.