Pittsburgh Steelers’ Head Coach Mike Tomlin earned his 100th victory yesterday when his team defeated the Buffalo Bills 27-20. Tomlin joins Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher and together they make the Steelers the only franchise with three head coaches with 100 or more wins. Since losing to Dallas on November 13th, the Steelers have won four straight but work remains and nobody knows it better than Mike Tomlin.
It has been easy at times to rip Tomlin. Two 8-8 seasons followed by a home playoff loss to the hated Ravens and then a near disastrous loss to Cincy in the playoffs before losing at Denver. There are many teams who would die for such a run but many Steelers’ fans were frustrated and rightfully so in some cases.
This season has not gone as many expected if you look at a lot of the preseason prognostications, predictions of 14-2 or 13-3 were way too optimistic for my blood and now even the playoffs are still not a lock. To just make the postseason (as of right now) the Steelers still need to win their remaining three games.
As we celebrate Mike Tomlin’s achievement what happens if this team fails to make the postseason? With all of this talent and a division as weak as it’s been in a long time wouldn’t that be considered a massive failure?
In the coming weeks, Tomlin will need to add to his 100 total victories and at the same time defeat a Ravens’ team that has beaten him in nine of their last 12 meetings.
I have long been a supporter of the patience The Rooney Family has shown with their head coaches and I’ve been a supporter of Mike Tomlin as well. That doesn’t mean that he or they are free from criticism however. For today, let’s celebrate Tomlin’s accomplishment though. As he knows better than any of us, these things are all week to week anyway.
